Show the prospector 0 and his burro A winter is upon us and the snow is piling up in the hills said the prospector to his burro and we may now expect to hear reports of big mineral discoveries for the deeper the snow the more glowing the accounts of great finds will be for years athas been characteristic of the mining industry that the greatest discoveries are reputed to be made in the winter time some of these are actually made but the greatest number of so called finds without doubt are fakes emanating from the ranks of dishonest men who seek by this method to interest mining men and investors in order that they may obtain support during the winter months for of course it is just as impossible to make an examination of these alleged finds with from five to ten feet of snow on the ground as it is for a burro to appreciate a quotation from shakespeare or to attempt to communicate with another burro over a telephone still once in a while some credence can be attached to a story of this kind and during my time lime I 1 have had occasion to prove that the report of a new discovery made in the winter time was true to the letter although the prospector making the discovery never benefited much by his find you want to hear the story well I 1 will tell you all about it while I 1 am cleaning up the supper dishes during which I 1 presume you will proceed to assimilate the canvas wrapping of the ham I 1 threw away today and of which you seem to be quite fond to be brief however I 1 will proceed to the main point of my story much the same as the miner on payday pay day jumps into the play of a poker game or tackles the roulette wheel so there will be no preliminaries none whatever just where I 1 was at tile the time would be of no special interest to you providing the usual pile of tin till cans was handy and the door to the cook tent open and so I 1 will not be very accurate as to location Howe however verp as I 1 was about to bunk for the night the flap of my tent was pushed aside and an old and battered prospector entered he was about all in and seemed terribly exhausted and footsore f oot sore I 1 1 hastened to give him something to eat and when he had refreshed himself and helped himself to my tobacco he told me the following story 1 I have been prospecting said he in an almost unknown and isolated district more than a hundred miles from the nearest habitation I 1 started out with a good outfit two burros and plenty of provisions for days I 1 wandered about in the hills but found nothing which suited me at last one day I 1 found myself in a range of mountains which had every indication of being gold bearing following up a turbulent mountain stream I 1 at last found myself in a box canyon whose walls towered skyward to almost inaccessible heights down the face of the canyon the stream tumbled like a cataract scattered along the side of the stream as it tool took its way down the canyon I 1 found innumerable pieces of quartz many of which were sprinkled with gold in its native state the gravel in the bed of the stream also carried gold and the place was admirably adapted to placer mining this pleased me greatly but what I 1 most desired was to trace the quartz to the ledge from which it had been broken it was impossible to go further with my burros so I 1 pitched my camp near the falls hobbled my jacks and making a small pack of provisions and supplies prepared to make my way upward on foot the task was a most difficult one sometimes I 1 would be hours in going a few rods twice I 1 had to turn back and seek a new avenue of advance for four days 1 I worked my way upward sometimes following the stream along the banks of which the quartz float was always in evidence at last one day about noon I 1 came to a place where a great ledge crossed the canyon and through this the stream had cut its way leaving a perfect wall of ore exposed on either side the vein was at least awen ty five feet wide and consisted of the finest gold bearing quartz I 1 ever saw and native gold was scattered all through it 1 did not have time to examine it very exhaustively hau before twilight came and before I 1 could get my supper and spread my blankets everything was dark this was a month ago and everything indicated the near approach of winter during the night the weather changed and when I 1 awoke in the morning the ground was covered with two feet of snow and it was still storming hastily breaking off a sample or so of the gold quartz I 1 started on my return and for three days I 1 wandered through the most rugged and precipitous country I 1 ever saw at last more dead than alive I 1 reached my camp at the bottom of the falls to find that one of my burros had been killed by a mountain lion while the other was nowhere to be found some wild animals had found and destroyed my provisions and nothing was left but a little canned stuff taking my pack on my back I 1 have since been traveling back and forth through the mountains and yours is the first camp I 1 have yet found it is winter in dead interest now and I 1 cannot go back to my find until next spring but if you will keep me till then and go back with me I 1 will give you half of my discovery under ordinary circumstances the story would have sounded somewhat fishy to me but the man seemed to be really honest and so I 1 decided to take the chance I 1 was well supplied with provisions and we spent the time quite comfortably until spring when one may morning I 1 packed up my burros and we started out on our quest for gold I 1 will not relate the adventures of the journey until we arrived at the box canyon where we found the remains of jacksons camp for this was the mans name here we remained a few days testing the placers and examining the quartz float floal we also built a corral of cedar for the burros and cached our provisions and supplies under a pile of rock then we made a start for the regions above knowing the direction and the most accessible way jackson led and the night of the second day out we reached the ledge and it was all that jackson claimed for it and could be traced on its strike for a thousand feet or more on either side of the canyon while some of the rock ran up into the thousands in its gold contents some of the ledge was almost covered with thick underbrush and in one of these thickets the day after our arrival we discovered a rickety old shack and in this we found the skeleton of a man that he had been dead for a long period c years was evident for not even a stitch r his clothing remained intact we found also an old pick and shovel and also a big mortar and and in what appeared to be an old lard bucket we discovered about a thousand dollars in gold which the man had evidently pounded out of the quartz this we took with us when we went down the canyon before leaving however we staked out a group of claims covering the ledge took a lot of samples and when we got down to the foot of the falls we found our camp all right but the burros were thirsty and hungry with our samples and gold we hiked to salt lake where after a lot of dickering we sold the group to the guggenheim syndicate receiving a big wad of money and a lot of stock in the company to be formed later on this company was duly organized an an aerial tramway was built from the foot odthe of the falls to the big ledge an electric power generating plant was constructed in the box canyon which supplied the motive power for the big milling plant afterward installed and also for the operation of the machine drills in the mine and in less than two years the company began the payment of regular dividends and these are bein being g paid to this day you want to know what we did with our money and stock well part of my cash went to my old mother in the east and the balance is out at interest the divi bends I 1 am receiving keep me in pin money and enable men to help out my old friends once in a while As for jackson poor old jack success gave him the swell head he blew in his cash at the faro table and his stock followed in the good old way he is dead now but he sure did find a great mine even if it was done in the winter time 1 I want to tell you old long ears con eluded the prospector these holiday stories of the discovery of big mines under two feet of snow should always be taken faken with a grain of salt such things are not impossible but highly improbable many g get et stung who bite at this bait but once in awhile there therb is truth in them and if followed up fortunes are made and there you are and then some |