The Opelousas courier., 1885-09-05
MY LUCK IN A TUNNEL.
AN OLD MINERS STORY.

/ am an old miner. Not n OF the
nowaday stripe, but an old forty-nine
Californian miner. / have been en-
gagged in all description of mining
transactions. except the n~ew-fangled
n of mining stock in companies
''feet," | believe they call it. Among
my varied undertakings was one oper-
alton in a tunnel. in which / 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 Jul tent at the top of the
bank, my foot caught under a large
stone, and my perpendicular was at
once changed to a horizontal posture,
while the water from the overturned
bucket spread itself in various direc-
tions.
/ raised myself to my feet again, and
picking up the bucket was about to re-
trace my steps to the river, when my
attention was attracted by a folded pa
per, 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. Bending over. 1
picked it up, and ~proceededto exmaine
1t. IL was written with pencil, in
characters very irregular and stiffiy
formed, as if made by a person with a
wounded hand. The contents were as
follows:
If this letter should fall into the
hands of any person, | wish to inform
Them that / have been attacked and
mortally wounded by my two partners
who wish to obtain my money. Fail
Ing to discovPnst, after wounding me,
they have fed, leaving me here to die.
Whoever gets this letter viii find. bur-
led In a ravine at the foot of a 'blazed'
tree, twenty-five PAGES due north of
this, a bag containing five thousand
dollars In gold dust. That it may
prove more fortunate property to him
than it has to me, is the hope Of
ANDREW FORREST.
stood for some minutes after read
Ing the letter like one awakened from
d dream. I could not convince myself
that the letter in my hand was a gen.
uine document. and read 1t over and
over again, thinking / might get some
clue from the handwriting to the real
author. It might be a trick get up by
my partners to raise q laugh at my
expense. No, the place where it was
found, and the purely accidental dis
covsry. rendered such a surmise very
improbable. I sat down on a log and
turned the matter over in my mind
for some time. AT last / got up, and
pacing of the required distance in the
direction mentioned in the letter, I
came to a large tree. Carefully *
amining 1t. 7 discovered a scar clearly
indicating that the tree had been
eblazed' at some remote period. This
was confirmation strong as proof of
Holy Writ and Immediately went
10 work to discover the locality Of the
ravine. Here ] was at fault. Nothing
Of tie kind was to be seen. To all
appearances q stream Of water never
had passed in the neighborhood of the
tree. This was not encouraging; and
! sat down on the ground and read the
letter again, to see If I had not mis-
taken some of its directions. No, I
was in the right place, but where was
the ravine2
A tap on the shoulder aroused me
from my meditation, and on looking
up I saw my two partners, who loud
u abused me for having neglected the
preparations for their supper. AS an
ixcuse / showed them the letter, and
detailed the manne Of finding it. To
my surprise, they were as much excit-
ID BY it's perusal as I had been. and
looked around ~perseveringly for the
ravine, but without effect for some
time. At last Jack Nesbitt, who had
been q miner since '48, said:
II think there has been a ravine
here. but IL has been filed IN by the
rains.
On close examination we decided
that his suspicion was correct. and
after some consultation we determined
That The next morning we would com
ulence digging.
Morning came and We repaired to
The spot with pick and shovel. Jack
proposed that we should follow the
course Of the rayine. which appeared
10 run into the body Of the hill, rather
than to dig down in any one place.
The result was that Id q few days we
bad formed quite q cave in the side Of
lhe hin.
We worked as this tunnel for four
days without finding the bag. On the
fourth day Jaek promised that liz and
my other partner. Bill jennings.
should earry the dirt down to the riy-
y, and wash II leaving me to did ID
The tunnsl. "a that way. shey