The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-30
THEY'RE EXPERTS At III
At Least They Can Do the Talk
ing Part About Mining.
MORE TALES OF OLD TIMES
Some of Them Are New and Some Of
Them Have Long Pedigree but
All of Them Will Bear
Telling.

I've been mining now since 1854
said Capt. George Freeman, as he tilt
ed his chair against the bar, land if is
my opinion that it is ability to see into
the earth a few feet that some folks
call luck. If l could only get myself
educated so as to understand or see
now rock runs in the earth only a ward
or SO, why. I'd be able to buy up all
the Mackays and Vanderbilts in a few
years. Some miners can see clearly for
few feet into rock sometimes. But
what fortune would be theirs if they
could do it every time,
L could sit here all night and tell YOU
Illustrations to prove this, but one will
90. About the time of the Modoc In
dlan war up in the lava beds near the
oregon line / was working a claim in
I - county. The mine was called
the Billy All the boys agreed with me
that the Billy would make me rich. |
Kept at work on it every day until all
my Sl,loO capital was gone into the
tunnel for grub, tools and nitro-glycer-
me. wrote back to my brother near
Rochester, N. Y, to send me $500. /
kept steadily at work The miners
who used to come to see me sweatin:
ana blasting away in my tunnel all
SAID L was sure to get into big nav
ore IN a week or two more. When nv
borrowed money was gone I had nut
IN Two years at the work, and T was
worried because I knew my brother
mad a growing family to support. and
ne mad put mortgage on his place to
help me. The tunnel was then $50 feet
In the rock
I took sick, became DISCOURAGED and
wondered why had ever been such a
TOOL as to keep pegging along there,
Nnen l might have got rich as other
miners had done by the dozen down in
I inc
was gathering up my tools to quit. a
buslneSsllke man came up to the TIM
mel. He asked to see the tunnel. which
was mostly of solid rock without tim
berlilg, and after he had closely exam
ined both walls for two OF. three hours
asked me if l wanted to sell I feigned
Indifference, and, after calculating 100
feet of tunneling at $40 a foot, answered
that | might sell if I got my price
Well, what's your price,? he asked.
feplled $500 with my heart in my
mouth. Come down to town and get
your money, was the answer, and that
night | went to the tavern in Plumas
ate off china dishes and slept with
$500 under my pillow. in clean sheets.
for the first time in two years. Next
morning the purchaser asked me to
help him put in a counle of shots. and,
OF course, l agreed. When we got to
the tunnel he examined the wall and
selected a point about 100 feet from
the mouth. Let's drill a couple of
holes here, he said. The minute he
laid hold of the sledge I saw he was
miner. and in short time we had
two holes in the rock. When the shots
went off | could hardly restrain myself
from rushing into the tunnel at once,
and when the smoke cleared away I
was the first on the spot. And there
lay body of ore exposed which was
afterWard found to be three feet thick
ad ran over 500 to the ton. l had dug
my tunnel a yard away from the gold
vein a year before, and had been in
and out of that tunnel thousands of
times and never knew how near l had
passed TO the fortune | had hoped
prayed and dreamed for every minute
I left the vein, and the superior knowl-
edge of my purchaser had enabled him
to detect the point of departure
Il had such a desire to know how big
fortune I had missed that I hung
about Pumas for few weeks In that
time ore that went as high as 81, 200 a
ton was taken out, and in six months
the buyer had got more than $4,000
from his mine. A year later he sold it
for $40,0 900 or SO. That buyer is now
James B. Ellsworth of the Creede bo-
nanza syndicate, worth probably $780,
000''
81 knew Dutchman in Montana a
dozen years ago" said a middle-aged
man, who stood over near Higgins bar,
who made $1,000 or $4,000 from a little
quartz mine, and it was the purest
piece of luck you ever heard Of The
Dutchnan had a large family and his
children helped him in his search for
pay rock. His 10-year- daughter
dreamed that by manzanita bush was
an opening into yellow gold-he arine
quartz. The old man paid no attention
ito the girls talk, but she said a week