He did not leave Harrisburg on July 4, 1905 to get drunk at Ballarat. Instead, he went to Rhyolite to find Wild Bill Corcoran, his grubstaker.
He did enjoy the yarns attributed to him and their publication in important periodicals. But he was also painfully shy and ill at ease away from his home. Even at the annual Death Valley picnics held at Wilmington, near Los Angeles, he could never be persuaded to face the crowds.
One cannot laugh aside the part he played nor the monument that honors one of God's humblest. His strike at Rhyolite brought two railroads across the desert, gave profitable employment to thousands of men, added extra shifts in steel mills and factories making heavy machinery and those of tool makers. The building trades felt it, banks, security exchanges, and scores of other industries over the nation--all because Shorty Harris went up a canyon. And it is not amiss to ask if these historians did their jobs as well.
At my home it was difficult to get Shorty to accept invitations to dinners to which he was often invited by service clubs, but in the Ballarat cabin he was as sure of himself as the MacGregor with a foot upon his native heath and an eye on Ben Lomond.
His passion for prospecting was fanatical. I asked him once if he would choose prospecting as a career if he had his life to live over.
"I wouldn't change places with the President of the United States. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner. When I go out, every time my foot touches the ground, I think 'before the sun goes down I'll be worth $10,000,000.'"
He stared at me with a sort of "you're-too-dumb" look. "Who in the hell wants $10,000,000? It's the game, man--the game."
Nor is the picture of his profligacy altogether true. Despite Shorty's disregard for money he had a canniness that made him cache something against the rainy day. At Lone Pine Charlie Brown was packing Shorty's suit case before taking him to a doctor. "Shorty, what's this lump in the lining of your vest?"
"Oh, there was a hole in it. Poor job of mending I guess," Shorty answered guilelessly.
"I'll see," Charlie said and ripping a few stitches removed $600 in currency.
Shorty's last years furnish a story of a man too tough to die. He had had three major operations, when in 1933 I received the following telegram: "Wall fell on me. Hurry. Bring doctor. Shorty Harris." It had been sent by Fred Gray from Trona, 27 miles from Ballarat, nearest telegraph station.