The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-10

| as to its meaning. He threatened them,
| and got threats in return. The upshot
| of the conference was that the night
| shift in a body demanded its time, and
| got it. Seven of the men at once left
| town. The ninth remained in the
Basin. All sorts of efforts We're made
| to get this man to talk, but without
| avail. A detective from one of the big
| agencies became his boon companion
| and kept him drunk for weeks without
! learning any more than the boys went
| away we'll heeled."
| One day word reached Basin from
| Butte of tremendous strike in Madi-
son county. A carload of quartz from
| a prospect over there had been sent to
| Butte, and the smelter returns showed
| the lot to be of the value of more than
| $4,000. There was a rush from the
Basin to the new diggings, and then it
was learned that the strike had been
made by the men who had been en-
ployed on the night shift on the 100
in the Hope. The detective dropped
the ninth man in the Basin and hurried
over to Madison county. He obtained
samples of the ore from the new strike
and had it assayed. The stuff did not
carry a trace of gold to the ton. On his
report the Hope people levied upon the
returns on the shipment from Madison
county, on the ground that it was Hope
ere mixed with the pure silica of the
Madison claim that had made the ship
ment valuable, but the ore already had
been put through the smelter. so that
the chance of proving that it was Hope
ore was lost. The money was tied up
for time but finally released to the
shippers. They abandoned the Madison
county claim in a hurry and got out Of
the country.
Then the Hope people went to work
again on the ninth man. He had left
the Basin when the trouble over the
payment for the ore arose, probably to
avoid being called as a witness against
the others. 1t never was known wheth-
er he had any interest in the Madison
county shipment. The presumption
was that he had not. and that what
ever he got out of the Hope had not
gone into the general fund. At any
rate, to keep him in sight and to induce
him to tell the secret of the rich gold
streak. which had never been found by
the mine owners, he was re-employed
at the Hope.
Little by little, and under promise CT
immunity from prosecution, he told the
story of the steal. There had been a
cave one night and the tagging (poles
set close together horizontally between
the framed timbers to keep the walls in
place. had been forced into the drift
for a space of 10 feet. The shift boss
had put the whole gang at work for
fear that it would run on them if he
waited until the timber frames could
get around to it. While catching UP
his ground one of the miners discovered
that the granite on the side that had
caved in and which was supposed to
be the foot wall of the lead, was not
the foot wall at all. 1t was just a
horse" of granite, and there was
streak of quartz behind it. When they
came to examine this streak they found
that it was scanned with gold, some of
the seams as thin as hair and others
as thick as knife blade.
The shift boss had gone on top to re-
port the cave and ordered some tagging
to be sent down. The men used their
picks to tear up section of the streak
This they divided up and concealed in
their dinner pals. When the boss re-
turned nothing was said to him of the
find. The cave was caught up, but in
replacing the tagging to hide the pay
streak they arranged it so that a Sec
ton could be quickly removed. When
they got on top they found that The
specimens" were worth almost their
weight in gold, and then the plan to
work the strike for themselves devel-
oped.
The shift boss always went on top