The Mamie R., the WPA researchers found, had a bad reputation in 1894. Three men had died there. A new cable had broken, and the falling bucket smashed a mucker "into an unrecognizable mass." Later a miner was killed in an unexplained blast.

Third, a man named Garson, who ran the mine boarding house, fell ill of mountain fever. He died nine days later. On Nov. 15, 1894, E.D. Blake was appointed boarding house boss in his place.

Thanksgiving night, Blake, Fatty Root, a foreman, and two other men were working. They were all on top.

Suddenly the signal bell rang three times, then one. This was the signal for "Man aboard, hoist away."

The hoist man started to bucket upward but before it reached the top of the workings the bell rang one time, indicating "Stop." The it rang twice, the signal for "Lower away." Then came a bewildering mixture of signals.

Blake and Root hauled the bucket up, went down and went all through the workings. They saw no one. On their return to the top the engineer there said no one had come out, either.

A few nights later a miner was working at the 375-foot level. He came up to report that he believed a man had been killed in his drift.

He had, he said, placed a round of shots and someone had passed him, walking into the charges. He yelled "fire!" But the man had paid no attention.

As soon as the smoke cleared a party went down. They reported they saw a man with blood streaming from several gashes on his head. One of his arms was blown off and he carried it on the other shoulder, like a rifle.

They spoke and got no reply, so one of the party grabbed at the figure. His hand went through it. The shift boss poked a drill at the thing bur it encountered nothing.

The specter went to the bucket and rode up. When the rescue party got their courage back they signaled for the bucket and went up themselves. The engineer denied that the bucket had ever been hauled up.

On Christmas Eve (and maybe after a little holiday cheer) Root, Blake, and two others again were on top, talking. The bell sounded.

"Who's down there?" Root asked.

"Not anybody!" the engineer said. But he started the hoist anyhow. The bucket reached the surface.

The WPA report quotes Blake:

"All three of us started back and the blood curdled in our veins...I hope to be spared ever seeing such a sigh again.

"Garson got out of the bucket first, Garson, with his yellow, pinched face and staring eyes, just as he looked the night I saw him die of mountain fever.

"Then came the one-armed man, with the blood spattered over his features, and the shattered stump of an arm.

"Between them they lifted out the body of a poor fellow lashed to a plank and laid it on the platform.

"Then the one-armed man reached down in the bucket and brought out his arm. As re rose from the stooping posture he looked toward us, the most ghastly object I ever beheld, his face all cuts, his clothing torn to shreds.

"He laid the arm on top of the body that was lashed to the plank, and the two raised the whole horrible thing to their shoulders and walked out into the night.

"For a minute no one spoke, and then we all rushed to the door, and as true as I live, we saw the two dead men, ghosts or whatever they were, walk over the edge of the dump and disappear in the darkness."

The next day, Christmas Day, Fatty Root took the bucket dumper's place and was working away along toward midnight.

"They had just hoisted a dozen buckets of water and the 13th was coming to the top, when the winding spool slipped out of the frame and the cable came off in the coils.

"One of the loops caught Fatty around the neck, cutting his head off as clean as if it had been done with a knife.

"About a month later the mine closed down with the operating company losing much money."

There's a catch, of course. The State Bureau of Mines says it has no listing of a Mamie R. mine in the Cripple Creek district. However, the bureau records start with 1895, and this story is dated 1894. You draw your own conclusions. Me, I can just see that eerie trio disappearing over the edge of the mine dump.