Mohave County miner., 1908-12-26
Miners Baked on Apric ots.

about four miles rom congress ln Yavapai county, and rests at the head of a gulch at the foot of Yarnell moun- tain, upon whose summit several thou- sand dollars in coarse gold nuggets were picked up by band of pioneers who journeyed that way in the early sixties. The camps revitalization re- calls rag-time history of ten or eleven years ago, when it enjoyed or suffered the unique distinction of being closed down for several years because of the plentitude of dried apricots that made its boarding house menue famous.
 The admantine spar that made its formation terror to the miners of that region kept it's force of ten-day knights of the single-jack in about as amiable disposition as that generally ascribed to bear with sore head. The lady who held the company con- cession of the chow foundry did not take into consideration that hard rock miner is about as finicky to feed as pampered prima donna-and the result was seismic.
 During trip to California she ap- parently had contracted for the entire apricot output of the Golden State, for from the date of her return to the sun scalded gulch the percentage of april cots impregnating the daily fare was as infinitely to tick. The boys stood it without serious outbreak for about a week, but the flavor of the jerked fruit began to pail before ten days of it had passed, and ground swell of discontent began to ruffle the tenor of the camps life. Before a fortnight had slipped into the gulf of eternity the dissatisfaction could be observed without the aid of the Lick telescope stuck out like belfry on the hen house, in fact, and a delegation of dis gruntled miners informed the hash mistress that they were morally cer- tain they could jog along through this vale of tears without such generous supply of smoked fruit. This protest, ',)wever, was received with contempt and gratuitous output of crosscut repartee that caused dozen of the futile reformers to request the main squeeze to mix them up a hike-the same being written order to the pay master to give John Dough his wages to date.
 A few days subsequently, a score of the disgustel non-vegetarians threw their lunch buckets down the shaft and were promptly canned; and that night the superintendent, emerging from his donicile in pair of en- broided slippers he had received as token of friendship from the mistress of the boarding house, stepped into a beautiful geometrical design resem- bling hower-bed, but composed of half a hundred quarters of the detested apricot pie, saved from the lunch buckets of the miners. His resultant wrath caused the discharge of about twenty miners, and the residue of the original force quit about the same time rather than longer endure the monotony of pie, pudding, desert, short-cake and various other fabrica- tions that had as base dried aprlcots.
 At that time miners were not very plentiful in the hot country around the gulch, and representative of the con- p.ny came westward to learn the cluse of the trouble. Whatever the reason, whether he too was Headed" by the hairy California fruit, or wheth- CT he was dissatisfied with the mineral showing of the property, it is matter of record that he caused the complete closing down of the plant. For years it remained unworked and the proud one street town that had boasted of about seventy-five souls and ten sa- looms to say nothing of Big Jim, the Yavapai chief who hustled washing for his harem of squaws, was deserted Even much of the machinery was sold
 The present business-like progress of the camp leads one to hope that the apricots were also disposed of, for a combination of rock so hard as to re- quire mop-rags to protect the miner from the spray of hinty particles that made starting hole perilous to the eyesight, and diet of dried fruit that would salivate a camel, is wholly in