Salt of the Earth

About this book

Salt of the Earth by W. C. Tuttle is a humorous Western short story written in the early 20th century. Set in a near-deserted mining settlement, it follows prospectors, bartenders, and drifters scheming over gold claims, with salting scams, tall talk, and comeuppance at the heart of the tale.

In Painted Post, Sad “Slim” Sanderson and his down-at-heel cronies—Whispering Smith, Forty-Dollar Fisher, and Lonesome Larson—spot two apparent tenderfeet, Magpie Simpkins and Ike Harper, and try to fleece them by “salting” worthless claims (the Golden Glow, the Yaller Chuck, and the Web of Gold) with shotgun-blasted gold supplied by Lonesome. Each demonstration pans out as a mere “trace,” and a bungled midnight robbery ends with the gang mauled in the dark by the tenderfoots’ burros. In a final, all-in attempt, they shoot every last ounce of Lonesome’s poke into Slim’s claim—still nothing. The “greenhorns” then calmly weigh a hefty poke of gold they’ve recovered by outsmarting the salters, and leave a note exposing the trick—placer gold, black powder grains, and felt wads don’t belong in a quartz ledge—before riding off. The crooks are left broke, bruised, and wiser, their own greed having salted their downfall.