The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1916-01-22
Hobo Miner Finds Fortune in
Abandoned BOdie Mine WORKINGS

of Bodie, that famous mining camp
which has made and unmade mil
lionaires, I'M a story which IS
true, withal strange. Hobo Mat
Kelly has secured a lease in the
old Bodie mine, once the richest
mine in the world, and has uncov-
cred a ledge of gold bearing r
which will place within his hands
100000 of good, clean, yellow
money before his lease is done.
There is scarce a mining camp
in all the west which is not known
by Hobo Mat and which does not
know him. He has slept in every
his time was served has shouldercd
his roll of blankets and moved on
again. Booze has been his down
fall, robbed him of wife, of home.
good name, and ofttimes mind and
reason.
When "Old Bruin" Kelly was
winning his name and fame on the
Comstock, famed in the Lady Bry-
ant days, and later in Bodie, as the
superintendent of the Bodie mine
and the Lent shaft, Mat Kelly was a
boy and the trusted messenger of
his uncle, the Bear.
Mat grew up in the mines and
as pick boy, messenger boy and
later a miner, knew every turn and
twist of the underground city of
the mining camp. When the IA
nous Beehive was turning out IT'S
millions in the Bodie mine. Mat
was here and there and every
where. He knew the richest por-
tions of the honeycombed level OF
wealth which was at the bottom of
that glorious winze which ran from
the bottom of the Bodie shaft.
The Bodie stocks scared and
scared into figures which caused the
stockbuyers to grow frantic. Mat
dabbled a little in the game aud
spent his money royalty and free
ly. Mat was a man among men
of the day. He could sport with
them, could drink with them ard
gamble with them. 1t was riotous
lie anu MAJ Couio NV oeoihN Wv
strain. John ~Barleycorn won The
game.
The time came when the Bee
hive was worked out. 1t was gone
forever, so the miners said, but
Mat knew better. He knew of one
little section of that famous ore
zone which had been covered over.
Perhaps there were others who. also
knew but they have passed away.
The years rolled on but there was
never a chance given for Mat to
secure a lease on that portion OF
the ground and even in his cups,
he was far too wise to tell of what
he knew.
The years rolled on and Mat be-
came a common miner of the camp,
toiling in the mines day after day,
and waiting for the hour to come
when he could reap his harvest.
He still walked hand in hand vita
his old friend ]. Barleycorn and
lower and lower in the scale o1
humanity he dropped. In his better
day he had won a wife, a woman
faithful and true, n who knew
his better side and throughout all
these long years of sorrow, pam
and disgrace, has been true TO
him. There came a time in the
long ago, however, when the good
woman had to abandon him, ne
had dropped too low, and he pc
came a wanderer upon the race OF
the western map, became Hobo
Mat"
They threatened him with death
at Bodie once, because he thre"
his wife out into the snow on d
stormy night. while in a runke
frenzy, and then, across the snowy
range at Jimtown once, the rome
was thrown across the limb OF an
old oak tree and "Hobo Mat was
told to pray. The wife, sulr"r-
ing from many cuts, from her nus