San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-03-22

The afternoon shadows were deep in
the round hollows of the mighty Sandals
when Rodolfo rose from beside the
rocker, emptied the screen and straight.
ened his stiff legs.
Nov for clean up, nanar' he said.
She poured in gentle stream upon the
apron while he rocked; and, as there
was now no new sand rolling down, that
on the apron and on the bottom of the
rocker began to work rapidly forward,
and in q few minutes there remained
only little sand caught in the angle
behind each rifle. Rodolfo whitfield
out smooth, thin stick with a square
end, and carefully scooped the wet
sand into his bowl, scraping out every
grain from the cracks, and proceeded to
pan it out. But now, instead of few
handfuls of random dirt, the bowl held
the concentrated richness of half ton
of gravel from bedrock. That was the
beauty of the rocker-it would have
taken four times as long to "work" that
pile Of gravel with the pan; the rocker
did the heavy work in short order, and
left only the finishing touches for the
pan.
And now, when Rodolfo had got rid
of most of the sand and began to 'draw"
what was left at the bottom of the bowl,
there was sight for four dark, glisten-
ing eyes. AS the unstable sand drifted
forward and forward it uncovered more
and more of rich, deliberate bank of
| yellow, till Rodolfo's trembling fingers
scarce could hold up that precious pan
from splitting, and excited tears ran
| down Maria's thin cheeks. When at last
he had guided the gold safely into the
bottle he laid his face to hers and said in
voice which was tremulous, but
strangely sweet:
at is well, mana! The governor can
not have the serape that was my fathers.
And now let us go home"
The days went on, and the yellow dust
in the bottle had grown half way to the
top. Here and there in it were little
rounded nuggets and waxy flakes, which
Rodolfo loved to shake up. There was
whole sack of flour now in the jacal
and bushel of frijoles Mexican beans).
Every day Flojo-who had been bought
with one fat nugget-"packed" his load
of water to the arroyo; and every day
Rodolfo and his mother worked on the
gravel he sent up. His drift now ran
thirty feet out from the bottom of the
shaft-a narrow, dark, crooked burrow,
at whose farther end he lay upon his
side, and pecked away with his bar by a
candles stingy light. Some days he lost
the paystreak, and the panning out at
evening was very light; but soon he
found it again, and all was well. And
every day the bottle grew heavier and
brighter, till it was like bar of lead to
lift.
One morning as Rodolfo was working
in his drift there came sudden dull,
low rumble, and loosened pebbles fell
upon him. Filled with nameless dread,
he crawled out toward the shaft, but no
faint ray of daylight came to meet him
at the corner. The great bowlder under
which he had dug, five feet from the en-
trance Of the drift, had fallen inl He
had undermined it more than one should
in following the paystreak under it.
And now it had crushed out its gravel
supports and had fallen and closed his
burrow. He was buried alive! With
trembling fingers he felt across its cold,
smooth surface. Another bowrder had
followed it from above and filed its
place so that he could not dig out above
would crush him.
Thought chased thought in strange
procession through his brain. Buried
alive under eighteen feet of earth and
stone-his mother so near as that, but
never to see him again-his poor motherl
And just as they were getting the dear
gold that would make them all so happyi
But in the veins of this slender, dark
faced boy ran blood of that old blue Of
Spain that conquered and opened this
new world to the old. He would not
die like coward-he would try.
He crawled back and got his bar and
candle and brought them to the bowlder
door of his prison and began to try the
surrounding earth with cautious punch
ings But the fall of the great rock had
so loosened all the soil that it was suIe
to cave as soon as he should attempt to
dig through it. In his desperation he
even tried if he could not pry the great
rock forward and in time clear out into
the shaft, but dozen men could scarce
have budged that ton of porphyry.
Still he thrust his steel lever into the
earth at either side and showed on the
bowlder, and suddenly the bar "gave"
downward, as if he had driven it foot
into the solid bedrock! Startled and
mystified, he began to probe the yielding
spot and in moment gave great cry