Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-06-28
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HAIR PALEs IN A SINGLE NIGHT
Terrible Experience At Bottom o'
Mine Related by Prospector.

Mine Related by Prospector.
Many young men are seen with gray
hair before their time, and some of
them can tell interesting experiences
that caused their hair to change color.
Here is the story, told by an old min
er now retired and living In Chicago
of how his hair turned from a deep
brown to almost white in a night.
1t happened when he was young man
and working in silver shaft:
Barney Dolye and I worked the
two shifts Of the small holding of the
company down in Western Mexicof
the narrative begins, Barney being
foreman of one and I Of the other.
Neither of us had ever been in the
shift worked by the other, and we
were unfamiliar with the workings ex-
cept for what we would tell each other
as the days passed and we drilled
deeper and deeper into the ground.
lone evening. just about time for us
to quit work, Doyle fell from the
mouth of the crater he had worked,
800 feet to the bottom. I had just
come to the surface when the acci-
dent happened. There was crowd OF
poems at the mouth Of the pit and
they were gesticulating wildly and
shouting at one another as though
the whole pack had suddenly gone
crazy and deaf. 1 thought then and
still do that one Of those greasers had
Topped Doyle into the hole, for none
of us was any too popular with them.
but they all insisted that the poor
fellow had simply fallen in.
None of my men or Of Barney's
either would attempt to go down the
shaft in the bucket arrangement we
had, for they were the most super
stitious lot of men I ever have heard
of. They have the southern states
negro beaten to fragile.
Finally the manager Of the COM
pany, having heard the rumpus, came
to the pit and he and agreed to de-
scend into the pit after Barney's re-
mains.
"The boss saw to it that the lift
was manned by men we could trust
and we were slowly settled down into
the black, black depths. The buckets
were of the trap bottom type, so we
halted the cage just before we reached
the bottom, and, slipping the catch
on the bucket, dropped to the floor.
We had to depend for light in the
mines then on candles and we used
them i'm connection with the queer,
sticky clay that Is found in that sort of
mine. We could take handful of the
mass, slap it on the wall or a girder
and stick a candle into it.
I'VE lit up and found Barney dead.
We started back to the lift, but found
that the engine would not carry more
than two men. / insisted that the
boss go up first with the body and
send the cage down later for me. l
| helped him into the cage with what
was left of the miner and helped to
close the trap. A minute later, at
the rope signal, the men at the top
began hoisting the cage.
Except for the four candles we had
stuck on the walls and girders immed-
lately under the shaft there was no
light, and even those four lights shone
with the most ghostly glimmer I ever
had seen. With Barney falling into
the pit, the extreme darkness and all.
it was no wonder I began to be afraid,
and as I could hear the bucket scrape
along the sides of the shaft as it as
cended higher and higher my fear did
not abate.
| "Then. to make matters worse, one
soft 'plop.' Then another, and soon
all four of them dropped into the
blackness. I was entirely alone, with
out light and without a match or the
means to make light. In addition, l
did not dare to wander off from where
was for fear Of falling into another
side working, for I was entirely un-
familiar with the ground there.
about time for the cage to reach
the top 1 heard a shout, much muf-
fled by the distance and just got away
from below the mouth of the pit when
a heavy object dropped close to me.
guessed the bottom of the bucket
had proved insecure, and I since learn
ed 1 guessed right, and had let one
of the occupants drop. Whether 1t
was the dead man had fallen or the
superintendent I had no means of