The progress., 1904-02-06
Josiah the Claim Jumper.
How Shot In the Dark Went True.
BY RUFUS NJ. 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 to almost everything
not relating directly or indirectly tc
the swamp lands of the Mississippi
where boys grow so fast into human
saplings that by the time they arc
stubbly of chin their legs are long
enough for them to stride away, or to
ocomotion of st. Louis street car.
odbOlt 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
pay his fare to California, which
seemed the place most distant from
the scene of his yielding to weak
ness. Hither he had come in hurry.
But Josiah knew, or, to be precise, he
"allowed" that he wanted 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 tenderfoot-nearly
20 years before Josiah was born. -Four
decades he had spent in getting into
such close fortune-hunting communion
with the 'lil1ely 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 .tte back against corner of
him without noting the difference.
Fortune had not always been mean TO
him, and if he was forever at the ebb
1t was mainly because, like all chronic
prospectors, he knew :. good deal more
about h',~Sre fr,' mineral than about
using IT after he found it. Once, at
Cherokee, he took out nuggets as large
90 buS1oiuo 1885, at odh Ddl plpcu
down bank which washed $4,000 in
ten days, and a 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 fer 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 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 rifieshot 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,
drunkard and fighter. The
half-breed had been keen enough tn
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
ralces or- the half-breed. The first |
nan upc6 the spot after the hour of
nidr1ght could relocate those two
7o1uable claims. The surest way was
for a man to be on each of the claims
exactly at IL O'Clock to tear down Flat
[oot's notices and post new ones of
heir own. This was what Pete Bar
clay had in mind in taking partner.
An old miner and young one
dropped from the caboose of the after
noon freight train at Copley, and slung
iown their packs while they went in
70 patronize the bar, which constituted
half the town. The older miner was
careful to explain to the dispenser Of
and the loungers in the
place that he and his companicu were
going to the Balaklala to work. See
ng you've got jobs, it aint worth men,
said the proprietor. but In
Jun Flatfoot, who's a-gambling in the
back room now, says he's willing to
cay big for somebody to go UP the hill
with him tonight and keep some old
claim or other from being jumped"
The remark was Hot lost upon Jo-
siah Godbolt, and as he toiled after
Barclay along the trail. winding up
hilIsides and around little peaks. some
lines under trees and usually through
1ense chemise, he asked: will this
Flatfoot party try to interfere with us
do you reckon?"
You'd better save your wind to gel
I'D these hills. instead Of wasting 1t
lsking questions" answered old Pete;
and besides. a pine-tree, such as you
be, with q six-shooter handy, ought to
De able to bluR on . half-breed, any
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