Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1899-05-19
a Double Shot
BY Stewart Edward White
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DAT M'CANN came up from the
plains into the hills in bad humor
with himself and the world. He had
tried to be cow-puncher and had been
promptly bucked off; he had tackled
the cooking problem and only escaped
mobbing by resigning his job; now he
had dragged his little, SQUAD form,
with it's hanging arms, up into the
hills to try mining. He applied to the
first camp he came to. King, the fore
man, gave him job.
Early the next morning he and an
other man walked down the gulch
through the sarvis bushes for half
mile, turned abruptly to the right,
climbed the uneven length of a zigzag
trail and at last halted near the top of
a ridge. The pine trees, slim and tall,
grew out of the unevenly carpeted
ground, through which cropped irreg-
ular slices of a red-brown, crumbling
rock. At the very crest was a dark gray
''dike" of quartzite, standing up steep
and castellated for height of 30 feet
or more. This was the Hanging WALL
of the prospective mine. Down through
the trees were glimpses of vast, breath
less descents to other ridges and other
nothing but the blue sky.
The two men had stopped within a
hundred feet of the top. The old hand
went over to a rough lean-to of small
trees covering a rude forge, from be-
meath which he drew several steel drills
of various lengths and a sledgehammer,
which he carried to scar in the face of
a huge outcropping rock. After lump
l.
water and long T-shaped implement
of iron. The two men then set to work.
Mccain held firmly while the other
struck. After each blow he would half
turn the drill. When dozen strokes
had been given he poured little water
in the hole and thrust the drill through
bit of sacl<ing to keep it from splash
smg. The other man damned his hat
down closely over his forehead and
struck fiercely, alternately breathing
an and grunting in rhythmical success
Sion. When the hole became clOgged
With fine, gray mud McCann carefully
spooned it out with the T-shaped in
-trument, wiping the latter each time
n his trousers. While he did this his
companion leaned on his sledge OF
threw chunks of rock with wonderful
accuracy at the squirrels that ran con-
inually back and forth on the ridge.
As the hole grew deeper longer drills
we're used, until at last the longest of
all left barely enough above the surface
Of the rock to afford a hand hold With
that the miner expressed himself salts
fed. He then brought three cylindrical
packages wrapped in greasy paper
whats them?" Mccain INQUIRED.
The miner grunted contemptuously.
Hercules powder" he replied. He
pronounced the proper name in two syl-
tables.
With a sharp knife he cut these into
lengths of about three inches each and
dropped them one by one into the hole
In the rock. Then he rammed them
home with a hickory ramrod. just as all
old miners viii insist on doing. Because
of this large percentage OF old miners
have no fore end middle fingers on their
right hands. The last piece he split,
inserted in the crack bit of fuse, on
the end of which was a copper cap,
dropped it in and then carefully
chinked in with the wet grit which had
been spooned out of the hole.
'sMosey for cover, Irishi" he said, and
touched it off.
From behind his tree Mccain saw the
suffering fuse disappear. The next
instant the rock seemed to bulge, split
ting in radiation as it did so, and then
the smoke belched forth in a canopy,
filed with fragments of quartz. Fol-
lowing the miner, he found a jagged
opening In the rock. Then they sharp