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Show LOCATORS WORK HARD ON NEW YEAR'S NIGHT Wonder's hills had more people in them on New Year's eve than on any night since the strenuous ones of the tlrst stampede, says the Wonder Mining News. For days and weeks before the passing of 1907 "there had been preliminary examinations exam-inations of ground that promised to bo left open by failure lo do the required assessment work. The positions of monuments mon-uments had been carefully fixed in mind, so that they might be easily found again In the darkness of the nlgllt. Stones had been gathered in particular places, eo that the new monuments might bo built rapidly, and without loo much groping In the snow with cold fingers. ( At midnight on December 31, the i ground upon which the assessment work hod not been done would again be open. Long bpfore that hour the population of Wonder began to spread out Into the hills. Some went boldly. Others tiptoed tip-toed out of town, and spoke In husky whispers like a gang of body anatchers intent on robbing graves. And there were horsemen, too, black riders of the night. All of these moved cautiously to the grounds they had selected, 'and there, beside tho old monuments that were to be changed for the new, took up their lonely vigils, to await the hour. The stealthy ones merged themselves into in-to the sagebrush shadows and the hillsides hill-sides upon which they eat as grim sentinels sen-tinels were as silent and apparently as desorted as tho mountains on the moon. But whenever another silent form camo stumbling along over the bushes toward the monument, the shadow suddenly bo-came bo-came a man. There would be a brief parley, and an agreement reached to divide di-vide the ground. Many of the locators, however, were not Decretive, and these lent a picturesque pictur-esque touch to this work or winning fortunes for-tunes In the night. On far I1III3 and near ones their lanterns twinkled. Away up on some ridge or crest one would see a lantern outlined like a star against tha sky. At first you would think it was a star, but suddenly it would move, bob-blng bob-blng here and there, without dignity, suggesting sug-gesting no sort of a star except one with .a Jag. Then you would know that it was a lantern. |
