I felt confident that the speculating public was going to make a great big "killing" in Goldfield. Tonopah, twenty-six miles to the north, was making good in a wonderful way. It had already enriched Philadelphia investors to the extent of millions. I could see no reason why Goldfield should not at least duplicate the history of Tonopah. Never in my life had I lived in an environment that inspirited me as this one. The visages of those around me were, as a rule, roughly hewn; the features of many were marked with all the blemishes that had been put upon them by time, by sleepless nights, by anxiety and by contact with the elements; but courage, sincerity and honesty of purpose were written in every line of their faces. I became imbued with the idea that investors who put their money into Goldfield stocks were not only going to get an honest run for their money, in that the mines were going to be developed and many would make good, but that the opportunity for money-making, if embraced by the public at that time, would earn a great reputation for the man who educated the public to a full understanding of the situation. THE MERCURY OF SPECULATION Mining-stock speculators and investors at a distance who responded to the red-hot publicity campaign which marked those early days of Goldfield rolled up enormous profits, and I made no mistake. Terrific losses came eighteen months later, as a result of a madness of mining-stock speculation which followed on the heels of the great Mohawk boom and the merger of various Goldfield producers into a $36,000,000 corporation. This was taken advantage of by "wild-catters" in every big city of the country, and the public was fleeced to a finish. But of this more and a plenty later. In those early days my agency advertised Goldfield Laguna at 15 cents per share in order to finance the company for mine operations. Within a year thereafter Goldfield Laguna sold at $2 a share on the San Francisco Stock Exchange, and was absorbed by the Goldfield Consolidated at that figure. And there were many others which duplicated or exceeded the performance of Laguna. At the time of which I tell, when Laguna was promoted at 15 cents, Goldfield was about a year old. A population of about 1,500 had gathered there from all sections of the country. There were mining experts from Salt Lake, San Francisco and Colorado, and miners from every part of the Western mining empire; saloon-keepers from Alaska and Mexico; real-estate brokers from practically every Western State and a scattering of "tin-horns." It was about as motley a gathering as one could find anywhere in the world, but compositely they were a sturdy lot.