The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-03-28
BASSICK,S LUCK.

OAOOxVA'O AOVAs
How . Penniless Old Prospector Struck 1t
Rich in ROsita "Reminiscences OF q Miner
"A True Story in Dialect.
Times Fall, the day was far.
Tom Taggart stood behind the bar.
The neighbOrs round the counter drawed,
And calmly drinkcd and chawed.
Correspondence Chicago Tribune.l
LEADvILLE, Col, March 1--WE were
sitting around the stove, five or six of
US, the other evening at One-armed
Kate's. With . single exception, all
were old miners who had lived all the
way from ten to twenty years in the
Rockies, and had prospected more holes
in the ground than there are cinnamon
bears in Gunnison County. The con-
versation, beginning on general topics,
gradually drifted into personal reminis-
censes.
"War you ever down about Rosita
and the Silver Cliff Districk," inquired
one of the party, addressing his remarks
to a long, shambling, heavy-bearded in
dividual in top-boots, who, with one leg
thrown over the other, and one enOr-
nous foot resting on the edge Of the
stove, sat tilted back in his chair at
dangerous angle. The person thus
spoken to took deliberate aim at a saw
dust spittOon on the other side of the
stove, and fred with deadly precision.
He then carefully changed legs and re-
piled:
81 hev."
The audience waited. After q con-
siderable pause, MIR. Richardson dis
charged another round of ammunition
and repeated:
81 hev, Mr.. Simmons.
"lt war nigh about three var ago."
he continued, "when me and my pard-
ner struck Rosita, and worked along in
the Pokyhontus. They warn't much
show then for prospecting. Men had
been thar afore and dug over the burned
old hill and give it up. They was holes
around so thick that you darsent step off
the trail fur fear of goin' down."
"Ever know old Bassick over thar?"
interrupted Simmons.
"Know him? Should think l did
Warn't me and my pardner grub-stakin'
him for nigh onto q var before he struck
it rich? Why, the old sinner couldn't
git job nowhar, and we boys all kinder
took pity on him, his old woman being
sicklv-like and taking in washing al odd
times, and him and her heving a large
family. Old Bassick war queer
humpity-back chap ami no use in mine,
but he , ar always tramping about the
camp and peekin' into all the holes what
he'd been abandoned by the boys. Once
in while he'd
| COME ROIrND AND WANT A STAKE.
and we'd gently chip in and give him
enough to get barl OF flour or hunk
of bacon"
GIVE heerd of Old Bassick lots," re-
marked Simmons musingly, "but !
never knowed Jest how he struck it."
"Waal, it war queer, sure enough.
You see, as he was sliding around that
ar Round Mountain one day he come to
a hole in the ground, which it he'd been
dug into and then kinder left, as being
no account. So old Bassick he looked
into this hole, and he says to himself,
'Mebbe there's mineral, mebbe not.
With that be jumps down and picks
away, and picks away, and keeps on
pickin'. Sure enough, bimeby he comes
to some sand between the powders
which it looks like ore, and then he goes
off and gifts it assayed."
"Wsr she big?" eagerly inquired one
of the listeners.
"Waal, she war in the eighties some
whar, believe, but the boys all larfed
when they heerd on it. They couldn't
nohow think as Old Bassick he'd ever
struck any thing. And, do you know,
it war a week or more afore the old
cuss could git any body to work fur
him. He come to me and says, 'Dick,
I'll give you three and harf a day CT
you will come onto my mine,' and l
kinder winked at the boys, and l says,
'Whar is your mine, Bassick?' He turn
ed onto me as proud as could be, and he
says, up var about hart mile, Mister
Richardson
$50, some of us boys, jest for joke,
said as we'd 90 up and take look at it.
Sure enough, wren we got thar we found
the old man
HE'D RELY STRUCK 1T,
and we all hired to him ON the spot fur
three fifty, though the wages otherwise
were no more than two and two fifty"
"Good luck enough fur you," inter-
rupted one of the party.
The miner reached down into his
bootleg and extracted huge slice of
tobacco, calmly bit off mouthful, re-
placed the remnant, and replied:
"Old Bassick war no fool. He work.
ed along fur a month, and when pay
day came he guy US just two dollars a
day all round. They warn't no use of
kicking, seeing as how the burned old
mine had got developed so as he could
get all the men he wanted at that ar
price. No; Old Bessick warn't no fool "
This explanation caused general
laugh, in which, however, the last
speaker did not join.
eve went down nigh onto sixty
feet" he continued gravely, and then
all of a sudden the mineral give out,
give out completely. Take it all around,
that ar mine of Old Bassick's war the
uueerest and the cussedest mine. No.
body could ever make it out. All them
scientific fellers as examined it said as
how it was a phenomanoun, and they
couldn't make nothing out of it nohow:
You see it warn't no strata, nor sand
carbonates, nor nothing of that sort,
but like as if it war chimbly growing
right up out of the yarth, and as if it
had been filled up with powders and
then the stream of mineral poured in.
You could scrape one of them ar bowl
ders with knife and get a dollars
worth of horn silver off it. The screen.
ings alone would assay 200 and 800
ounces. The durndest mine!"
"Too bad she give out at sixty feet"
remarked Simmons.
swat a minnit! That amt all. You
see. we he'd got down about forty feet