The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-07-22
MY LUCK IN A TUNNEL.
An Old Miners Story.

I am an old miner. Not one of the
nowadays stripe, but an old l849
California miner. I have been en-
gagged in all description of mining
transactions, except the new tangled
one of mining stock in companies
"feet," believe they call it. Among
my varied undertakings was one oper-
alton in tunnel, in which I and my
partners engaged in the summer of
1852.
One afternoon in that year. as | was
carrying up bucket of water from the
river to our tent at the top of the
bank, my foot caught under q large
stone, and my perpendicular was at
once changed to horizontal posture.
| while the water from the overturned
bucket spread itself in various direc-
tions.
1 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 folded
paper, which had been placed under
the stone causing my fall. When my
foot tripped, the etone was overturned
| aud the paper, folded in letter form,
lay exposed to view. Bending over, ]
picked it up, aud began to examine it.
It was written with pencil, in char
acters very irregular and stifay formed
as if made by person with awounded
| hand. The contents were as follows !:
If this letter should fall into the
hands of any person I wish to inform
them that I have been attacked and
mortally wounded by my two partners,
! who wished to obtain my money. Fail
ling to discover it, after wounding me,
| they have fed, leaving me here to die.
Whoever gets this letter will find,
buried in ravine at the foot of a
'blazed tree, 25 PAGES due north of
this, bag containing $4,000 in gold
dust. That it may prove more FORUM
ate property to him than it has to me,
is the hope of
ANDREW FORREST.
I stood for some minutes after read
! ing the letter like one awakened from
dream. I could not convince my
self that the letter in my hand was a
genuine document, and read it over
and over again, thinking I might get
some clue from the handwriting to the
real author. It 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 accidental
discovery rendered such a surmise
very improbable. I sat down on log
and turned the matter over in my mind
for some time. Atlast | got up, and
pacing off the required distance in the
direction mentioned in the letter, !
came to large tree. Carefully ex-
amining it, I discovered a scar, clearly
indicating that the tree had been
"blazed' at some remote period. This
was confirmation strong as proof of
Holy Writ and Immediately went
to work to discover the locality of the
ravine. Here I was at fault. Nothing
of the kind was to be seen. To all
appearances stream of water never
had passed in the neighborhood Of the
tree. This was not encouraging, and
1 sat down on the ground and read the
letter again to see if I had not mis-.
taken some of its directions. No, ]
was in the right place, but where was
the ravine2
A tap on the shoulder aroused me
from my meditation, and on looking
up | saw my two partners, who loudly
abused me for having neglected the
preparation of their supper. As an
excuse I showed them the letter and
detailed the manner of finding it. To
my surprise, they were as much ex-
cited by it's perusal as 1 had been, and
looked around perseveringly for the
ravine, but without effect for some
time. At last Jack Nesbitt, who had
been miner since '48, said:
L think there has been a ravine
here, but it has been filled up by the
rains.
On close examination we decided
that his suspicion was correct, and af-
ter some consultation we determined
that the next morning we would com
mence digging.
Morning came and we erepaired to the
spot with pick and shovel. Jack pro-
posed that we should follow the course
of the ravine, which appeared to run
into the body of the hill, rather than
dig down in any one place. The re
suit was that in a few days we had
formed quite cave in the side of the
hill.
We worked at this tunnel for four
days without finding the bag. On the
fourth day Jack proposed that he and
my partner, Bill Jennings, should
carry the dirt down to the river, and
wash it, leaving me to dig in the tun-
mel. In that way, they thought, we
might at least make grub" while
searching for the hidden money. |
thought the idea foolish, but as they
entered so eagerly into my views re-
garding 4he buried bag of dust, I made
no objection to the plan, and dug
away with redoubled energy. In fact,
| had thought so much about the OBJ
ject of our search that I had become
utterly regardless of anything else. !
had dreamt of itwhen sleeping, unused
on it when waking, and it had OBJ
tanned complete control of my mind.
Day after day we worked-I digging
and my companions washing; yet,
strange to say, l did not become dis
couraged. They said nothing about
the bag of gold dust and l asked them
nothing about the result Of their
washing the excavated soil.
We had worked about three weeks,
and had formed a tunnel exten ding
about ID feet into the hill, when on
one afternoon, completely tired out, |
sat down to rest in the cave. / had
only intended to sit little while, but
five minutes had not elapsed before ]
was fast asleep. l was awakened by a
crash, and found my feet and legs
completely covered by mass of dirt
and stones. The front part of the tun.
mel had fallen in, and l was in man.
ner buried alive. About ten feet of
| the tunnel remained firm and from