San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-03-23
ON THE PAYSTREAK.

He dvpve the bar fiercely into the hard
gravel, he pried away the stones and
scooped out the sand with fingers that
bled to their ungentle touch. In mo-
ment he had cleared a 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
a 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
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 yard be.
tween it and the bowlder above. and that
was room enough
AT last his hand, burrowing forward,
came to a polished concave surface. Ii
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 convex, and he
shrieked aloud. 1t was the great
bowlder--it covered the farther side of
the great pothole, and he would never
get out! But mol 1t is 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 il
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 SC
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 filled 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 al
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 a
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 Rodolfc
went back to work in his placer claim
which quite filled 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 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 doubt if any
one, knows to this day.-C. F. Lummis in
Detroit News.