To make amends for the city's inhospitable blunder, Raines was taken to his hostelry, given a champagne bracer and made the honor guest at breakfast. "Where's the Senator?" he asked. Informed that Senator Jones had taken a train for Washington, Raines quickened "Why, he was expecting me to go with him...." He jumped up, fumbled through his pockets in a pretended search for money. "Heavens--my purse is gone!" Instantly a half dozen hands reached for the hip and Mr. Raines was on his way.
It required but a few moments to get $15,000 from the Senator and his partner, Senator William R. Stewart, for the Panamint claims. He also sold Jones the idea of a railroad from a seaport at Los Angeles to his mines and this was partially built. The project ended in Cajon Pass. The scars of the tunnel started may still be seen.
Jones and Stewart organized the Panamint Mining Company with a capital of $2,000,000. Other claims were bought but immediate development was delayed by difficulties in obtaining title because many of the owners were outlaws, difficult to find. A few were located in the penitentiary and there received payment. For some of the claims the promoters paid $350,000.
On June 29, 1875, the first mill began to crush ore from the Jacobs Wonder mine. Panamint City became one of the toughest and most colorful camps of the West. It was strung for a mile up and down narrow Surprise Canyon. It was believed that here was a mass of silver greater than that on the Comstock and shares were active on the markets.
The most pretentious saloon in the town was that of Dave Nagle, who later as the bodyguard of U. S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field, killed Judge David Terry, distinguished jurist, but stormy petrel of California Vigilante days. Judge Terry had represented, then married his client, the Rose of Sharon--Sarah Althea Hill--in her suit to determine whether she was wife or mistress of Senator Sharon, Comstock millionaire. Feuding had resulted with Field, the trial judge. Meeting in a railroad dining room, Judge Terry slapped Justice Field's face and Nagle promptly killed Terry.
Poker at Panamint City was never a piker's game. Bets of $10,000 on two pair attracted but little comment. Gunning was regarded as a minor nuisance, but funerals worried the town's butcher. He had the only wagon that had survived the steep canyon road into the camp. "I bought it," he complained, "to haul fresh meat, but since there's no hearse I never know when I'll have to unload a quarter of beef to haul a stiff to Sourdough Canyon."