| Show four tenderfeet Tender feet make a strike WRITTEN FOR THE MINING REVIEW there were four of us in the party tom lloyd george hastings peter thompson and myself walter jones commonly called walt for short all young and husky and with only one lazy man in the bunch we were all tenderfeet tender feet that is we had not been west long and our homes were in philadelphia new york rochester and scranton the four of us had been stricken with the fever of wanderlust and met at a booming mining camp in nevada where as chance would have it we all roomed together as accommodations were limited and we were fortunate to be able to get a roof over our heads even if we all had to bunk in one room when we first reached the camp we thought the whole bunch on the street had gone bughouse as every man was running up and down the ajeet stopping a minute to say something to the trip after which we purchased a tent and a few cooking utensils together with a few provisions in prowling around the camp I 1 had run across a goo miner who showed me how to handle powder and fuse this called for the buying of powder and fuse drill steel and one or two four pound hammers when our outfit was complete we were at a loss where to go as the whole region looked alike to us finally we approached a man who had been pointed out to us as a big mining magnate who had become a millionaire millo mill from nothing but a shoestring shoe string so it was said although we knew nothing about shoestrings shoe strings in connection with mining operations and pondered deeply upon the meaning of the term and asked his advice on the subject he looked very grave although a smile seemed to be struggling at the corners of his night and camped near a little spring we pitched our camp and had a jolly good time and worked like beavers to get in III shape for the night all but the lazy man who was kind enough to give a lot of advice and who took the best roll of blankets in the lot for his use the next morning three of us got up early got our breakfast and started out for the saddle below the buttes the lazy man was not stirring from his blankets when we left but we were unanimous in the opinion that it would be a good thing to leave him behind in order to watch camp when we reached the saddle we were enthusiastic over the beautiful view afforded the whole country lay before f ore us like a panorama and we felt already that we were making the right start for a fortune after going over the ground for an hour or so iso we decided to run a trench we found afterwards that the proper term was open cut and so we begun operations and by noon the three of us were tired and hungry and our hands were covered with blisters we were not ina RK anipen out cut that sold for found by the syndicate first one he met or they would gather in bunches waving their arms and hollering like maniacs then someone would take something out of hs his pocket show it to the crowd when the bunch would scatter and rush out into the hills all in one direction however later we learned that a new strike had been made and the stampede was for the purpose of making locations on the extensions of the discovery or in its near neighborhood the first week we wandered around picking up what mining lore we could and much of the time we had our pockets full of rock most of which of course was valueless or sprinkled with pyrites of iron which in our lAno innocence cence we took to be gold we learned a few things however and found that the most useful tools a prospector could possess were pick and shovel which we immediately purchased we also invested in a wheelbarrow wheel barrow and two big I 1 canteens we had a little money between u us s and u ultimately t a tely decided to combine into a syndicate and start out on a prospecting mouth and he asked us many questions regarding our experience and what we hoped to accomplish finally he said see those twin buttes about five miles to the west well just below about half a mile this side of them there is a saddle in the hills where I 1 should judge there should be good prospecting ground so we hired a team for the trivial um of 25 to take us to our destination and what seemed strange when we started out the whole camp got out into the streets and cheered us on and hoped we would find something and then they cheered again and waved their hats until we were fairly out of sight si afterwards we learned that the mining magnate had directed us to a section where no one expected ore would ever be found that he had told the boys of the camp who thought it a good joke to send tenderfeet tender feet out into the hills on a prospecting trip into a locality where not even a cropping had ever ever been seen we reached the base of the ahe hill that quite so enthusiastic when we reached camp where eliere the lazy one of the bunch was still loafing but with dinner over and a good smoke taken all around we began to tell of the millions in our mine a mine that we even located and staked that afternoon we took the lazy one up the hill with us and he was profuse with suggestions while we worked on the open cut but we were not discouraged for we found a piece of float in the loose soil in which was to be seen a speck of gold we knew that this was really true gold when we saw it and when we compared it with the specimens of iron pyrite we had in our pockets we threw the latter away in disgust for two weeks we kept on in our open cut during which time a kid came along with a kodak and photographed our layout for us you can see by the picture what kind of prospect we had and can also pick out the lazy man of the syndicate the third weer week the formation began to get hard and we were discouraged A pick would make no impression in it and we were about ready to quit when I 1 thought of our dynamite and fuse the next two days we employed in drilling holes wic and 1 when all was ready to shoot I 1 touched the fuse with a lighted match when we all scurried for shelter the explosion fairly shook the mountain in half an hour we all went back and were astonished to see what a big hole the blast had made in the rock we were more surprised however when we looked at the broken mass to see that it was full of native gold this we gathered up as if they were 20 gold pieces and even the lazy man worked himself in a lather of sweat and we must have had a ton of the ore in a pile before we took a rest still though happy we were not really aware of our good fortu fortune wc und and might not have known of the value of our discovery had not our mining magnate happened along on his horse just to see he said how we were getting along when men we saw how excited he was over our discovery we knew that we had really made an important find the magnate offered us for our claims but the offer was indignantly refused our man then raised his bid until he had reached which meant for each of us just then we found that the lazy man of the outfit was a lawyer and the way he raised his bid until he had reached for the crowd made us feel sorry for the unkind remarks we had made concerning him the next morning we all hiked out to the camp five miles away and got our money when we were ready to return to get our tent and belongings however we were surprised to find that hardly a man was left in town and when we reached our little camp we found three or four hundred people racing madly around staking out extensions to our claims and within a week our little saddle was a hotbed of mining operations As we advanced in mining lore we found we had struck a blind lead and this with development proved to be one of the biggest gold mines ever found in the west we still maintain our syndicate and are engaged in chasing down bonanzas the lazy man of the bunch does the legal work and the three of us do the rest ONE OF THE FOUR |
