Show the prospector prospecto r and his burro J its poor judgment on your part said the prospector to his burro to begin to bray half a mile or so before we reach the crest of the divide not that I 1 mind the hideous noise you make for I 1 have been used to your method of psalm singing for so many years that I 1 do not mind it in the least now but I 1 am only advising you so that you will not exhaust your wind before we finish the hard climb before us again you invariably have to stop when you begin unwinding your calliope and this takes time and also depreciates your lung power leaving you in about the same condition as the mississippi steam boat with its whistle so large that it took all the steam the boilers could must in order to blow it in consequence of which the boat would always stop when the signal was given in either case the supply of power is exhausted whether it be air or steam just the same as a mine is exhausted when all of its visible ore has been extracted which reminds me of an experience I 1 had when I 1 bonded a mine to a lot of keen fellows a few years ago you state that you see no connection between your braying and the fact that I 1 let myself be robbed in a mining deal and there is none excepting that I 1 feared you would exhaust your wind ballast which fear recalled re called to my mind the weak and exhausted condition of my mine after the bonders had taken a fortune from it while I 1 was holding the sack under the supposition and belief that the snipe would soon be rushing into it in flocks now this is not a fish story or a narrative connected with hunting for birds but just a recital of how I 1 was swindled on a bond deal when I 1 thought I 1 had everything fixed up in good and legal form with the expectation that I 1 was to get a nice wad of at the expiration of two years and aso so that you may know I 1 will relate my experience to you about twenty five years ago 9 cont continued in the prospector 1 I discovered a likely looking prospect out in the merry go round range it was a gold proposition a true fissure in granite and the droppings crop pings were from three to four feet wide the ore was gold bearing free milling and would range in value from 40 to 75 to the ton I 1 was hard up at the time but I 1 performed a large amount of development work and had blocked out about tons of ore when a represent atie atle of a mining syndicate came along and offered me for the property on a bond and option agreeing to pay me 10 per cent of the purchase price or upon the signing of the papers 10 per cent more within s six ix months and the balance in four more equal payments six months apart the proposition looked good to me and although I 1 knew the mine to be worth more than that I 1 also knew that I 1 did not have the ready money to work it as it should be and so I 1 signed the papers and received my little twenty thousand in six months I 1 received the second payment and began to feel like a bloated bondholder or the tobacco trust before the supreme court punctured it with a restraint of trade decision but I 1 soon got my puncture for before the end of the year the bond was relinquished and the deal declared off I 1 was thunderstruck and could not understand the situation for the syndicate had been shipping heavily throughout the year and seemed to be doing well I 1 discovered the reason however when I 1 went out to the mine for I 1 then found that the parties holding the bond had taken out in ore during the period they had been operating they had taken out the ore I 1 had blocked out for which they had paid me they had gutted the mine and had never performed a foot of work not a pound of ore was left in sight and in that condition I 1 could not get 30 cents for it from a prospective buyer I 1 had been a fall guy and had enriched the sharks I 1 had been dealing with to the tune of for the small pittance of 40 1 I had rolled my crust and allowed a coterie of bright and brainy fellows to get away with the greater portion of the pie and it was all legally done too in the bond and option I 1 had made no provision that prospecting work should be carried ahead of extraction and it was not required that a certain amount of dead work should be performed monthly I 1 was inexperienced perien ced in the matter of bonds and leases and I 1 virtually opened a full purse and invited a gang of shar pers to take nearly all I 1 had and they took it and took it quick I 1 know now what I 1 should have done in the first place all the net earnings of the syndicate should have been applied on the payments for the mine in the second place provision should have been made for development and exploitation and to avoid any gap or loophole loop hole a clause should have been inserted in the contract making it imperative that should the bond be thrown up the property should be left in as good condition as when the contracting parties first assumed control of it 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector the term bond and lease has a mighty alluring soun sound dand and to the average mining man looks as good as a barley sack does to a burro but it is often a two edged instrument and is apt to operate in a direction not contemplated by the mine owner about to sign up the document which all goes to show that a man may think he has the world by the tall tail on a downhill down hill pull when in fact he is drinking skimmed milk when the other fellow is getting the cream and there you are and then some |