Show the prospector and his burro you have a very knowing expression on your face this morning said the prospector to his burro but you had better be moving along for you will get nothing for looking wise as I 1 know you too well to take any stock in any pretense you may make as to ilie possession of expert knowledge and you can run no sandy on me like that mining expert is running on the company over the hill on the S H range none whatever so you had better hike along and show a color of your wisdom by getting back to camp in the shortest possible time 1 I see continued the prospector that you are considerably huffed buffed because I 1 take SO little stock in your attempt to pose as a second solomon and want to know why you cannot make a bluff of this kind stick just as well as the guy of the hot air wise look and phony reputation who is spending a quarter of a million for the crazy kid company on the other side of the divide when any old roughneck rough neck of a prospector could find the ore with a foot tunnel all of which would be good logic but for the fact that I 1 know you too well while the crazy kid people really know nothing about their consulting engineer other than he be has a long string of capital letters at the end of his name which may mean something or nothing which goes to show that glitter and a bold front will often enable a blooming idiot to get a position as mine manager when in fact he would not be worth six bits a day as a this is a rather rough statement I 1 know but I 1 feel somewhat cross over the way the crazy B kid cid company is being robbed when a little intelligent tell igent effort and the expenditure of only a few thousand would soon place the concern on a dividend paying basis As it is the company is now suffering from a dose of too much theory and the possession of too much working capital at the final windup wind up it will be rich in experience but short on a paying mining proposition notwithstanding its high priced engineer who if given a pick and shovel and a sack of beans would not know how or where to be ein mine development notwithstanding his high sounding titles and supposedly big reputation this is evidently like so much greek to you and you are somewhat confused at the attitude I 1 have taken as you have always supposed that the guy with the wise look or on his face was the cherry in the cocktail when it came to successful mining operations erat ions which goes to show that your early training was hadly badly neglected and that if you should play the valet to a whole century of mining men you would hardly even then know the difference between a mine and a hole in the ground however to make the equation plain to you I 1 will relate an example that came under my notice a few years ago in this instance a mining company had opened up a pay mine in the hopi range and had a good body ot of high grade ore down to the foot level and here the vein faulted in fact it packed its suit case and faded from view as quickly as a london donilon syndicate in holiday time it was cut off and displaced so suddenly that it could not even hand in its time to the foreman of the shift and for all the management knew it might have gone off on a visit to a true fissure in the next county and so a consulting engineer was engaged Z to find it a man from new york who had been to san francisco once on the rear end of 01 an observation car and who held a chair of mining in an eastern college the titles this man had was something wonderful to behold and they hung down below his chin chill like whiskers on a billy goat and I 1 must admit he did look wise well this start started edma a two compartment shaft and sunk to the 1000 foot level then he ran drifts in every direction looking for that lost vein he made upraises up raises sank dinzes and crossed his trail half a dozen times without being able to tag it even once finally after expended about he ran into a blind vein some feet from the shaft and if this had not been really blind it would have gotten away from him however the company thought its expert ex p ert was a truly wise man a great mining engineer for had he not found ore on the property even if he failed to relocate the faulted vein which had been too nimble to corrall and so he was allowed to go with a fine letter of recommendation ommen dation and the company closed down for lack of funds although fully satisfied that it had covered itself with glory in giving employment to such a renowned and high priced man six months later an old desert rat came along he did not know what B S B E 11 or LL D meant but thought it referred to different kinds of imported cheese roque fort for instance but he knew a great deal about fault freaks and their signs and so he decided that he could locate the lost vein in the companas comp anys mine he went to the office for the concern on the top floor of a 1 skyscraper skyscraper and the clerk not seeing any college degree signs hanging to his whiskers kept him wait waiting ng in the reception room two hours before taking him in to the president the president took him for a tramp and made a mental note of having the room fumigated and re calcimined as soon as lie he could get rid of him and was dumfounded dum founded when the prospector wanted to take a lease on the mine and in order to chuck him down the elevator as soon as possible agreed to let him have the property for a period of six months on a royalty basis of 25 per cent on tha net product A bond was also given for and the whole affair was rushed through with wonderful speed for the president began to feel creepy and was worried for fear lie he was getting crummy the desert rat knew nothing of this however and hiked back to the mountains on the next stage at the nearest town he got a buckboard loaded in a few provisions and tools and was in camp before night the next day he carefully examined the old shaft noted the fault and its apparent throw and made some explorations on the surface he had a man with him and going around a projecting cliff on the mountain side started a crosscut cross cut tunnel for twenty five feet the rock was very hard then it softened materially ten feet furth further er in ore began to make its appearance and within a few feet more he had broken into one of the largest bodies of high grade ore ever uncovered in the hopi range in six months he had shipped over in ore to the nearest market and before the expiration of the bond and op tion had sold the property to the Hogi tall syndicate for a round 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector a fellow may feel good because he looks important and wise because he has a long string of burky tracks after his name but bu it if I 1 wanted a man to manage a mine for me or to chase an elusive or faulted vein he would have to convince tie me first that he knew country rock from gold nuggets tenderfoot gold from wire silver and there you are and then some |