Show the prospector and his burro 1 I notice said laid the prospector to his burro that you can tell when we are nearing a water hole or a mountain stream when we are miles away and yet I 1 must stumble on and on without any knowledge of the whereabouts of this precious fluid until I 1 am within a short distance from it this is one of your gifts inherited but not acquired just as some men are born with I 1 the gift gif t of finding bonanza mines or the gift of holding the high hand when a big jackpot jack pot stands near you can smell water miles away and you follow the scent on a bee line to quench your thirst just the same as a really good prospector and mining man will follow a stringer until it develops into a good ore body you say that you do not care much for stringers and this is where your early education is at faulty fault for a stringer is often more important to the mine owner than strict sobriety is to th the e success of the average mine manager and I 1 will tell you you why it if we absolutely knew just where the ore body of a mine is located we could copper every move made by the yellow legged expert and beat him to it just the same as cook did peary to the north pole but we often mistake the ledge we are working on for the bg prize in the drawing and lose sight of the stringer which leads to the main ore shoot just as many prospectors actors believe they are making a success when putting their money on the green or playing the wheel when they should be out in the hills following the quartz float to its source or tracing spur vein to its junction with the mother lode but this is not confining myself to stringers none whatever and this is what every real mining man should do if you will remember continued the prospector we spent one winter in the double up range some distance below dandy crossing you were delighted with our camp for feed and water were plentiful and you had an old crop eared buro to neighbor with I 1 thought I 1 had a mighty good prospect for the ore came to the surface in iii what seemed to me to be a true f fissure vein I 1 started a tunnel and followed the ore in for a distance of fifty feet or more but the values decreased as I 1 went in and I 1 was as much discouraged as you are when you came into camp and find the barley sack empty As a matter of fact I 1 was about to get out of the game for my chips did not fall into any winning numbers however I 1 went back to the tunnel one morning and examined tho the tunnel more carefully on one side the wall rock seemed soft and decomposed as soft as are the brains of the crop eared burro you take such delight in associating with or the grey matter of some tenderfoot investors I 1 know of with my pick I 1 began tearing away at the soft place which in a foot or so gave way to a pronounced stringer which panned a few colors but not rich more out of curiosity than anything else I 1 spent two days in following the stringer and before the week was out had broken into a blind ore body that was lousy in its gold contents into the main vein for I 1 found afterwards that the ledge 1 I had first followed was nothing more than an overflow and that the stringer was the feeder I 1 afterwards sold the mine and it has paid many dividends to its owner since 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector it is not always safe to judge a man or a mine from first appearance A man may put on a great front but later on you may find that he has not a single stringer in his makeup which will lead to something good and that he is nothing more than a barren vein between two well defined walls A mine may also look good on the surface but prove to b be pinched and decreasing in values the further in you go but it may have stringers leading to a bonanza which you must follow and there you are and then some |