Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1916 — The Trump Card Mine [ARTICLE]

The Trump Card Mine

By GUY HALLECK

I had worked In the Trump Card mine, where they were taking out gold in paying quantities, and had invested my savings in it. I had subscribed for my stock when the owners were forming the company and they needed money. Consequently I got a good lot of stock for very little cash. Three hundred and fifty dollars was all I had, but it bought me 10,000 shares of stock. The “lead” on which the value of the mine depended soon died out, and the mine appeared to be worthless, but the incorporators knew of paying veins which ran in our direction and believed tha>-some of them extended into our property. So they held on until a rich vein was discovered on adjoining property, and there was a fine chance by digging down a hundred feet to strike the extension. But those interested in both mines kept the secret from outsiders, and our managers got on to it only from lheir neighbors trying to buy us out. I was completely Ignorant of all this. One morning I was told that the company had no more work for me, it having collapsed, but since the original owners did not like to see me lose anything they would buy my stock at what I had paid for It. I thanked them, but told them that I saw no reason why I should not suffer with the rest, and I would put the certificates away and consider them charged up to profit and loss. But they insisted on making me whole, and I, unsuspicious, sold them my stock. For some time after this, so far as 1 knew, there was nothing doing in the Trump Card mine. Occasionally there was a quotation at from 3 to 5 cents a share on the mining stock exchange. One evening while walking by the property I was surprised to see some workmen coming out of a hole in the ground, carrying their dinner palls. 1 asked one of them if they, had been at work, but he was a Norwegian and spoke no English. In fact not a man of the lot could understand a word I said. If I had simply discovered that work was being done in the mine I would not have become suspicious. But that the owner had thought fit to employ only those who could not communicate jvith inquirers. seemed singular, especially since when I was working for them their men were mostly Americans. Looking at the sales list of stocks that evening in the newspaper, I saw more sales of Trump Card shares than 1 had noticed for several weeks previous, though the price had only advanced a fraction. I wondered if something was going on. That night I lay awake thinking. I sent my wife to linger in the neighborhood of the mine and watch. She saw nothing unusuaD There was nothing alive in It so far as she could see. The same night I went to the property and sat on a stump near by till 2 o’clock in the morning, when a cart loomed out of the darkness and passed away into the darkness again. I noticed that it was without a creak. I knew enough about mines to believe that it was carrying ore, and the axles were muffled. x The next day I went down'to Denver, where I procured an Interview with a man who had held a lot of Trump Card stock, but had sold it at a small profit before the mine collapsed. I told him v that Lcould give him a pointer on a prospective rise in a certain stock and secured a contract from him that if I named it and he bought and made a profit he was to give me 40 per cent of his gains. Then I told him that I believed there was something up in Jp-ump Card. He consented to make a small investment in it by way of observing its effect on the market, and, being busy himself, committed the matter to me. I found that the only stock to be had were scattered shares held by those who considered their investment a dead loss, and most of these did not care to sell at th 4 present low market price. This -strengthened the confidence of my backer, and when I proposed to go about among the former stockholders and pick up the stock at private sale, paying an advance on the market price for it, he assented. In this way I got what stock did not belong to the original owners, and then I began to bid for more on the exSome stock came out, and my backer feared that we were buying a dead horse. But it turned out that the ring had sold some stock to prevent the price from going up. This they did because some of them had not got all the shares they wanted.

When I had bought all the shares my backer would stand for and had put back the money I had received for those the managers had so kindly relieved me of, I was obliged to await developments. They came one day when there was a scramble for Trump Card stock on the exchange, and it went up like a squirrel climbing the trunk of a tree. My wife, who was as much absorbed in the matter as I, came to me with the papers giving an account of “A Stir In Trump Card” and threw her arms around my neck, delighted. Evidently the secret, whatever It !Was, had come out. The company had struck a new vein not connected with any other and was getting out ore that assayed S3OO to the ton. I reaped a small fortune, but after all I was disgruntled because I did not get revenge on those who had bought my stock for a sqng when they saw fine prospects ahead.