The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1877-09-27

Sing wasn't one of your dirt-washers or
gravel-pawer,b but he went for quartz-rock
and kept loose eye squirting around for
nuggets. He halted where he did, be-
cause he was far enough from white
miners, near enough to the Indians, and
the place offered a secure retreat. It was
a cave extending into the hill or range
since christened "Baked Potato" The
hole was large enough for three men to
enter abreast and the cave was cut up in
a curious shape. Twenty feet from its
mouth it slit into three caves, each wind
ing around in half circle, and after q
short time Lung-Sing discovered that
each of the three had an outlet on the
hill, but not within half a mile Of each
other. "Alle light" he unused as he made
ready to take possession in the name of
the Celestial Empire, 'alle light; 1njun
man come if he wante, Lung Sing no
flaid."
There was rich quartz.rock in the cave.
In one month after being occupied by a
party of six white men it had PANIED out
$4,000. Lung. Sing knew that he had
struck big thing, and his mind was
made up to stay there, Indians or no In
dams. In the afternoon of the second
day after he began work the Chinaman,
who was working by torchlight, felt a
twitch at his pigtail, and he glanced
around to discover an Indian warrior be-
side him. Some Cinnamon would have
"playcd calf at once" but Lung Sing was
working for 5000 per day. At the sec
ond jerk on his queue he seized his torch
and thrust it into the face of his captor,
and the next instant he was rafting his
canoe-toed shoes down the dark passage
with noise like horse galloping on a
plank sidewalk. When he climbed out
on the hillside and looked down, he saw
score of Indians around the mouth of
the cave, and one of them was hopping
around as if didn't feel we'll. Lung
Sing sat there behind a bush and
chuckled and grinned for an hour, and
when the redskins departed he went to
his work again, sagely musing:
'If Injun nance fink I'm diam fool he
find outee2''
They were certain to come again. He
had no arms except little shotgun and
ahatchet, but he had come to stay. The
idea of his busting out O. that because q
few hundred Indians might object to his
presence was too absurd to contemplate
He stretched score of bark strings across
the mouth Of the cave, and then connec-
ted them with single string running
back to his work. This last string ran
along the roof and over stone splinte,
and held up stone which must fall to
the floor, if any one attempted to dis.
place the strings across the mouth of the
cave. When he had finished this work
and satisfied himself that it could be de.
pended on, the Heather drew down his
left eye, slanted his hat over on his ear
and quoted the old saying by Confucius
"1'm bully old pig-tail with glass.
eyew
The redskins wern't at all pleased al
the way they had been cheated, and the
next morning whole carload of them
returned to the cave, having torches tc
explore it. When they saw the bark.
strings across its mouth it didn't remind
them Of woman's corset, but they sus.
pected a trap, and fooled around for two
or three hours. Meanwhile Lung-Sina
was playing hammer and pick, bringing
down ninety per cent. of gold with every
ten per cent. of stone. He had struck il
rich, and
"He thought of his gal' across the sea
And he wondered if she was true;
He thought of his dad, who had it bad
And his mother who was always blue
"Spat" came the stone which he had
fixed up as a signal-bell, and the long.
eyed Heather scored for start and gOt
away in fine style. The Indians halted
in the mouth OF the cave to Peer around
and light their torches, and during this
delay Lung-Sing wasn't stopping to play
marbles on the floor of the cave. He
emerged from the same cavity as before
a little damp under the collar, but in
prime condition. He was making his
lett eye wink cutely at his right, and
figuring up the profit of his mornings
work, when he heard the Indians coming.
They had divided into three bands and
followed the three passages, and it was
time for Lung-Sing to be kissed for his
mother. He got. Instead of making for
Boston Town or " Measlis City," he
slid down the mountain side and entered
his cave by the front door. The Indians
had brought along almost wagon-load
OF dry grass and weeds, expecting to have
to smoke him out. There was strong
draft through the cave, and when the
Heather discovered the grass, and saw
that none of the savages had remained
behind, he nearly wrenched himself to
pieces to carry out a suddenly conceived
plan.
In the course of seven or eight min
utes he had carried the grass to the point
where the cave split, and choked each
passage as far as the material would 90
Then he pulled out his match-b and
listened and waited. He heard them in
the three passages almost at the same
time, and when the foremost was not
more than forty feet away the match was
lighted. The grass was like finder, and
the draft drew the roaring flames into
passages in an instant. Three grand
yells from the three bands reached Lung
Sing at once, and he put his finger on his
nose with smile that was childlike and
bland"
The redskins got terrible roasting
1t has been twice stated by members
of the same band that not savage e.
capped injury, and it is certain that more
than dozen cooked and charred bodies
were found in a passage some time after
wards by white men. Those who got out
were terribly burned, and several died a,
their village. As the redskins had found
no one in the cave the fire appealed to
their superstition. They believed the
place to be the spirit of some outlawed