Arizona silver belt., 1899-10-05
CHARGED WITH DYNAMITE
How q rluIe Turned Mine Into a
 GeySer.


 Geyser.
 i The pack mule is quite as much an institution as the team mule, and is absolutely as indispensable in the mountains. Mule packing is fine art, and with a well trained animal and a skiilful packer you can safely transport anything from piano to a bag of oats. When the packer has finished his job in an artistic manner rear, or roll, but he cannot rid himself of his burden, and he finally gives it up in dispair. After two or three eX- periences he will submit to hls destiny and fall into line with the rest of the train every morning to re- ceive his load from the packer \ well broken pack mule is always proud of his load, and If by any mean it gets loose he will step quietly out of line and wait until the packmaster comes along to tighten it.
 The most serious objection to the mule, which you sometimes find in human beings, is the delusion that he can sing. One who has never heard a mule solo cannot appreciate the extent of his mistake; hut like everything else about a mule his song is strictly original. It belongs to no other animal. No one can describe and no one can initiate it.
 ''Speakin' O mules, said an old santa Fe teamster. as he tipped back in his char, reminds me of 'stror- dnary experience l had once with q critter Me and Mexican Nose meb- be you knew him? They called him so because he was minin' in Mexico for quite a spell-me and Mexican Nose was prospectin' up in the Bill Williams mountains one winter when our mule ct up all our dynamite cartridges. ! There we was 100 miles from nowhere, and no way of gettin' more.n i ''I reckon l know how ye felt.n said i an old Californian, who sat in the cor uer smaking. 'I've been fixed that way when the flicker gave out. Ifs a distrcssin' situation"
 We dassent try to ride the mule to the nearest settlement continued the teamster, without noticing the inter ruption, fer neither of want quite ready for kingdom come neither me nor Nose. But Nose he was the most ingenious cuss that eve, handled a pick. He was allers inventin' some sort Q labor.saviu' contraption. but was terrible unlucky. Nose set athinlSin' fer while over the sitooa- ton, and then he loked up at me kind O pleased with himseIfan' observed as solemn as preacher
 Jake, do you happen to know any thing O dynamics?'
 . "'No, not durn thing, says l.
 Q" Wal says he it's the science of explodin' and low it will work here That miserable critter has had the fun O eatin' them cartridges. and now he's got to do the blastin'. So he tied up a passle O stones in the oats and fed 'em into the mule, His idee was that when the digestin' machinery got to workin it would fetch the stones into contact with the fulminatin' end of the eat ridges, and they'd be a-hoistin' of dirt. ! So we backed the mule down into the shaft and crept behin' big rock to wait for things to begin to commence. Well, 1 swear. In about fifteen min utes there was the biggest kind of a Fourth of July celebration you ever heerd tell on It was bout noon when the first proceedin's opened, and when the first cartridge went off the air was full of dirt and mule meat for miles round, and me and Nose had all we could tend to dodgin the big boulders that come out of the shaft. In fifteen minutes the shaft was POO feet deep. and the dIrt scattered all over the country. In ten minutes more that durned mule had struck one O them mysterious underground streams you find in the desert and the hole was full of water. so there warHt any more minin' fer us."
 That was tough,' said the Califor- nian sympathetically. You jest nat chelly overdone it, didn't yep
 Well, reckon we did; but we come out even after all That is, me and More didn't lose no money.
 ''How's that?'
 Why. we sold the shaft to a tender, foot that happened along jest that min nit. He thought it was geyser and Nose and skipped out before the mule quit firin.'"
 John w. Mackay accompanied by E. J. Matthews and Thayer Darlington. visited the Grand Reef mine. the prop. erty of Mr Mackay, last week Mr. Matthews is an experienced mining man. formerly of Virginia City but now makes New York his home. te which place he has returned, while Mir. Mackay. Mr. Darlington and Stu