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Show were m the old caoin caring for tne ay-ing ay-ing wife. A long silence followed the lighting of the fuses, and suddenly the dull noise of the shock and the fall of heavier masses of rock than usual startled star-tled the miners outside. ., ' They ran into the tunnels with their lights. The blast had opened a wide path into an irregular cavern, gleaming with gold. Above, below and on all sides was the shining, precious metaL The last blast for which Wash had struggled strug-gled so bravely had revealed a fortune. The excited miners rushed out again with a wild shout. A woman met them with flushed and frightened face. "How can you make such a noiser she said. "The poor thing's gone, crying cry-ing like a baby for her dead man." The miners drew close together, ashamed and profoundly affected. After Af-ter a little a few of them went back to the tunnel and secured Wash's pickax, which had been lying against the wall. "We can't bury them here, now," said one, "the mine will be worked again. They must lie on the hillside, where all his old friends of twenty years ago are laid." - ' Wash had no relatives. His wife's brother came up and took possession of the claim, which the miners had protected protect-ed against all intruders. In a few weeks it became generally understood in the region that the wealth of the "Blue Juniata's Ju-niata's last and greatest pocket" was estimated esti-mated by conservative miners at a quarter quar-ter of a million. - ,- - But from the day that .Wash fell dead in his tunnel a blight seemed to fall on the little camp of Ophir. Mine after mine gave out; miner after miner moved j away. A land slide swept off the cabin where Wash had lived, and though, as I have said.'the "Blue Juniata" yielded all that was expected, and even more, and founded one of the great Pacific coast fortunes, none of its treasures brought ; happiness to those who worked it. Today To-day the camp 14 deserted and its very name a memory. Charles Howard Sninn in Detroit News. ' , ;v i , - i , - one rushed to the place and staked out the whole hillside, no other claim ever paid a tenth port as much as the "Blue Juninta." -. In the course of time, as the region became be-came settled and men with families came in, Wash fell in love with the pretty daughter of a farmer in the Sacramento valley. He reviewed tho past, a hundred thousand dollars had come out of his mine, and he had nothing left to show for it. He resolved that if the girl would have him he would never waste another cont. He went to the claim, worked all day, struck a "pocket," and took out more than a thousand dollars, the largest yiold of a single day in the history of the mine. Then he quit work, went to the town, "spruced himself up," drove down into the valley, called on the girl, proposed and was accopted. "Jennie," said Wash, "you've got to take me, ef you want me, jest as if I hadn't any mine and wasn't worth a picayune." , 1 "I do," said Jennie; "it's you I care for, Wash." A month later they were married, and began housekeeping in a little house of white pino built near tho mine. Then Wash began the regular development of his claim. For six months he kept up courage, though not a dollar had come from it in all that time. They lived on what was left of the $1,000 after the weddingexpenseswere taken out. Then one day Wash said: "Jennie, tho boys think tho old mine is played out, but I don't. I'll never give it up while I live. Til find a bigger pocket in that mountain side than any man ever yet struck in California." Ho climbed tho hill, and began work on a tunnel which should strike' the brokorj, gold bearing ledges at a lower point than he had yet reached. Months more passed over the heads of the miner and his wife. One after another an-other their friends deserted them. Their credit gave out, and they lived on game, fish and berries, so that tho little money thoy had could all be spent for blasting powder. Every morning at daybreak Wash, gaunt and silent, went to his work, every night at dark he stumbled home to his cabiu. "Jennie," he said, "I know there is gold there. We will find it soon. I never before worked a month in the old mine without taking out something. This deadlock has lasted more than a year. It can't last always. I will find the lead again, and then wo Will let the rest eo. and buy a farm in the valley. . . where we' can forget about this fight." She believed every word, for she was a loving, loyal woman, and she knew that this great awkward Mi&sourian was a man among thousands. The very boys in town hooted after him and called him crazy, but she knew better. Her family had once urged her to leave him and come home, but they never ventured to suggest it again. Old miners passing by looked at the claim, and said there was no gold left. Men who had thou-' sands of dollars from her husband, and owed their entire fortunes to him, at last refused to give him credit for a sack of flour or a side of bacon. "You stick by the mine, Wash; I'll stick by you," was all that Jennie said. She never told her husband that she had gone to her brother, who was rich, and asked him for a little money to carry them through the winter. ,"Not for that spendthrift Missourian to waste," was his answer. "He can clerk in my store if he will give up his foolishness." Wash's hair grew gray and thin. He stooped lower and lower. Deep lines were graven in his face, and his eyes became be-came fierce and terrible. Men met him in the gulches trapping game, or down in the streams with his fish nets, and Visaed him by without a word.' Pros-rectors, Pros-rectors, climbing over tne nnis, heard the sound of his pick as he toiled in his tunnel, and laughed him to Bcorn. "Because "Be-cause he found a fow pockets lie is boring bor-ing right into the granite.' Crazy as a loon, and his wife as bad. Her relations have done everything to help them offered them a farm and the best kind of a show down in the valley.". .. It was an afternoon in October., - The saloonkeeper sat on the bench by his door reading a newspaper. He heard a noise at the head of the street; the village vil-lage boys were shouting, "Here comes the crazy Missourian minerl" Wash, ragged and miserable, came into sight, and after a moment's hesitation spoke to him. , '. " . "Evening, Mr. Riley." '),- ' "I can't do anything for you." ' - "Mr. Riloy, listen to me. . I hain't a cent in the world. We've sold all four goods and worked in the mine together this month. Jennie's held the drill while I druv it. I can't get a pound of powder, pow-der, but the holes are all set in the face, ready. Something tells me this time it will touch gold. I can feel it just ahead. I've ielt it all along, but now it's right thar, within reach of, one more blast. I tell you, Riley, I know it's thar." "You're crazy, Wash." ' . "Riley, you've got money. Give me one keg of powder an I'll make yon a rich man. I'll give you half we take out. You don't know how I've worked this year. I've hammered from daylight to dark, gone hungry and slept cold, an fell down in a dead faint time and time over. Put your hand thar!" He seized the saloonkeeper's hand and held it on his breast. The man felt Wash's heart sway several inches, , as if it had torn loose from its place, and its wild, loud throbbing was like the beating of a mighty engine. VThar," said Wash, "you see I ain't for long. That mine's for my wife. She's stayed with it and with me. I ought to have dropped it and put my pride down long ago, but now it's too late. Riley, will you let me have the powder?". "No." Wash looked at his old enemy and turned away. No one in all that camp understood the" proud, unyielding soul that had set itself to wrestle with nature and her , secret The afternoon wore on into I night, and night into morning, and ' morning, noon and afternoon built up another day. Wash did not come back. I Some boys climbed the hill and went into the tunnel. There lay Wash, dead, at the further end of the tunnel, his pick . in his hand. He had gone back to break , his own way into the treasure house, but 1 his heart had burst in the midst of a ! giant stroke, and he had fallen across ' his own weapon. There his wife had i found him, and she, too, weak and sick 1 and heartbroken, lay in a faint over his body. Ophir camp woke with a start to some dim sense of its crime. Tender hands 1 carried Wash and his wife out of the tunnel, and did all that could be done for the poor woman. A dozen msa went back into the tunnel tun-nel from which they had taken the dead man, and looked at the place where his last faltering shock had glanced off the flinty rock. - "Boys," said one, "111 never forget that I told Walsh he couldn't have any more powder, not if he died in his tunnel. tun-nel. We'll set off them last blast holes jest as ho wanted, and then we'll bury him in here where he dropped." There was plenty of blasting powder now to be had for the asking, and in a few minutes the face of the drift was ready for the blast, the fuses set and lighted, word had got around the camp and every man was gathered at the month of the, tunnel. A few women LAST STRIKE AT OPHIR Ophir was the most prosperous mining camp on the western slope of the Sierra, and Wash Bonner was the most prosperous prosper-ous miner it contained. His claim, the "Blue Juniata," was paying enormously, and Wash had become very popular, for he gave away his money as fast as he made it. Wash was a tall, good humored Missourian, lean, light haired and sleepy. No one gave him credit for much energy or ambition, and the accident by which he had stumbled upon his claim when the camp was first settled was told far and wide as a case of "fool luck." It happened this way: Tho camp began be-gan asa placer camp, and all the "claims" along the stream or on the flat were taken up, when Wash, a tall greenhorn of a new comer, drifted in without a dollar to his name and stood watching ' the sailor company of runaways from ships in San Francisco bay as they took , out their "ounce to the man" from the best washings in the camp. "What are you lookin' at, young fellow?" fel-low?" said tho captain of tho company. "Why don't you stake out a claim?" "All taken," said Wash slowly. "Go np on the top of tho hill by them oaks," said the man, winking at his com-rados. com-rados. "More- there than hero." Wash borrowed a pick, went to the place indicated, and in an hour developed the most famous mine of the district. It was a curious pocket mine in a loose, broken, formation, and though every |