Iron County register., 1903-12-17
Josiah the Claim Jumper.
How a Shot in the Dark Went True.
BY RUFUS M. STEELE.

JOSIAH GODBOLT was new to the
u Shasta hills. He was new to any
hills, and, of course, he was new to the
mines. He was new to everything
western, and new 10 almost everything
not relating directly or indirectly to
the swamp lands Of the Mississippi,
where boys grow so fast into human
saplings that by the time they are
stubDly of chin their legs are long
enough for them to stride away, or to
the locomotion of st. Louis street car.
Godbolt had been conductor on a
street car until that eventful day
when his car collided while he was en-
gagged in helping small girl with her
basket, and he was discharged. He
had had wages due him sufficient to
seemed the place most distant from
the scene of his yielding to weak
ness. Hither he had come in a hurry.
But Josiah knew, or, to be precise, he
ALLOWED" that he wanted a copper
mine. AS he had no snug fortune with
which to buy one, his recourse was to
discover new ledge and plaster his
notice of location upon it. These are
sidelights upon the trail along which
fate led Josiah to Pete Barclay.
Barclay was a nderfoot-nearly
20 years before Josiah was born. Four
decades he had spent in getting into
such close fortune-hunting communion
with the ''likely spots" of the Sierra
Nevadas and the Coast Range, that he
had really become part of the noun
tains. He was so gray and weathered,
and so perfectly attuned to the sur
roundings, that he could squat among
the little powders on a Shasta hillside
and jack rabbit might hop over and
scratch it's back against a corner of
him without noting the difference.
Fortune had not always been mean to
him, and if he was forever at the ebb
it was mainly because, like all chronic
prospectors, he knew good deal more
about hunting for mineral than about
using it after he found it. Once, at
Cherokee, he took out nuggets as large
as buzzards' eggs; at Oak Bar he piped
down a bank which washed $4,000 in
ten days, and week later, in a gam
bling house-but that is not this story.
Josiah Godbolt, tired of mucking at
the Iron mountain, and resolved to
make find for himself, drew his sti-
pend and went to Redding. Pete Bar
clay, driven away from the high alti-
tudes of Coffee Creek by the flying
snow, was in town with the price of
four weeks living used out Of his shall
low dust sack when he met Josiah in
the Blue Goose resort. you're fresh
enough from nowhere to have some
greenhorn luck with you," commented
Barclay. you're long enough on the
belt to teach me how to find a copper
mine," was Josiah's theory. And so
the partnership was formed.
Barclay did not know of copper
prospect which seemed large enough
to meet the ideas of the young Mis-
sourian, to say nothing of his own
hopes, now modified by experience. He
knew where a streak as Of half worn
off red paint ran through ravine and
over hilltop, back from Copley with.
in rifeshot Of the great Balaklala.
This red gossan meant more than an
iron cropping, Of that he was certain.
On the Fourth of July, when every
miner of the section had gone to Red
ding for the celebration, he had i'm
proved the unmatched opportunity to
pick into the vein where the hill
sloughed away, and he had found cop
per sulphurets. The obstacle which
prevented Barclay from taking up the
two claims which the red streak
crossed was that they already bore the
location notices Of Henry Flatfoot,
breed, drunkard and fighter. The
balf-breed had been keen enough to
see that there was value there, but too
lazy to get down to it, or even to do
his assessment work, required by law.
Pete Barclay had waited this oppor-
tunity. In another night the year
would expire, and with it the location
notices of the half-breed The first
man upon the spot after the hour OF
midnight could relocate those two
valuable claims. The surest way was
for a man to be on each of the claims
exactly at 12 o'clock to tear down Flat
foot's notices and post new ones OF
their own. This was what Pete Bar
clay had in mind in taking partner.
An old miner and a young one
dropped from the caboose of the after
noon freight train at Copley, and slung
down their packs while they went in
to patronize thevbar, which constituted
half the town. The older miner was
careful to explain to the dispenser Of
refreshments and the loungers in the
place that he and his companion were
going to the Balaklala to work. See
ing you've got jobs, it aint worth men,
tioning,' said the proprietor, but In
jun Flatfoot, who's a-gambling In the
back room now, says he's willinga Y
nav hic fnr aomebOdy to 20 up the hill