The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1914-07-18
The Prospector

While the mining page daily devotes columns to the work OF men
in charge of underground development or above ground construction,
as well as to the difficulties and successes OF hnanciers at their end of
the game, few ever seem to think OF the poor devil who made all the
mining stock quotations possible. The prospector who methodicany
sharpens a stick and jabs it into the rump of the patient little burro
thereby starts the curb market letter on its way. Just a coa-oil can full
of drinking water OF side of the pack, a slab OF sowbely and a bag
of beans on the other; a second patient beast loaded with pick and drills
and a few sticks OF dynamite; a ma without a razor but with tireless
legs and with eyes that eve. rove from path to distant mountain-these
are the essentials for the finding OF a Cananea, a Tonopah o a Gold
field, says an exchange.
It's no job for men who love their stomachs or mancured finger
nails. Days, months, sometimes years, pass before the prospector looks
4 fresh eae in the face. \ glass of mk or bit of fruit become mere
"reminiscences o. lost paradise, while a sknt-oh, well, he finds it best to
forget that such things can be and are.
As a rule he is a mar in whom the gambling spirit is too strong
to make a good workman from the average employers point OF view
American mines in the west, up to a few years ago. relied for their steady
workers N the Old Country men, the gray-haired Cousin Jacks: Now
Austrans and Italians from the mountain sections are filling the ever
open ranks. They are docne and soon learn to direct a drill almost to
as good effect as their passing predecessors from Cornwall and Wales
But the tramp miner with the genuine "Hurry-up your Dollar spirit
only hangs to his wage job until a grubstake is accumulated. While
the snow lies N the hinsides he can do himself little good looking for
float or outcrops. Underground drifts ar warm and grub can be
safely counted on in the "Muigan' twice a day; so from November
until April the prospector may condescend to accept a companys pay
check.
With the sun. however. that sends little rivulets down every canyon
while the white blankets on the hills grow smaller day by day, the pros
pectors desire for real money" grows warmer. OF course he chates,
too, for the freedom from all bosses which his real vocation brings and
to many of these solitary rampers through the virgin nils tn very
loneliness of their task is one of its greatest Joys. Yet deeper than all
other feelings in his breast is the desire for the untold millions which he
knows awaits him only a few miles farther or a few feet deeper.
Sometimes at sixty, or even eighty years Of age such a man trotS
gailv through the sands, over the rocks, from hill to hill, always hoping
for the big strike. The grub box may run low and the waite give ot
he'll curse a little now and then, vet his heart never really wcarles OF
the quest for a lucky ledge. 1t is this spirit OF undymg cheer under
and circumstances which makes the prospector; if we had a little more
of it in the cities there would be less neanness, sulenness and discomfort
in the world. Happiness is largely a point OF view. lake that Of tn
prospector: THE good things are ahead!