The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-05-05

"A Fool and ;
) His Money. ;
o<o6cSco9SoS6cooSSooo5
BY William Wallace Cook
Observation-Disclosures


Lone. of the neatest sailing" OPP
erations that ever occurred in the
Southwest. was the one engineered
by Ed Noyes and DOC" Bigby; they
put something like fifty charges of
gold into the Lucky Strike with a
shotgun, and worked the property off
upon Will Carver for $4,000. Aside
from the metal Noyes and Bigby blew
into the mine, there was about as
much gold in it as in an ordinary
sandbank.
Carver had just arrived In Phoe-
nix. He was a well dressed, mild
hammered young fellow, and so conf
Dental about himself that he hadn't
been in the town two days before it
was known that he had come to the
Territory with $4,000 and a deter
minatfon to- make or break. It was
also to understand that there was a
young lady in the case; that the
young lady was wealthy; that Carver
had asked paterfamilias for her hand,
and that said pater had told the
young man to take Greeley's advice,
prove that he had brains and could
make money, and then come back and
ask for the daughter again. =
Noyes and Bigby figured out that a
man who would let out that much of
his family history before he had been
f~orty-eight hours in a strange town
would make pretty good picking. So
they sailed the Lucky Strike, took
every dollar the young Fastener
had, then laughed about it. |
As the whole town knew that Car
yer had come West to demonstrate
his sharpness and his ability to amass
wealth all for the purpose of winning
the girl Of his choice, so the public
knew that he had lost all at the very
start.
People sympathized with him on
account of the girl, but felt certain
that he was a good ways from filling
his prospective father-in-law's speci-
fcations. Unkind remarks reached
Carver about "a fool and his money"
but the young man merely smiled in
a mysterious way and gave everyone
the impression that there was some
thing he knew which he could keep
to himself. ...ts -.
At any rate, he secured sufficient
funds-it afterward developed that
the girl had sent him her pin money
and started in to work the Strike.
The Strike was just owe the ridge
from Baldwin's Prize, was a true ifs
sure, free gold proposition that paid
regular dividends of 100 per cent.
When Moves and Bigby had located
the Strike they felt positive that it
was on Baldwin's vein, but a fifty
foot shaft and a hundred-foot level,
all in country rock, convinced them
that the prize" dyke was in other
ground.
Carver laid in a supply of powder,
drills picks, shovels and wheelbar-
rows, bought himself a working suit
and went up to the Strike and pitched
lis camp. Week after week and
month after month, he and a colored
man, old Jack, whom he had hired.
worked away with industry. A noun.
tain of rock, as bare of color as Mich,
igan hardheads, grew up around the
windlass at the mouth of the shaft
Miners from the Prize used to stand
on the ridge and joke with Carver as
he toiled away at a window on the
platform below.
IF that gal waits till We find
pay-streak in them d~iggins," they
tainted, shell have to get old Me
thuselah's receipt for a long life"
Carver, however, paid no heed. He
worked like a beaver, and he kept i
up until people got disguised witt
him and declared that he ought to be
put in a straitjacket and kept in re
straint. They thought his hard lucl
had gone to his head and unbalanced
him.
At last Phoenix was startled by
report that old Jack had brought int
town a piece of ore that assayed $500
to the ton. People scoffed at thu
news, and ever after they had han
died the samples and looked at thu
assayer's certificate they we're in
clined to think that Jack had got thu
ore out of some other mine than tn
Strike.
AS for Noyes and Bigby, the,
showed signs of ranic, and when the.
| got a rig and drove out into the hill
and saw Carver hauling up buckle
after bucket Of as fine rock as eve
came out of ground they were a sal
looking pair
! I'm not as young as you gentle
| men thought" Carver explained