Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-11-11


| into the solid bedrock, Startled and
mystltied, he began to probe the yielding
spot, and In moment gave great cry
of newborn hope. How strange the
chance upon which a life may hang! In
| all the thirty feet of bedrock he had
| cleaned up, there was not a hollow; but
| right here, its edge an inch from where
| he had dug, was pocket of unknown
| size. Some bowlder, caught in the
eddles of forgotten centuries, had rolled
| around and around in this one spot till
1t ground for itself basin in the stub
born bedrock. The grinding rock was
there now-he could feel with his bar its
rounded side amid the fine sand with
which the hole had filled before the
stream built that torrent pile above
and lifted its own bed by nearly twenty
feet. The pothole lay partly under one
end of the fallen bowlder, so that he
could dig in it without danger of
serious cayein. If it was deep enough
and wide enough!
He Dove the bar fercely into the hard
gravel, he pried away the stones and
scooped out the sand with fingers that
bled to their ungentle touch. In a mo-
ment he had cleared place large
enough to let him at the buried pothole.
Laying aside the heavy bar, he began to
claw out the sand with frantic hands
and throw it back between his legs like
rabbit burrowing. Now and then a
loosened stone from the roof gave him
cruel pelt on the head or back, but he
hardly noticed it. The candle was
burning very family now, and his
breath grew short and thick. The scant
air of his prison was fast becoming a
deadly poison, Even if the pothole
were big enough, could he keep breath
to burrow through: He was down in
the pothOle now. right under the fallen
bowlder. The round stone which had
worn that blessed pit was too heavy to
be lifted out, but he had half a yard be-
tween it and the bowlder above. and that
was room enough.
AT last his hand, burrowing forward.
came to polished concave surface 1t
was the farther side of the pothole! He
scooped away the sand with vigorous
energy until he could feel all along that
strange, bowl-like wall, and in an agony
of doubt lifted his hands to see what
was above. They touched something
hard and smooth and cc-.vc1, and he
shrieked aloud. 1t vas the great
bowlder-it covered the farther side of
the great pothole, and he would never
get out! But no! 1t is a smaller rock
and there Is another wedged beside it.
and another! The pothole opens out
beyond the prison bowlder!
He crawled back for his bar. but it
was too long to be turned up in that
passage under the great rock. His
strength was almost gone. His head
swan and strange whirr was in his
ears To die after all, with dear life so
near! He caught up smooth stone
that had fallen in the drift, and lying
upon his back in the pothole began to
hammer desperately overhead. cracking
off rocky splinters that filed his eyes,
crushing his fingers blindly, working
stupidity, as one half asleep.
And then round stone as big as his
head fell and barely missed his face. and
that let loose another and there came a
shower of sand and that sweetest thing
in all the world, the fresh air of heaven
and Rodolfo knew no more.
"Pero! What keeps Rodolfo so long?"
muttered Maria anxiously. for was at
home much time, and not yet has he
filled the bucket TO send up. Rodolfo,
Little son. And she leaned over the
shaft, calling shrilly again and again.
May the hottest mother help me-"
she murmured, catching the rope and
shivering, for it is very deep. But |
| must see what has come to my boy"
And sliding down the harsh rope. with
burned and failing fingers. she fell in
heap to the bottom.
When RodOlfo opened his eyes the lit
tie hole above his face had grown larger.
and slender, bleeding fingers were tear
ing at its rough sides. Family at first,
but with growing strength, he hammered
with his stone from within, until at last
he squeezed through the narrow opening
and crawled with his fainting mother to
daylight at the bottom of the shaft.
1t was late at night when the boy was
strong enough to climb the rope and
windlass his mother up, and for many
days both lay helpless and fevered in the
little jacal, cared for by kindly vecinos
| from Dolores.
But both got well at last, and Rodolfo
went back to work in his placer claim,
which quite filed the bottle and many
others like it in course of time. But that
blessed pothole which had saved his life
was what really made him a rich man
for that poor country. 1t had been a
lively miser in its day, and when he
| cleaned it out, well knowing that such a
pit in the very path of the pay streak was
the best of all traps to catch the vagrant
gold, he washed out in one day from the
gravel in its bowllike bottom SO many
hundreds of dollars worth of yellow dust
and fat nuggets that he never dared tell
how much there was, and l doubt if any
one knows to this day.-C. F. Lummis in
Detroit News