I raised money on everything I had, except my insurance and the mine--and sank it in the mine.

No one out there would advance me anything on a property that looked like a failure, that had once already been abandoned.

I have always kept an office here, and I came back East with the idea of raising something on my insurance.

Markel, quite by haphazard as I then thought, was introduced to me just before we left San Francisco on our way to New York.

On the run across the continent we became very friendly.