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lirs. N. C. Totty
Box B77
Silver City, N. M.
A Prospector's Experience
"A man gets some queer ideas, in his head when he's out all alone
in the mountians said John Sanderson, "half of them believe in ghosts,
nine out of ten in signs_ and all of them in luck. My own experience'has
changed my views in a good many particulars, and for one thing, it has
made me a firm believer in special providences. It didn't come about
gradually but through as marvelous escape from an awful death as I
believe ever falls to man':
nI had a pet theory then that if you followed the creek's up high
enough you would find a tremendous deposit of gold in decomposed quartz.
I talked the thing up to Charlie Burk, another prospector/ and friend of
mine, until he agreed to p'.1t, up half of the outfit and join me in the
search. We got a couple of burros, the necessary tools„ and started
early in the spring."
"The country in the Black Range is about as wild and desolate as
any on earth, and it was a trip that nothing but faith and enthusiam
would prompt a man to attempt. It was one succession of gorges, gulches,
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and acclulties, all strewn with granite boulders from the size of a man's
hand to a four story block, and often we were abliged to leave the
water course that we were following and make detours that took day's at
the time."
"The creek we followed was almost dry and we stopped frequently
looking for placers. We found no very rich ones, but every where there
was gold. Sometimes there would be lots of it in the bottom of the tin'
cup after we had taken a drink, and sometimes,(here is a curious thing,
it would be floating on the surface. I will let some one who is better
posted in science than I, tell why gold now and then floats, but I
only know that little flakes of it do, and a lot of it is lost in sluice
mining that way. As long as we found placers we knew that the main
deposit was ahead, so we pushed along, tired enough but confident." 7
"At last we came to a spot where the sand was barren for several
day's journey, and then we begin to prospect the country around. To
make a long story short we struck a ledge one morning with outcropping's
that crumbled under my pick and showed quartz all streaked with yellow
threads."
"Charlie," I yelled out, all afire at once, "we have struck it!"
"But before we sunk a shaft we found something else that sent our hearts
to our mouths. It was an old shaft, back a little and in a claim
properly staked out that covered that very ledge. There was a notif-
ication according to law on one of the posts, that Peter Sumner and
Joseph Keautzy had taken possessirm of the Big Six and done the legal
assessment work. I sat right down and collapsed b Ut Charlie went over
the shaft and came back to tell me that it didn't cover half the am7unt
necessaryo_under the law to hold the property for the year. We
measured it and sure enough, it was down only about one-half the required
distance so we took possession of the property, changed it's name to
"The Treasury", and went to work."
"We built ourselves a rough shanty, rigged up 'a windlass and began
to sink. In a few day's we were in a formation rich enough to make a
man's head swim, and gtting better as we went down. We were both os
excited that we begrudged the time to sleep and eat, and we neither of
us meditated for an instant giving the claim up to anybody, assessment
work or no assessment work. What had become of the two lien was a
mystery. They had left no trace except the notification board and shaft,
and it gave me the creeps now and then to think that they might be dead.
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"Yes" I faltered. "Then pray now, I'll give you two minuted to do
it". By that time my mind was clear enough to take in the whole sit-
uation, I had no doubt he intended to murder me then and there.
With me out of the way there would be no one to testify to the insuff-
icient work, and I would simply be 1. regarded on hisstory. Alma_ when
my death was told as claim jumper who had justly been dealt with.
I felt my knees trmble and tried another trick.
"If you kill me," I said "my partner will be back and see that you
hang for it." "I'll fix your partner the same way, you claim -jumping
cur.
"True enough nothing would be easier than to assassinate Burk on his
return 2 and we had so jealously guarded the secret of our trip that
no one wou7d know where to search for us. We would simply diappear, as
hundreds of prospector's do, never to be seen by man again, and speedily
to be forgotten."I had no hope of mercy from the instant I looked into
the man's cruel face.. I felt with a sickening qualm and a wild
drumming in my ears that my time had come."
"Ohl For heaven's sake don't murder me", I cried "I will go."
The man made no reply. i'or a moment my head swam, and then with a sudden
return of vision that was excrucating in it's clearness, I saw him
stoop slightly, rest the gun barrell over the windlass handle, and
marked even the slight contraction of the eye -lid that always preceeds
a shot."
"The next instant there was a crash, an explosion and a cry all
mingled into one. I saw the man turning head over heels town the em-
bankment, the winchester flying through a cloud of smoke up into the
air, and all the While I heard a loud, monotonous Whirrling noise that
was like some gigantic clock running down. I did not realize it at
the time but this is what happened.
"When he rested his gun on the windlass he dropped his barrell right
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across the little stick I had thrustin to prevent it lumbling and
knocked it out I suppose the bucket of ore weighed one -hundred fifty
pounds, and the great iron handle swinging clear around with such
terriffic movement, that when it struck him square in the face, which
it did, it lifted him off of his feet like a cannon ball. The gun was
discharged by the shock but the bullet went nowhere near me. Before I
regained my senses I heard the bucket hit the bottom with a smashr
"When I picked up the man he was unconcious, but moaning a little,
and the blood tricked on his ears, and his gun was broken. He lay at
the cabin for a week or two and after Charlie returned we took him to
Silver City. There Dr. Slough put his face in a sort of plaster of
paris cast but although the wound healed he was out of hi_s head and
eventually died. The night before he passed away he motioned for a
little slate he used to write on for he couldn't speak. He was very
weak, and it took him a long time but at last he scrawled
"Who hit me?" Before they could tell him he fainted away.
I sold my half of the claim a sh-rt time after the accident,
the mine played out in about a year."