Elk City mining news. (Elk City, Idaho) 1903-1913, 1904-04-30
is believed in the camp that as soon as
this tunnel is completed great surprises
will occur. Lewiston Tribune.

"The curiosiest thing bout this min
ing business" began Mr.. William Smith
(familiarly known on the Yukon as
''Baldy Bill" for obvious reasons) Us
the Electricity in it. You're always
gettin' a shock unexpected-like. Ginner-
ally-by a mighty big majority, it's
dull, sickenin' jolt of disappointment,
but then, where you're bout all in, dis
gusted, rusted, and busted, you may
get galvanized all of sudden by a
thousand-volt streak O. luck. Nothin'
governs success in mimi but chance
md rustlin'., Every prospector'd be
orettG certain of strikin' it rich some
time, provided he lived long enough and
kept rustlin' all the time.
1.-THE next curiosiest thing bout min
m is the way it puts you up against hui
nan nature. There's n heap O. human
nature in every man in mimi country.
Last day or two I've been turnin' over
n my miud-like you would keep flop
PIN a thick fiapjack-a queer-lookin
proposition from away up on the Koge-
unga, which is crick pretty well up
IN the trail between Nome and the
North Pole and bout seven degrees
north O. the Ten Commandments. l
iuit Alaska, busted, year and half
ago. left enough 20-acre claims scat
erred over the map up there, if they
vas punched up, to make the biggest
ranch in Oregon look like a Chink's
,abba5e-patch. It's the custom in that
country for everybody to rush round,
lard as he can, discoverin' and namin'
new cricks and locatin 'em full of
claims SOS to smut out everybody else
IN this way man soon finds himself
stocked up on claims so much that he
can't get time to prospect, or do the
assessment work on tenth part of the
bunch. Bnt the law lets him hold 'em
Ill for year after the January l fol-
owing the date of his location. Well,
on January l last all my claims were
open to be restaked by anybody that
wanted EN-. At least, | sdosed so, for
ia done no assessment work on 'em,
oein' glad to stay in Gods country at
3. so day and found. l heard last
iummer THAT some little strike had been
made on the Kogeluna an l heaved
Ugh, thinllin' bout all my claims up
there and they might be just the right
ones I'd missed on by quitting the coun-
ny. There was no way of my gettln'
back in time to relocate any of 'em
before New Years if I'd wanted to.
$50, 1 was some surprised month
go by getting letter from Koge-
unga miner named Dutch Ike, and this
the curious way he comes at me:
There's been a little strike on the
Aogelunga, says he, and your claim
vas relocated by somebody New Year.
lay. 1t may be worth little some
hing, and if you will send me a deed to
It I'll jump it myself, and if can hold
It will See that you get your share of
what | make out of it, e,
This seemed so queer that I con-
GUIDED to wait bit and think it over.
and maybe I'd hear something more.
sure 'nough | did. 1t was in the shane
u mighty cute and artful letter from
Yete Savoy, an old prospectin' partner.
II mine on the Kogelunga. We was
partners about the time that claim was
staked, and so that gives him some
1ght IN it, too, 'cordin' to whatever
lgreement we'd made at that time
Pete writes long letter, but puts all
lis meat into one little paragraph
which ne runs in careless like:
By the way Bill, says he, there's
oeen little strike on the Koeelanga
md you may have pretty good claim
Dutch Ike done the assessment worl,
last summer, claimin' that he bod
deed to the ground from you. There
lore, nobody could relocate if in Ion
larry. But it's in his name now 7
know ne is a liar, and l think he's lvin,
now. So I'm goinl to stake that claim
seem that you ard me was pardnors
and II you'll back me up, why I'll see
that you get your share
Now, from them two letters I draws
.hree conclusions. First, that the Ko-
geiunga strike was on my claim or
close to 1t; second, that, as the assess
menC work was done last summer the
claims still mine; third, that them two
NfNn
beauties IS each maxim a play to ret
! exclusive hold Of IL. " ~