5Life at the Camp
New men were always nervous about going into the cave. A mine is one thing, but a cave! And people back in Carlsbad were continually enlarging their yarns about the adventures we were having in the "big cave" some 28 miles away. As a result, all new men who came to work had illusions about this mysterious cavity in the earth where bats dwelled by the millions.
The boys thought new men were fair game—for anything. Take for instance the time a new man came out to work at the cave and the boys decided to have some fun.
They asked the tenderfoot if he would go down into the cave for a shovel, and the man obeyed. As soon as he reached the bottom, a voice boomed out of the darkness: "What are you doing down here?"
The man, not knowing anyone else was underground at the time was so scared he could hardly talk. Finally he uttered, "Why, I have—a—well—I have come to get a—a shovel!"
"Now lookee here," boomed the voice again. "I've lived in this cave nigh on to 50 years, and now you guys think you're going to take it away from me. I'm going to kill you!" With that a gun fired at close range.
The new man, scared out of his wits, fairly flew up the ladder and headed for open country, as fast as his legs would carry him. As far as I know he is still running, for none of us ever saw him again.
Another time we had a young Mexican boy working in the cave sewing sacks. One day he got upset over something and suddenly decided to quit, saying, "Me voy, me voy!" (I am going, I am going.)
It was really nothing serious, and we pleaded with him, trying to explain to him that the matter was not important, that we liked him and wanted him to stay as we needed him. Furthermore, it wasn't easy to get men to remain at the cave.
Our pleadings were of no avail, for he started out and we couldn't stop him. He jumped on the car and began to pull the ropes and in that way propel himself to the top of the cave.
Ropes in those days were not too well made and they wore out fast. He didn't know, and, in fact, we didn't either, that the rope on the hoist was ready to snap.
Up he went, almost to the top, and then—snap. Down came car, Mexican boy and all, right smack into a waiting load of guano. He was covered from head to foot—just a leg sticking out.
He didn't move, and we were sure he had been killed. We started digging and soon uncovered a very much alive but very scared little fellow. The guano had cushioned the fall.
Apparently he thought we somehow caused the fall to prevent his escape, for he never tried to run away again, and soon became one of our best workers.
Incidents like this were not good for the morale of the men. The pranks, of course, were harmless as far as danger was concerned, but natural risks were always present.
Sometimes the pranks were meant to be harmless, and they were to the men, but it worked a hardship on us who managed the mine. I remember one day Victor Queen, who at that time was in charge of operations, had to go to Carlsbad for supplies.
"Johnny," he said to his brother, "I'm leaving you and Wayne Crowder in charge while I'm gone. Keep the men busy. I'll be back as soon as I can make it."
Wayne was a good worker and always reliable, but like lots of men he enjoyed a good laugh and often went to long ends to get it.
"Johnny," he said, "you engage the Mexicans in conversation. I'm going to fix up a ghost and we'll have a little fun with them."
While Johnny Queen was talking to the Mexican workers about everything he could think of, Wayne made a large paper man, then tied a string to it and dangled it from the roof of the cave in a dimly lit section which hadn't been explored too much.
The Mexicans were quite superstitious about the cave, and Wayne knew he would get quite a rise out of them when they saw this ghost-like figure rising out of the semi-darkness.
He didn't have long to wait. Signaling to Johnny that the scene had been set, the conversation stopped and the Mexicans were sent into the cave in the vicinity of where the ghost had been rigged.
Panic broke loose. Every Mexican in the group quit, scampering out of the cave and heading for Carlsbad. They were scared. But so were Johnny and Wayne. They knew how hard it was to get men to work in the cave and, with this mass exodus of workers, they would be in for a hard lecture from Victor when he returned and found what had happened.
They pleaded with the frightened men, but it was useless. They had seen that white figure with their own eyes. They had heard the cave was haunted; now they knew that what they had heard was true. Come back to work? Not in that cave! Some picked up their belongings, while the others were in too much of a hurry to get out of that section of the country.
When Victor returned and learned what had happened, he nearly fired John and Wayne on the spot. Needless to say, John and Wayne had learned their lesson, and they were much more careful about what they tried on the workers in the future.
On one occasion a man by the name of Priest came out from Carlsbad to see the cave and learn how guano was being taken out. The boys were always ready to oblige anyone like this, so they told him to get on the car and they would take him down.
The car hadn't gone very far when the steel cable on the drum slipped a bit and the car suddenly dropped about a foot.
Priest was so frightened he began to pray. The boys thought that was quite an incident, seeing a Priest pray on a cable car going after guano, and they always got a bang out of telling it.
That car contributed its share of incidents at the cave. One other time we had just received several hundred empty sacks and were preparing to send them below where the men could fill them with guano.
Generally the workers in the cave would walk the ladders when they wanted to go into the cave or come out. But this time there were three boys who decided they would get a free ride as long as the car was going anyway with the sacks. So they jumped on.
Sitting gaily on the sacks they appeared ready for a thrill, so they called out to the whim man, "Let 'er go!"
He did.
The boys were asking for a fast ride, so he decided to give it to them. He forgot to take into consideration that the weight of the several hundred sacks plus the weight of the three boys was too much for the car, and as it gained momentum in its downward plunge the brake gave way.
The car was now falling freely of its own weight, and in an instant would crash at the bottom, totally wrecking the car and possibly killing the three boys.
I happened to see the whole thing, being right there at the time, and before I could think what was happening I had instinctively grabbed a 4×4 timber close by and rammed it into the whim.
Smoke billowed from the 4×4 as it hit the whim. The car slowed up just as it hit the bottom.
From our position at the top of the shaft we couldn't tell how hard the car had landed, nor could we tell if anyone had been badly hurt.
Just as I was about to call down, I heard one of the boys call up, "Can't you take it a bit slower? We'd at least like to have a little conversation on our way down."
I knew from that jesting that there couldn't be too much damage, otherwise he couldn't joke about it. We soon learned that no damage had been done since I had injected the 4×4 into the whim just in time. There were a few bruises, but that was all.
Life at the cave was somewhat rugged at first because we didn't have many of the comforts of home. At first we would sleep in the wagons, then we brought out some canvas tents from Carlsbad and this made living much more comfortable.
As operations continued I had hoped to build some sort of small house and move my family out to be there with me. But my time was so busy in the early phases of the operation that I had little time to think of anything but getting the guano out of the ground.
Artist's conception of Long's move to Big Cave area.
Artist's conception of Long's move to Big Cave area.
After a while things became more or less routine and I could then think of some more permanent living quarters for myself and family. My brother-in-law, Charlie Hannsz, also had more spare time now that the roadwork was done and the initial construction chores had been completed.
Since he was a fine carpenter, I let him have the job of building more permanent living quarters.
We found the most satisfactory type of housing was what we called tent houses. These consisted of boxing plank for the floors, with the wood also extending about half way up the side or wall of the house. The upper half of the wall was canvas, as was the roof.
These houses were relatively easy to build, and served our purpose adequately. After the first house was completed, we built another for my father, A. B. Long, and my mother. Then we built another for Charlie Hannsz and his family, making a group of three houses.
My wife made our place quite comfortable inside. She was an immaculate housekeeper and she had the knack of knowing how to make our little tent house look like a home. I felt quite contented living there.
The food problem was a difficult one, for all our supplies had to be brought out from Carlsbad. At first my wife did all the cooking for the men, but this job soon became too much for her, especially as the operations at the cave grew and more men joined the force.
Eventually the men had to make other arrangements for their meals. Most of them did their own cooking, or they would divide up into small groups and take turns cooking for the rest. The Mexicans would cook their own meals off by themselves as they seemed to prefer a different menu from the rest of us.
This section of the state was good for cattle grazing and this was quite an industry in itself at the time. There was a man by the name of Simms who had quite a herd near the cave and sometimes during the night we could hear these animals near our camp.
One morning, as the boys were entering the cave to go to work, they discovered that one of the cows had fallen into the cave. In trying to reconstruct what had happened, it looked as though one cow had hooked another, causing one to fall into the cave.
Artist's sketch shows family cabins set up near cave's entrance.
Artist's sketch shows family cabins set up near cave's entrance.
The boys butchered the animal right there, carrying the cow out piece by piece. I have often wondered if Simms ever knew that we were enjoying fresh steaks from one of his herd!
Often on evenings or Sundays the boys would get together and hold what they called a Kangaroo Court, thus helping to pass the time away. First, they would select one of their number to serve as judge.
Then, from the group, one of the fellows would be selected for some misdeed he had committed while on the job that day. After the testimony was heard, his fellow workers, who served as an impromptu jury, would decide the verdict, which was most always "guilty," and the judge would impose the sentence, such as requiring the guilty culprit to take a small pail and a coal oil lantern and go back into the deep recesses of the cave alone and return with the pail full of water.
Entertainment during the evenings varied, depending upon the mood of the men and what their particular likes and dislikes were. Card games were always popular, and a hot game of poker was the favorite with most of the men.
Many times after they had finished a busy day in the Big Cave they would roll out a tarpaulin, deal out the cards, and proceed to have a gay time.
More than once these games would last all night, or until one man would win all the money and the rest had no more cash to play with.
Johnny Queen must have been lucky at love because he certainly wasn't lucky at cards. In practically every poker game he would soon lose all his money and would be out. On cold nights the fellows found the playing not very comfortable, and after a while they got the bright idea of asking Johnny to build a fire for them, since he was only watching anyway.
This Johnny did, using sotol[C]for fuel. Sotol is a type of desert plant that grew in the area around the cave. With a warm fire to comfort them, the games would go longer than ever.
[C]Sotol—a desert plant (dasylirion) having a stiff stalk and crowded leaves.
[C]Sotol—a desert plant (dasylirion) having a stiff stalk and crowded leaves.
Johnny, however, couldn't understand why he should gather fuel and tend fire while they enjoyed all the fun, so he got the bright ideaof charging the players a dollar. They were glad to pay. Needless to say, there were many nights when Johnny ended up with more money than most of them did!