The Press., 1911-10-18

turn aside something to support thein in case the fountain should dry up?
 And so she did. Instead of putting away few copper coins at time as her father-in-law had done with which to buy his rock, she took $1,OOO bills and hid them. For years she stored away these bills. No one knew that they were being hidden, no one knew their hiding place. The waste, the ex- travagance, the money sucking by em- ployees, relations, dependents contin- ued. but every now and again the for mer peon woman hid away thousand dollar bill.
 True enough, what Sonora Alvarado foresaw at last came about. The earth taken out of the mine became less rich. Instead of producing $30,O0O a day it produced but few hundred dollars to the ton. All it was worth must be paid to those who carried it from the mine into the. valley and for. getting the silver out of 1t. Pedro had seen his fortune loom up almost in a night; now he saw it sinking rapidly away. Then to crown his loss water appeared in his mine.
 Water is the great danger. the great trouble when it comes, in mining. Tun- nels must be built, expensive pumps must be put in, either one or both. Pedro had but one business idea in his head. That was to hold on to his property. But now even that idea had ceased to be practicable. His mine was no longer valuable unless worked on business principles, and Pedro was not business man.
 Since there had been nothing put away, so there was nothing when the end came. The man who had given away and wasted millions now found himself unable to give or waste any longer. It was the old story of the fairy who had raised palaces and oth CT luxuries for the pauper, by mutter- ing another incantation caused them to vanish.
 Then Sonora Alvarado, who had been tucking away thousand dollar bills very conveniently, died. In dis tributing her effects a maid who had been a long while in her service was asked if there was anything that had belon~cd to her mistress she would like to have. She said there was an old quilt the senora had always used which 1t would gratlfy her to possess. The beloved woman had slept under 1t for many years and would never let 1t go out of her own keeping. Surely this would be treasured souvenir.
 But Pedro remonstrated against the faithful servitor having nothing but m old quilt much worn and not over clean. He urged the maid to name something of greater value. She, how ever, c!ung to the quilt and would not be comforted without this article so intimately associated with her mis- tress.
 Now, Pedro was aware that his wife had not sympa thized with him in his extravaganza: indeed, she had repeat edly warned him that he, would come to grief by 1t. Knowing this he won- dcred If the good woman had not put something away for rainy day. The ea~crness of the maid to possess the quilt caused him to suspect that some thing might be hidden in it. Instead of giving it h. began to rip 1t. Out raluo a thousan nd dollar bill. Ripping on lie found another, and so, as Pedro had grown fabulously rich overnight in finding silver under rock, he now gained q fortune in an old quilt. He took out 500 thousand dollar bills quite enough to soothe him for the running out of his mine and to enable V,4. al Row %hn ynncs% O@ his days.
 Pedro Alvarado yielding to the inev- itable turned over his mine to others Some Americans are the new owners and are working 1t on modern princi- pies. Meanwhile the owner lives on the income of the 800 one-thousand- dollar bills that were successively say ed up by his more farseeing wife in the old quilt through a long term of years.
 There is an unexplained feature in this story that. appealing as 1t does to the curiosity, is the most important part of it. Why did the senior Ava rado put all the little money he had in the rock that covered the mine and why did he pledge his son under oath not to sell it? The only possible solution seems to be that some Span iards years ago prospected in the re- zion and from the trend of veins of silver found suspected that the top of the hill in question contained the same metal. This may have been known to the Indians and been hand ed down from one generation to an other. That the hill contained the i'm covered no one could have known. This rust of necessity he one of the re- ,"l.ul,Ic fR,aES of fate