swearengen recruited his prostitutes by advertising legitimate stage, cleaning, or waitressing jobs in his theater to desperate young women and advancing them the money for their (one way) trip; then, when they arrived, forcing them into what was essentially indentured servitude as prostitutes. those who balked were first threatened with demands for repayment of the funds advanced to them for the trip; if that failed, they were threatened with beatings, and if that failed they were beaten and physically forced to submit to swearengen's demands. many still resisted, but those who escaped this fate could only find themselves in no better situation, as penniless women with no source of income, alone in a rough and rowdy mining camp, and with the constant threat of swearengen's men hanging over them. many grew sick and died from lack of proper nutrition and shelter, while many others committed suicide.