Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1883-08-15
MY LUCK IN A TUNNEL
BY MRS. KIRKLAND.

i nm an OlQ miner. MOI one OF the
now-a-day Washoe and Nevada stripe,
but an old '49 California miner. Ihave
been engaged in all descriptions of min
ing transactions, except the new-fangled
one of mining stock in companies
''feet" believe they call it. Among my
varied undertakings was one operation
in tunnel, in which and my partners
engaged in the summer of 1852.
One afternoon in that year, as I was
carrying up bucket of water from the
river to our tent at the top of the bank,
my foot caught under large stone, and
my perpendicular was at once changed
into horizontal posture, while the water
from the overturned bucket spread itself
in various directions. With few ex
pletives of rather forcible character,
quite customary and common in that re-
gion and period, I raised myself to my
feet again, and, picking up the bucket,
was about to retrace my steps to the
river, when my attention was attracted
by folded paper, which had been
placed under the stone causing my fall.
When my foot tripped, the stone was
overturned, and the paper, folded in
letter form, lay exposed to view. Bend
ing. over, I picked it up, and proceeded
to examine it. It vas written with pen
Gil, in characters very irregular and
stithy formed, as if made by a person
with wounded hand. The contents
were rs follows:
If this letter should fall into the hands of
any person. wish to inform them that have
been attacked and MORALLY wounded BY nv
two partners. who wished TO obtain my money.
Failing to discover it, after wounding me, they
have fled, leaving me here to die. Whoever
gets this letter will find. buried in ravlne at
the foot Of ''blazed" tree, twenty five PAGES
due north of this, bag containing $4,000 In
gold dust. That it may prove more fortunate
property to him than it has to me is the hope
of ANDREW INDUS.
stood for some minutes after read
ing the letter like one awakened from a
dream. 1 could not convince myself
that the letter in my hand was genuine
document, and read 1t over and over
again, thinking l might get from the
handwriting some clew to the real
author. 1t might be a trick got up by
my partners to raise laugh at my ex.
pense. No, the place where it was
found, and the purely accidental dis
covcry, rendered such a surmise very
improbable. I sat down on log and
turned the matter over and over in my
mind for some time. At last I got up,
and pacing off the required distance in
the direction mentioned in the letter, I
came TO large tree. Carefully examin-
ing it, discovered scar, clearty inai-
citing that the tree had been blazed {"
f.t some remote period. This was "con-
trmati:'n strong as proofs of holy writ, !"
eld Immediately undertook to discover
the Locality of the ravine. Here 1 was
l; fau " Nothing of the kind was to be
see To all appearances a stream Of
water never had passed in the neighbor-
hood of the tree. This was not encour-
aging; and I sat down on the ground
lad red the letter again, to see if I had
not 1nl 3taken some of its directions.
no, was in the right place; but where
Vas the ravine?
A tap on the shoulder aroused me
tom my meditations, and, on looking
mp. l saw my two partners, who loudly
bsra.ed me for having neglected the
pl ena,ation of their supper. As an ex-
cu-r, 1 showed them the letter, and de-
tail the manner OF my finding it. To
my surprise they were as much excited
by its perusal as I had been, and we
all looked around perseveringly for the
ravine, but without effect for some time.
At last, Jack Nesbitt, who has been a
miner since 40, said:
II think there has been ravine
here, but it has been filed up by the
rains"
On close examination we decided that
his supposition was correct, and, after
some consultation, we determined that
we would commence digging the next
morning.
Morning came, and we repaired to the
spot with pick and shovel. Jack pro.
posed that we should follow the course
OF the ravine, which appeared to run
into the body of the hill, rather than to
dig down, for, as he said, we would be
more likely to find the bag in the bed
of the ravine by following it up than by
digging down in any one place. The
result was that in 9 few days we had
formed quite cave in the side of the
hill.
We had worked at this tunnel for four
days without finding the bag. On the
fourth day Jack proposed that he and
my other partner, Bill Jennings, should
carry the dirt we had excavated down ia
the river and wash it, leaving me to dig
in the tunnel. In that way, they
thought, we might at least ':make grub
while searching for the hidden money.
I thought the idea foolish; but as they
had entered so eagerly into my views re-
garding the buried bag of dust, made
no objection to the plan, and dug away
with redoubled energy. In fact, I had
thought 80 much about the object of our
search that I had become utterly regard
less of almost everything else. 1 had
dreamed of it while sleeping, unused on
it when waking, and it had obtained
complete control of my mind. Day at
ter day We worked-I digging, my COM
panions washing; yet, strange to say, I
IL .