The following morning Oscar left for Leadville; a perilous, 150 mile ride in a two-coach-and-caboose train, The South Park, over a narrow gage railroad. It was slow going as the puffing engine ground its way upward between massive granite boulders and gloomy snow crusted pines. I had made the trip several times, years later, and agreed with Aunt Kate that "Ridin' that thrashin' machine was the same as sittin' on a jackass with a hot poker rammed under his tail." And she added, "With all that jerkin' Oscar got I've often wondered how he kept down all those flapjacks and sausages he had for breakfast."

The Leadville Kate knew was fabulous city that had over night. mushroomed from scarcely a thousand miners to 60,000. Its silver output the year Oscar lectured in Tabor's Grand Opera House, and it was grand, totalled more than 20 million. Kate. just out of grade school got her first job keeping house for Graveyard Pete. He gave her five dollars a month and her keep. Pete embalmed only when he had to. Most miners lived in rooming houses and when one died no one was interested enough to notify relatives, if there were any. Pete dropped the body as he found it in a rough pine box then, after a day if no one cared to look at it, he nailed down the lid. Before he did and unbeknownst to him, Kate examined the boots on the corpse and if they weren't too worn she yanked them off and sold them for four bits to Sol Greenbeck who operated a used clothing store on State Street. How much Sol got for them Kate didn't care. Fifty cents was a lot of money and after four months she'd saved enough to buy a new calico dress and take The South Park to Denver.

But for Uncle Vince, Graveyard Pete might have had to embalm Oscar. As the train lurched through

the whirling snow that morning and finally stopped with a groan at the Leadville station, Oscar saw only a group of miners in bulky sheepskin coats and overalls. There was no welcoming committee but he wasn't surprised. Denverites had warned him. that Leadville was not only the richest city in the world but the most lawless. Even Frank Bascom its sheriff had his moments. A week before Oscar arrived Bascom learned that Mame Peters had rolled one of her customers. Bascom went to her and magnaminously offered to forgive Mame providing she gave him the loot. Instead Mame slashed him with a horsewhip one of her customers thoughtlessly left behind.

What Oscar didn't see as he descended the coach steps was a bearded miner holding a revolver at his side. But Vince saw him as he raised his hand. He crashed his own gun against the would-be murderer's neck, breaking it. Just then Tabor's representative drove up in a buggy to take Oscar to the hotel. Oscar wouldn't go without Vince. What occurred from then on Vince recorded in his dairy.

Kate took it from a beautifully grained cedar chest which I remembered watching Uncle Vince make, a perfectionist, it took him weeks.

I asked Kate if his end had been peaceful. She nodded her thatched white head and said, "Emma and I were with him. He just smiled at us and slid away. Before he died that afternoon some damn fool man in the hospital asked him what kind of a funeral service he wanted. Vince said 'None. Preachers don't know anymore about God than a blue jay does and I'd damn sight rather listen to them.' His frankness was one of the many things Oscar loved about him. Vince asked Oscar when he came back to Denver to look us up and he did. He couldn't do enough for us. He told

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