Show the prospector and his burro f 0 na you se seem m to be well pleased with this new camp of ours said the prospector to his burro and I 1 must admit that this is a pretty spot with the little meadow yonder for you to graze upon while so near at hand there is such a pretty little mountain stream with which to quench your thirst and yet there is no telling what night you may stray away from me or hide out in the brush thus causing me inconvenience and anxiety of course you are often thoughtless when you do these things and yet in such instances you cause as much trouble as if your delin quenches quen cies had been the result of premeditation and cunning planning in your case you have been freely forgiven but if you had purposely strayed away from camp my first impulse would have been to have punished you with a stout club as large as teddye dig big stick and this is what I 1 feel like doing with a man whom I 1 employed last year to do the annual assessment work for a bunch of claims I 1 own over in the buckskin range for he has not only deceived me but has tried to rob me and through his rascality I 1 am lively likely to lose one of the most valuable properties I 1 have located for years did he run away and hide you ask no but something infinitely worse and I 1 cannot connot get even with him as I 1 can with you when you do db wrong none whatever 1 I see that you are interested in this man and what he did to me continued the prospector and as we have finished our supper slipper I 1 will relate the story to you some time in august of last year I 1 employed this man to do my annual assessment work on the claims I 1 referred to he was to expend on each claim in the group and had agreed to file affidavits of work when the assessments were completed I 1 then joined the rush to the new mining district of punk punic hollow and was absent until after the first of the year I 1 then found that my claims had been jumped on the ground that they were open for relocation location re on the plea that the annual assessment work performed had been insufficient to hold them upon examina tion I 1 found this to be the case and that my man had used the money on the green table that he had played the roulette wheel to win and had lost and that for the greater portion of the time he had been bucking the tiger with the tiger easily the winner I 1 also discovered that in the performance of the work he had done for me he had uncovered a body of very high grade gold ore which he had covered up and concealed and then not daring to jump my ground himself he had induced others to do it for him it was a dirty trick one that is frequently employed and generally on men who are non residents and who are obliged to trust their affairs to the honesty and integrity of strangers in my case I 1 may be able to prove my good intention the fact that I 1 had advanced the money to do the necessary work and because I 1 may be able abe to prove fraud and conspiracy but in the case of the nonresident non resident he is likely to throw up his hands and quit and thus add another discolored optic to the mining industry 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector it is no wonder that so many people are adverse to mining in all of its branches for engaged in this pursuit there are rascals and fakirs fakiri just as there are in every other pursuit it is not always possible to steer clear of them any more than you can always give the cold mit to that ugly old jack of yours but in the long run there are more good men engaged in mining than there are bad just the same as there are more sweet and amiable burros than outcasts and there you are and then some |