Show THE prospector AND IUS HIS I US BURRO A V f by will C higgins when we last had our little fireside fire side chat said the prospector to his burro jack hastings and myself were preparing to return to the strata mine in the shell hole range from the little town down on the edge of the desert where we had disposed of our gold and had laid in a supply of provisions powder and fuse drill steel picks and shovels and other needful tools to be used in prospect development and when we hit the back trail we had quite a company with us for in every desert town there are always a few business men who are willing to take a chance on a new camp not to mention roughnecks rough necks and hoboes hobles and so we strung out along the trail making quite a procession your mother being highly pleased because there were several burros in the train for she was tired of being so much alone by her own lonesome and as laughable as the idea may seem had high social aspirations aspe rations it took us about a week to get back to our camp for loaded as we were the progress we made was very slow we met with no accident however and found everything just as we had left them and we all were in high spirits when we bunked in for the night the next morning jack and 1 I and the two miners we brought with us began making preparations for the initial development of our strata mine while the stam peders who had accompanied us scattered out in every direction possible which of course was only up and down the canyon as the sheer walls of the canyon prohibited prospecting excepting up and down the stream but everybody was busy and we were more contented and happy than it if we owned a skyscraper in san francisco up on the little plateau we began a tunnel running in ift on the ledge which grew stronger and richer as we advanced and the outlook surely looked good to us after a stay of two weeks during which the crowd that had followed us had found nothing of importance the business men among the stam peders returned home but the roughnecks rough necks and ho boes still hung around although getting short of grub and supplies and because of their destitution they were re really allya a menace to us and we began missing things about camp such as flour bacon and sugar As a matter of fact they eventually became somewhat ugly and insisted upon being employed by us although they well knew that we had no use for more men at that time indeed conditions finally became so threatening that we laid off one shift and jack and one man would remain at the camp while I 1 worked in the tunnel with the other taking turn about as we felt that it was now dangerous to leave the camp unprotected and we guarded our holdings with guns in our hands after matters had been in this shape for a week or more our unwelcome visitors left in a body one morning announcing their intention of returning to the valley I 1 was on guard that day and watched the motley crowd as it filed down the canyon my suspicions were aroused however when I 1 noticed that three or four of the gang had sneaked in behind some boulders about a quarter of a mile below our camp while the rest went on and so I 1 was more vigilant vigil ant than ever and was glad when jack and his man returned return ed after shift I 1 went up in the afternoon and put in a shift and upon my return in the evening jack reported that all was quiet and that he had seen nothing of our departed friends during his watch we decided however to keep guard during the night and so one of us acted as sentinel until morning our two men taking their turn with us but nothing happened to disturb us and so when the sun began shining up and down the canyon and the pink and crimson of the early morn illuminated its walls we all felt more easy we decided however that one shift would guard camp for another day or two and so jack and his companion climbed to the plateau and began work while I 1 busied myself in making everything neat and shipshape down in the canyon during the morning as I 1 was sharpening steel at the little blower forge we had brought back with us your mother came in from the willows and stood near me tor for just like a child she loved to see the sparks fly at times she greatly desired my company and liked to be biear near me and while she stood with lowered ears and an idiotic expression on her face looking at the forge she was really companionable it was while she seemed practically lost to the world however that she suddenly pricked up her ears and raising her head appeared to have discovered something up on the rim of the precipice above where jack and his man were working I 1 looked too but at first could see noth nig As my vision cleared however I 1 was surprised to see that a group of our late guests had found some outlet from the canyon and had reached the summit my surprise was soon turned to dismay as you may well imagine when I 1 saw the devilment they we were re up to for a number of them were trying to dis lodge a big boulder that hung over the canyon directly above the spot where jack was at work and just then jack came out of the tunnel with a wheelbarrow of muck I 1 yelled to him and attracting his attention pointed to the danger threatening from above and he hardly had time to move to a place of safety before the huge rock loosened from its moorings came crashing down landing a few feet from the mouth of the tunnel the impact was terrific and the earth around us shook as if from an earthquake eruption and the canyon was filled with dust the boulder must have weighed fifty tons and when it struck the plateau it did not bound over into the canyon instead its force was so great that it literally smashed the great shelf and shattered it so that the whole mass nearly as large as a small city block crumbled down into the canyon leaving jack and his man high and dry with only a few feet of shelving left as a place of refuge the situation was awe inspiring continued the prospector and I 1 was stunned and dazed the man who was with me but who was not aware of the cause of the catastrophe came running to me like a man in his sleep and I 1 was beginning to explain to him what had happened when I 1 was interrupted by a rifle shot from the rear looking around I 1 discovered that we were being attacked by the three or four men whom I 1 had seen dodging behind a boulder as they were going down the canyon the day before my man and I 1 exceeded the speed limit in gaining shelter and with rifles in hand we began to defend ourselves pretty soon I 1 saw one of the bandits sticking his head out of the willows and the way I 1 plugged him would have made me famous if I 1 had been on ohp west front he f tell ell like a log and a moment after the man who was with me succeeded in laying out another of the roughnecks rough necks A little later 1 I severely wounded the third man and the fourth I 1 seeing that his gang had been practically annihilated came out of the willows with hands up stretched begging for mercy your mother had been knocked over by the shock of the concussion when the plateau came down and was still somewhat stunned but when she saw the man coming towards herewith his hands extended she charged upon him like a maniac and it would have been short work and a shorter shift for him it if he had not turned and ran screaming in rage your mother took after him and he screamed in fear as he fled and the last I 1 saw of them they were turning a corner in the canyon in maude S time meanwhile jack and his companion had been busy up on the shelf fifty feet above us and as both had rifles they also exacted fearful toll for the outrage that had been perpetrated upon us for in less than no time two lifeless bodies came tumbling down the precipice landing almost at our feet and later on we could see that three or four more of the roughnecks rough necks had been severely wounded we won the fight however and before long we could see the remainder of the gang on the retreat and we knew then that we would never be molested by them again in about an hour your mother came wearily up the canyon back to camp and by the blood smeared about her mouth we knew full well that she had disabled her enemy As soon as we could collect our thoughts we began to examine into our surroundings not one of us was hurt although the avalanche came to the very edge of our camp our greatest concern however was regarding jack and the other man perched up above us and marooned like men on an ice floe to get nearer to them we scrambled over the great mass of broken rock and debris and were almost stricken speechless when we found that in crashing through the shelf or plateau the greater boulder had exposed almost on the creek level a great body of gold bearing ore a blind ledge as it were that had been eroded above and the existence of which had never been suspected I 1 called up to jack and made known the discovery and he was as alid about it as a sammie who had captured his first hun but he could not get down to see it for his path of descent had been entirely obliterated how we managed to get him and the other man down and how we afterwards prospected and began the development of our new find I 1 will tell you the next time we make camp 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector it is through trials and tribulations very often that great blessings come to us and we began to become convinced by this time that if our strength would only hold out and that if our lives would be spared we would yet find 20 gold pieces in ton lots in our strata mine and there you are and then some |