The Millionaire, the Colonel, and the $100,000 Snowbank

Slate creek, to date, has cost Marcus Daly, the Montana millionaire, $100,000. Slate creek is the new camp on the summit of the Cascade mountains, and it is said the pace was too swift even for Mr. Daly. The money was spent in opening up roads, shoveling snow and bonding properties.

Mr. Daly became interested in the country through representations made by Col. W. Thomas Hart. He gave the colonel a white card, and the colonel sharpened his pencil and went at it. The colonel's dashing tactics are said to have taken Mr. Daly's breath, and the millionaire sent in William Toole, his confidential man, to see what was going on up there in the land of the mountain goat.

It is said that Mr. Toole reported that there were a number of good prospects, and one in particular that gave encouraging returns, but nothing to justify such a lavish expenditure of money. Mr. Toole set a small force of men at work developing this particular prospect, and passed through Spokane a day or two since on his way back to Montana. All the others were discharged, and the country is now said to be overrun with unemployed men of little or no means.

Well-informed mining men say this is one of the most conspicuous cases of rainbow chasing and moonbeaming that has ever come under their observation. The country really gives promise of something good, but the forcing process was expensive and injurious.

Col. Hart is down in Arizona, where he is said to be developing a copper prospect.