Omaha daily bee., 1883-08-04
MY LUCK IN A TUNNEL.
ny MRS. KIRKLAND.

engaged in all descriptions of mining
transactions, except the new.fan.
gled one of mining stock in companies
feet" l believe they call it. Among my
varied undertakings was one operation
in a tunnel, in which myself and my
partners engaged in the summer of 1852.
One afternoon in that year, as | was
carrying up a bucket of water from the
river to our tent at the top of the bank,
my foot caught under a large stone, and
my perpendicular was at once changed to
u horizontal posture, while the water
from the overturned bucket spread itself
in various directions. With n few exple.
tives of rather forcible character, quite
customary and common in that region
and period, | 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 a
folded paper which had been placed I'M
der the stone causing my fall. When my
foot tripped, the stone was overturned,
and the paper, folded in letter form, lay
exposed to view. Bending over, | pickec
it up, and proceeded to examine it. Ii
was written in pencil in characters irregu
larly and stifily formed, as if made by {
person with a wounded hand. The con
tents were as follows:
If this letter should fall into the hands
of any person, | wish to inform them that
| have been attacked and mortally wound.
ed by my two partners, who wished to
obtain my money. Failing to discover
it, after wounding me, they have fed,
,a 49,, ,<n l.Ar. a.. IL. NNl--.. ..As
this letter will find, buried in a ravino al
the foot of a "blazed" tree, twenty-five
PAGES due north of this, a bag containing
$1,000 in gold dust. That it may prove
more fortunate property to him that il
has to me is the hope of
ANDREW INDUS.
| stood for some minutes after reading
the letter like one awakenedfrom a dream.
| could not convince myself that the letter
in my hand vas a genuine document, and
read it over and over again, thinking
might get from the handwriting some
clew to the real author. 1t might be a
trick got up by my partners to raise a
laugh at my expense. No; the place
where it was found, and the purely accid-
entail discovery, rendered such a surmise
very improbable. / sat down on a log
and turned the matter over and over i'll
my mind for some time. At last / got
up, and pacing off the required distance in
the direction mentioned in the letter, /
came to a large tree. Carefully examin-
ing it, l discovered a scar, clearly indi-
eating that the tree had been ''blazed" at
some remote period. This was %''contir-
nation strong as proofs of holy writ"
and l Immediately undertook to discover
the locality of the ravine. Here was at
fault. Nothing of the kind was to be
seen. To all appearances a stream of
water never had passed in the neighbor-
hood of the tree. This was not encourag-
ing; and | sat dswn on the ground and
read the letter again, to, see if l had not
mistaken some of its directions. No,
| was in the right place; but where was
the ~ravinel
A tap on the shoulder aroused me from
my ~meditations, and, on looking up, !
saw my two partners, who loudly berated
me for having neglected the preparation
for their supper. AS an excuse, / showed
them the letter, and detailed the manner
of my finding it. To my surprise they
were as much excited by its perusal as !
had been, and we all looked around per.
s%everingly for the r%avine, but without
effect for some time. At last Jack
Nesbitt, who had been a miner since 40,
said:
81 think there has been a ravint
here, but it has been filled up by thu
rains.
On close examination we decided tina
his %supposition was correct, and, aftel
some consultation, we determined tina
we would m digging the mex
morning.
Morning came, and we repaired to tn,
spot with pick and shovel. Jack pro
posed thst we should follow the course
of the r%avine, which appeared t. run il
the body of the hill, rather than to dis
down; for, as he said, we would be more
likely to find the bag in the bed of tn,
%ravine by following it up than to dig
down in any n place. The result wal
that in a few days we had formed quit,
a cave in the side of the hill.
We had worked at this tunnel for foul
days without finding the bag. On thu
fourth day Jack proposed that he and my
other partner, Bill Jennings, should car
ry the dirt We had ~excavated down to thu
river and wash it, leaving me to dig il
the tunnel. In that way, they thought
we might at least ''make grub" while
searching for the hidden money.
thought the idea foolish; but as they hac
entered so eagerly into my views regard
ing the buried bag of dust, Imade no OBJ
lection to the plan, and dug away witt
redoubled energy. Intact, l hadthough.
so much about tie object of our searcl
that had become utterly regardless o
almost everything else. | had dreamed
of it while sleeping, unused on it wheI
waking, and it had obtained complet,
control OF my mind. Day after day W.
worked digging, my companions wash
ing; yet, strange to say, j did not becom,
discouraged. They said nothing abou
the bag of gold dust, and | asked then
nothing about the result of their washing
the excavated dust.
We had worked about three weeks, anc
had formed n tunnel exceeding about ff
teen feet into the hill, when, one after
noon, completely tired out, / sat down t,
rest in the cave. / had only intended t,
sit u little while, but five minutes had no
elapsed before / was fast asleep. / wa
awakened by a crash, and found my fee
and legs completely covered by a mass O
dirt and stones. The front part of tn
tunnel had fallen in, and / was in a man
ner buried alive. About ten feet of tn
tunnel remained firm, and, from my oh
servation of it's structure prior to the ac
cident, wa conviced that / had no rca
son to apprehend any danger in that quar-
ter. My partners had carried dirt enoug
to the river to keep them busy there 70