Such disdain was treason to Silver and me. Our adored Tabor had said it would bring us millions again as soon as silver came back and we believed him implicitly. I kept on with my efforts, and persistence finally told. Claudia McCourt, the one sister who had remained loyal to me, bought back the Matchless at a sheriff’s sale in July, 1901. Oh, what a wonderful lucky day that seemed! I knew that Tabor would be proved right and I hurried home to tell the girls. “We’ll move up to Leadville and be right there on the ground to see that they don’t cheat us or steal any ore. Tabor always said to beware of ‘high-graders.’ You girls will love spending the summer in the mountains.” Silver was thrilled at the prospect and entered into my plans with ardent enthusiasm. Lillie was very dubious about the whole project, both opening the mine and living in Leadville. But when the day came for us to move, she boarded the train with no further comment. We took rooms at 303 Harrison Avenue (the very building where Jake Sands had first lived—but all that seemed to me now as if it had never been!) and settled down to become residents of Leadville. Silver soon made many friends and entered into the youngsters’ life in Leadville with a vim. She had a natural sweetness and warmth like her father’s that attracted people to her immediately. But Lillie spent most of her time writing letters to her friends in Denver, shut up in a room away from us. “Come,” I said to them one day when we had driven out on Fryer Hill close to the mine. “You must put on overalls and go down the shaft into the Matchless the way I do so that when you inherit this bonanza, you’ll know all about it.” Silver was elated at the idea and rushed into the hoist house to look for miner’s work clothes. But Lillie was rebellious. “Then I’m going to run away!” Later she secretly arranged for money from her uncle, Peter McCourt in Denver, for train fare back to Chicago, Illinois, to live with the McCourt relatives there. After Tabor had settled a substantial sum on Mama and Papa, at the time of my marriage, I thought my older sisters should have stayed loyal to me. But when Pete and I broke, they sided with Pete, although Mama tried to gloss matters over. Soon after, Mama died and the break was open. For my own daughter to desert and go with those traitors to me—it was unthinkable! I was crushed. Yet so it was that Lillie passed from my life. After that ugly, unfortunate day, I seldom mentioned her name to anyone and she rarely communicated with me. It was almost as if I had never borne her as my baby nor exhibited her with such pride. Those many matinees when I had carried her in my arms through the foyer of the Tabor or taken her riding beside me in our handsome carriage on the streets of Denver so that all should see my darling first-born, had vanished completely.