The miners at Signal sometimes referred to Richard Gird, who recently had arrived to assume the position of mining and mechanical engineer and assayer at the properties, as “the famous Mr. Gird.” He had had an extensive mining experience, and his reputation as an expert had preceded him. A dour, hard-featured, hardheaded, competent man was the famous Mr. Gird, without a drop of romance in his practical soul, his shrewd gray eyes looking upon adventure only as an opportunity to make money, but with a gambler’s cold nerve in his willingness to take risks in a game for big stakes.
The early dusk of a winter afternoon was darkening the windows of Gird’s office. A draft of cold air as the door opened accompanied a sound of boots scraping on the floor. Working at his desk by lamplight, Gird looked up. Before him stood a bearded young giant, evidently painfully embarrassed. Well? Schieffelin laid his three remaining specimens on the desk. Everybody had said they were no good, but he wanted to know for sure; then he could sleep better of nights. Would Mr. Gird take a look at them? And did he think them worth assaying? Gird picked up the pieces and turned them over in his hands. A sudden gleam kindled in his eyes and as suddenly died out. Well, yes, he would assay them. Fine. He could send word of the result by Brother Al who was on night shift and could call at the office any afternoon after work was over. Ed himself was working days.
Ed Schieffelin was sleeping soundly in his bunk a few nights later when Brother Al came bustling and stamping into the cabin and shook him vigorously by the shoulder.
“Get up, Ed,” said Brother Al quite out of breath. “Mr. Gird wants to see you right away in his office. Come on now. Hurry up.”
“I’ve assayed your ore,” said Gird when the two brothers arrived at the office. “One piece runs $2,000 to the ton, another $600, and the third only $40. You can’t always estimate the richness of a lode by two or three samples of rock. But I’m convinced you’ve made a strike. Where is your claim?
“Over on the San Pedro.”
“That’s not very definite.”
No, it wasn’t very definite. But that’s all the information Gird got just then. Ed Schieffelin had a certain shrewdness himself. He knew how to keep a bonanza secret. He hadn’t even told Brother Al.
“How much money have you?”
“Not much. All I’ve got’s a mule.”
“I’m willing to throw in with you,” Gird went on. “If you’ll let me in on this, I’ll buy a second mule to make a span, outfit a travelling rig, and furnish a grubstake, you and Al and myself to be equal partners in the venture and everything we find to be split three ways.”
“That suits me,” shot back Schieffelin. “We’re partners from now on.”
The business partnership entered into this night in the little office at Signal and ratified by a handshake all round never was put in writing. Though it lasted for years and involved the handling of millions of dollars, it rested wholly on honour and was held inviolate by the three men to the end.
“What about your position here at the mines?” asked Schieffelin.
“To hell with my position!” snapped Gird.
The question of the time for starting came up. Gird thought they had better wait until the warm weather of spring had opened the trails.
“No.” Schieffelin banged his fist on the table. “We’ll start now.”
The famous Mr. Gird was slightly taken aback by this imperious vehemence. No immediate rush seemed necessary. He had certain affairs to be arranged, certain business matters that—
“Right now,” thundered Schieffelin. “Or never.”
So preparations for an immediate departure were made. Gird resigned; the company, in an effort to hold him, offered him the general superintendency of the mines, but he refused it. Gird bought a secondhand blue spring wagon and loaded it with provisions, cooking equipment, and firearms, including in the cargo his assay outfit and a surveyor’s transit and level. He also purchased a mule which, paired with Schieffelin’s, made the team. As the three men were ready to pull out, the noon whistle at the mines blew for dinner. Gird and Brother Al wanted to take time to eat. Ed Schieffelin refused to wait for food or anything else. Then prudent Brother Al changed his mind at the last moment and decided he wouldn’t go; he was dubious about leaving a good job at $4 a day. Without a word either of anger or persuasion, Ed Schieffelin whipped up his mules and left Brother Al standing lonely and wistful behind. So Ed Schieffelin and Gird, in the first week of , started for the San Pedro. Brother Al joined them on horseback at their first night’s camp at Dripping Spring; the lure of bonanza had changed his mind again.
Past Martinez, Hassayampa, Wickenburg into Salt River Valley, their route led them, across Salt River at Hayden’s Ferry, on through Tempe to Maricopa, where they struck the old Overland stage trail, and so to Tucson. They were entering the Apache country now. The old stage station at Pantano bore the bullet scars of a recent attack. They doused their camp fire at night, spread their blankets at a distance from their wagon and mules, and at daybreak climbed to a hilltop to search the country with field glasses for any sign of red marauders. Beyond the old Ohnersorgen stage station where they crossed the San Pedro, they found the fresh graves of two men murdered by Indians. Up the east bank of the San Pedro through the new Mormon settlement of St. David, on past the present site of Fairbank, they came at
