Show the prospector and his burro if this is a long tunnel we have been examining said the prospector to his burro but the owners of this property never took out enough in the yellow metal to pay for a sack of barley for the burros which packed in their supplies and it has been abandoned and deserted for many years what they were running for is a mystery to me and the indications upon which they started their work looks as forlorn and barren to me as a three spot to which the player is trying to draw a full hand this seems to me to be a piece of poor mining similar to many other wrecked enterprises throughout this intermountain region and yet I 1 suspect that in the performance of all of this dead and profitless work the for mer owners have been paralleling the main ore body never having gumption enough to crosscut cross cut at a number of points where nature has plainly indicated the probable existence of a shoot of pay ore As you may have noticed I 1 spent considerable time while in the tunnel in picking along the side of the barren vein and I 1 will wager my hat that in at least three places where there were soft and decomposed places in the wall that a little investigation would disclose a goodly body of pay rock and if I 1 can get a lease from the company for this is patented ground I 1 am confident that I 1 can begin shipments of ore within the next ninety days you say the tunnel looks just the same to you from portal to face and that you would rather spend your time in the little patch of grass below our camping place than to lead the strenuous life in getting to this uninteresting point high up in the hills where there is nothing but an old hole in the ground to prospect and this all shows that your ambition is on a level with the average prospector who would rather loaf around camp and prospect through a field glass than to undergo the toil and hardships of actual and fatiguing prospecting this may do for some prospectors and the majority of burros but none of it for me none whatever for I 1 know that fortunes have been made in abandoned mines where others have failed and can back up my statement by an experience peri ence of my own which happened several years ago and now that we have finished our supper and while I 1 am enjoying my smoke I 1 will tell you of the circumstance cum stance which will take off your mind the apprehensive feeling you have because of the mountain lion we saw near camp just after we arrived this evening at the time I 1 speak of continued the prospector 1 I was camped near the mouth of a deep canyon in the flapjack flap jack range of mountains many miles from the nearest settlement your mother was with me then and the mountain lions were so thick that she insisted in sleeping in my tent and would hardly stray more than a dozen yards from my side even in the daytime for the lions were as fond of burro meat as a farmer is of a gold brick and co 0 I 1 had no trouble in finding her when I 1 needed her assistance in changing camp for two or three days I 1 had been prospecting the country and your mother as usual was trailing along quite near me on the day in question I 1 was seated on a rock examining a piece of gold bearing quartz when all at once my burro came braying through the brush as frightened and distracted as a dog with a cincan tied to its tail I 1 called to her but she paid no attention to me but made a bee line to an opening in the cliff above me and was immediately lost sight of close on her trail however there was a big mountain lion and he too was soon lost to view in the cavern I 1 was stunned for a little while but soon got my wits together and followed in close pursuit at the mouth of the cavern I 1 stopped and listened a moment pick in hand and the racket that was vas going on in the darkness within seemed to be a combination of squeals growls a phonograph in distress and a in which two full grown tom cats were the star performers then for a moment silence reigned and I 1 began to feel sorry for your mother then I 1 heard the patter of feet and knew something was coming my way and to my surprise the procession was headed by the lion with your mother in full pursuit her long ears were laid back against her neck her teeth were laid bare and looked ugly and she was chewing great gobs of hair and flesh from the posterior of the fleeing lion at every jump I 1 had heard that a rabbit will spit in the face of a bulldog when cornered but I 1 had never seen anything like this before and I 1 was so entranced at the scene that I 1 almost forgot to take a whack at the lion when he passed me but I 1 struck just in time and the point of the pick entered his brain and in a moment more lie he was stretched out before me lifeless while your mother was trembling like a six year old boy who had just smoked his first cigar from all I 1 could make out the liou lion had chased the burro into a corner and she had defended herself so vigorously with her heels that the lion was willing to declare all bets off when she turned on him and chased him out of the cavern I 1 was satisfied of this when I 1 lighted a candle and began to explore this underground passage which I 1 discovered was nothing more than an old tunnel which had been driven and abandoned many years before the more I 1 examined it however the more I 1 became interested in it it was evident that it had not been driven in on the vein although it had followed a fissure in which a little quartz occurred now and then in one place in the tunnel especially I 1 found a soft composed discomposed des place on one of the walls and began picking around it within an hour I 1 had exposed a strong stringer and the next day when I 1 had put in a couple of shots I 1 broke into a body of ore that I 1 afterwards found to be three feet wide and which was literally lousy with gold some of the quartz was actually bound together by wire gold and a two inch seam was nearly the pure quill the whole mass was a shipping proposition but I 1 must have taken out at least of the ric richest liest of the ore before I 1 left for the nearest town after having located a group of six claims for several years thereafter I 1 took out many thousands in the wall street metal As a matter of fact it was coming too easy for me and I 1 longed to get out in the hills again all by my lonesome and a burro and so I 1 sold a control ing interest in the property to an english syndicate which is now paying dividends regularly my portion going into government bonds and real estate securities against a rainy day this may seem like a fairy tale taie to you old long ears continued the prospector and you seem to doubt my veracity especially that portion of my story where I 1 tell of your mother chasing the lion out of the tunnel but it is true all the same and to prove it I 1 have but to show you the rug in my tent that was made out of the lions skin the incident was a lesson to me however and shows how often it happens that mining men fail to connect with a fortune through their failure to follow up seams stringers and soft spots in their mine workings and there you are and then some |