NO. 36, GEORGE W. RIDDELL.
Telluride, the county seat and largest city of San Miguel County, plays an interesting part in the stirring events which have made Colorado famous for other things than its climate and mountains.
The occurrences in Telluride are of more than ordinary interest, because of the desperate efforts which Pinkerton's National Detective Agency made to discover here the Inner Circle that directed the outrages alleged to be perpetrated by the Telluride Local of the Western Federation.
The Pinkerton operative who worked on this case was a practical quartz miner, uncommonly shrewd, and far better qualified than the ordinary secret operative to handle the task which had been assigned to him. But as the reader is as yet unaware why the mine owners of this county engaged the services of the Pinkerton Agency, a little explanation will not be out of place.
One day, along toward the end of 1902, Manager Arthur Collins, of the Smuggler Union Mine, was sitting in his home at Telluride when a heavy charge of buckshot was fired at him through an open window, inflicting a wound which soon proved mortal. The identity of the assassin was not known, and has remained a mystery to this day.
Mr. Collins was unpopular with the miners, yet the union disavowed the murder and roundly condemned it. But, despite this action, the mine owners suspected that Mr. Collins had been killed by order of the Western Federation of Miners.
Shortly after, a deputy sheriff named Barney disappeared mysteriously; and, as his whereabouts was never discovered despite a thorough search,