The Prospector, and The Silver Queen
Nicholas C. Creede, born near Fort Wayne, Indiana, moves as a child to the Territory of Iowa, where he grows into a skilled hunter and protects a schoolmate from a teacher's beating. After his mother remarries, he leaves home at eighteen and travels to Omaha, then works as a wood-chopper on the river, nearly drowning when his boat's steering pin breaks. He joins the Pawnee scouts under Major Frank North, fighting Sioux war parties along the Platte for seven years and becoming a trusted lieutenant among the Pawnee, who regard him as their war chief. Episodes include Lieutenant Murie losing his sanity after an imagined wound, Creede's night raid to steal Sioux horses, his unauthorized but successful stand against a Yankton band to protect a Pawnee hunting village, a solo ruse that routs a Sioux war party, a Sioux ambush at a river crossing, a basin fight in which Sit-ta-re-kit is scalped and killed, and a captain's murder of bound Sioux prisoners that Creede is prevented from avenging. Mustered out, Creede returns briefly to Iowa, then goes west to become a prospector, working in Pueblo, Del Norte, Elizabethtown, Rosita, the San Juan district, the Gunnison country, and Leadville, where he nearly dies of pneumonia. In 1878 he founds the Monarch camp, locating claims including the Madonna, later sold for a fortune. He later founds Bonanza in the San Luis Valley, locates the Twin Mines, and loses money through a dishonest bank. After prospecting through Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California, he and a partner kill a grizzly bear and her mate in a dramatic hunt. With backers Smith and Abbott he prospects for years without success, then with Smith locates the Holy Moses claim, which he names for lack of a better idea. D. H. Moffat and associates buy into the property, and Creede, prospecting further for Captain Campbell, discovers the Amethyst vein on Bachelor Mountain, making him a millionaire. The Amethyst Mining Company is incorporated, a railroad spur is built to the new camp named Creede, and the town booms with gamblers, saloons, and violence, including the graves of Bob Ford and others. Creede receives many begging and marriage-seeking letters from strangers. The narrator, Cy Warman, starts a daily newspaper, the Chronicle, in Creede, and recounts camp life in letters to his friend Fitz-Mac, including the story of Polly Parsons, a stenographer sent by her father's acquaintance to work for the suspicious Ketchum and his fraudulent Sure Thing Mining Company. Warman and his friend Harry English look after Polly; a vigilante committee exposes Ketchum as a fraud and drives him from camp. Polly relocates the abandoned Sure Thing claim herself, discovers it lies on the Amethyst vein, and sells it for a large sum, enabling her father to restore the family's fortune. Harry falls in love with Polly. Meanwhile Inez Boyd, a girl drawn into the camp's vice, falls ill and dies on a train to Denver. Polly and her father prepare to leave Creede, and she promises Harry her photograph and sings for him before departing.
By Cy Warman · First published 1894 · Genre: Western Fiction, Adventure Fiction, Historical Fiction · 36 chapters · 40,589 words
First lines
Fifty years and one ago, near Fort Wayne, Indiana, Nicholas C. Creede, the story of whose eventful life I shall attempt to tell you, first saw the light of day. When but four years old his parents removed to the Territory of Iowa, a country but thinly settled and still in the grasp of hostile tribes whose crimes, and the crimes of their enemies, have reddened every river from the Hudson to the Yosemite.
In those broad prairies, abounding with buffalo and wild game of every kind, began a career which, followed for a half century, written down in a modest way, will read like a romance.
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Genres
- Western Fiction — The narrative is fundamentally rooted in American frontier life, with extensive descriptions of the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, settlements, and the expansion of civilization across the West during the mid-19th century.
- Adventure Fiction — The text is driven by continuous episodes of danger and daring exploits, including hunting expeditions, Indian battles, horse theft, bear hunts, and prospecting journeys through hostile terrain.
- Historical Fiction — The work is grounded in specific historical events and real figures, including the Union Pacific Railroad construction, Indian Wars, the Pawnee scouts, and the silver mining boom of the 1870s-1880s.
- Biography — The entire work is structured as a biographical account of Nicholas C. Creede's life from childhood through his prospecting career, presented as a documented life story by the author.
Tags
American frontier · Gold mining · Silver mining · Prospecting · Pawnee Indian scouts · Sioux warfare · Indian conflict · Colorado Territory · 19th century · Frontier settlement · Frontier heroism · Leadership under danger
What this Textopian page supports
The Prospector, and The Silver Queen is listed on Textopian as a novella by Cy Warman, dated 1894 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Novella
- Author: Cy Warman
- Date: 1894 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Western Fiction, Adventure Fiction, Historical Fiction, Biography, Mining/Industrial Fiction
- Length: 40,589 words
- Structure: 36 chapters, 625 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for The Prospector, and The Silver Queen by Cy Warman
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
- Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph
Contents
- Birthplace -- School Days -- Boy Life on the Frontier -- Favorite Sports
- His Father's Death -- Drifting Westward -- Adventures on the Missouri
- Indian Fighting -- the Union Pacific -- Buffalo Hunting
- Lieutenant Murie -- "Good Indians" -- "Don't Let Her Know."
- Turning Prospector -- Trading Horses
- Indians off the Reservation -- Alone in Camp -- Prompt Action
- Trail of Indian Pony Tracks -- Desperate Encounter -- Hard to Make the Scouts Believe His Story
- When New Flowers Bloom on the Graves of Other Roses -- Plunkety Plunk of Unshod Feet -- He Had Reckoned Well
- Sit-Ta-Re-Kit Scalped Alive -- an Indian Never Cares to Live After He Has Lost His Scalp
- Loyal in Friendship, True to a Trust -- a Cruel Captain
- A Glimpse of the Rockies -- the Path of the Prospector, Like that of the Poet, Lies in a Stony Way
- In Colorado -- the Prospector Labored and Looked Away to the Mountains
- Fruitless Searches -- Met a Streak of Hard Luck -- but Later He Stood on the Sun-Kissed Summit
- The Monarch Camp -- Jealous Miners Wanted the Name Changed
- Bonanza Camp -- the Poncha Bank -- Creede Determines to See Other Sections
- A Bear Story -- the Beast Infuriated -- a New Danger Confronts Him
- Smith, Abbott and Creede -- Agreed They Abandon the Hole
- The Holy Moses -- Elijah Was Awkward and Hard to Spell -- Wagon Wheel Gap
- Creede Camp -- the New Field -- Incorporation of the Amethyst
- Wandering in the Wilds -- Among the Miles of Mountains -- Beneath a Summer Sky
- Development of Creede -- Saw a City Spring up Almost in a Day -- an Hundred Gamblers Came There, Too
- Wearing His Wealth -- Attracts the Attention of Adventuresses -- Los Angeles
- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII
- CHAPTER XIV