Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1871-02-16
A Montana MINERS Story.

were pasted on the wall. "Ihe ground
has caved It came down mighty sudden ;
and Little Jimmy was at the breast. L
L was further out in the drift, and had
the start of it; but it made such close
| call for me, that know he must "a got
| ketched."
This technical jargon revealed to me the
! fact that our mine had caved, and had bu-
ried one of our companions-for Little
Jimmy" was not an infant, but mana
miner and friend. He had been working
at the ''breast," or fartherest end of the
''drift," but was now perhaps sleeping his
last sleep in the bosom of the mother OF us
ALL
Three years before this we had come to
this creek. We had prospected the ''side
gulches" and the bars, and found ''colors"
everywhere Indications were favorable,
so We ''staked' body of ground along the
main creek, built cabins, organized a COM
pany, OF which the writer was elected Pres
ident, and went to work to open our claim.
Those three years had been years of toll
and privation We were in the heart of
the Rocky mountains. Our camp was
ditched in little basin of a valley, warm
and sunshiny, and just at the entrance of
deep and gloomy canon which we named
''The Devils Gate" and through which
the sparkling little stream foamed and
tumblcd down to that great river, the
Missouri. Our ground was deep and very
wet. Drainage was necessary. and we had
driven tunnel for this purpose through
the earth and boulders that filled the prim
eval bed of the creek, until we had at
tanned horizontal distance of thousand
yards; but the slope of the gulch was so
gradual that we had not reached the bed
rock where we hoped to find the gold laid
in heaps. Bedrock being the objective
point, must be reached !; SO We sank a shaft
at the head of our tunnel and betook our
selves to pump.
AS it was couple of thousand miles to
the nearest foundry. and we could not af-
| ford to wait the completion of the North
! Pacific Railroad, pump under the cir
cumstances was problem; SO L will tell
how we got one. we had black-smith's
and carpenters tools which most of us could
use: there was plenty Of timber growing
on the mountains, and pair of dilapida-
ted freight wagons supplied our stock of
iron. Great slabs of segments were cut
from fir trees, and hewn and dressed on
one side to a smooth plane The other side
was rounded to an arch or convex surface,
so that when four such segments were
placed together lengthwise, secured with
pins at the edges, which were first squar-
ed and then made parallel, they formed
long hollow trunk or barrel, four-square
within, but outside cylindrical, and taper
ing slightly from one end to the other
Upon this were driven hoops or bands of
iron, which forced the joints close, like
those Of a cask, and thus we had pumps or
pipes of considerable length and solidity.
| 1t was easy to fit to them valves and pis-
tons, and to work them with a wooden
walkincbeam moved by the crank of a
water-wbeel, This crank was master
piece. 1t had an arm or leverage of two
| feet, and was forged from the iron axle OF
one of our wagons, and its gudgeons or
| bearings were turned in a lathe of our own
| contriving This was heavy job for our
resources, but it was finished after an age
(it seemed to us) of toll, puzzling and per-
spiration and we had produced machine
ry that was capable of raising to height
of nearly thirty feet many tons of water
per day, and which answered all our re-
quirements for drainage, SO that we are
able to reach that long sought ''bed-rock"
at depth cf ninety feet below the pres
ent bed of the creek. | will mention
here that our pump was twelve inches
square inside, and had stroke of four feet,
raising the water twenty feet into our
drain-tunnel, whence it flowed out to the
surface a thousand yards down the cannon.
We had struck bedrock" but had not
''struck it very rich," and were running
drift or tunnel on bedrock across and up
the gulch iu search of the 'pay-streak"
which we were hoping every day TO find,
when the announcement of startling ac-
cident was made. Here was the ruin of
our hopes and the death of our friend for
there was little room to hope for any other
result. -
1t must not be supposed that much time
was wasted in such reflections, for telling
Bill to rouse the entire camp, rushed off
to the mine. Such of the men as had
heard of the occurrence hurried from their
work, bringing with them their picks and
shovels as likely to be needed, and the
miners from wet diggings came clad in
coats, high boots and helmet-shaped caps
of India rubber, and looking like knights
in armor. Knights they were, too, for
that matter, for though armed only with
shovel and pick, they were as daring and
as generous as ever belted prince who rode
with lance in quest of imaginary wrongs;
and they were ready now to risk every
danger to save the poor fellow buried in
the mine beneath. =
On reaching the scene I found our ma
chinery apparently uninjured, but looking
more closely 1 discovered that the pump
was laising not drop of water, and it
would not be long before the entire mine
would be flooded. The pump must be re-
lieved at once or we could not hope to
save the mine much less to rescue our
friend. Calling Bob Piper, a tall, black
bearded miner, who had worked at his
trade in every mining country, from the
English Channel to the Pacific Ocean, and
who, for his skill, courage, and experience,
was the mining oracle of our camp
pointed him to the pump which was wear
ing itself out in vain, for it lifted no
water.
Bob" said I, ''we must fix that pump
1t is our only hope to save Little Jimmy"
We'll fix it." replied Bob quietly
'sThe pump is starved-choked up at the
bottom. .We'll fix it; and as for the
pour lad, wen git un out"
Bob was West of England man. and
his dialect stuck to him.
We'll git un bonny; I think he bean't
| doad l p,-a balnad di0 men ont in the Old