The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1922-03-03
CHAPTER II.
A Needle in a Haystack.


Since my happy hunting-groun be
gan in the middle of Colorado, I took
a ticket to Denver by way of Chicago
and Omaha. As I recall it now, it was
after the train had passed North
Platte that l first became sensibly con
scious, as you might say. of the fact
that the man in the opposite section of
the sleeping-car had a little Pullman
table set up in front of him, and was
studying maps-and blue-prints. He
was a rather efficient-looking fellow of
maybe thirty-two or three, with dark
hair and eyes, and what Lisette would
have called a determined nose, and he
spOrted a beard and mustaches. nut
brown as to color. and neatly trimmed.
Farther along we met in the smoking
room, at a time when the Stuffy little
den had no other occupants. Mr.. OPP
posite Sections only cigar turned out
to have broken wrapper. SO l natural
ly rendered my own pocket-case. That
served to break the ice And we talked,
dribbling along from one commonplace
to another until finally Brown-beard
said:
be a mining engineer, do you?"
Far be it from me" I laughed /;
nothing so useful as that"
81 didn't know" he FASTENED to say,
half alphabetically. Il saw you study
ing maps as we came along"
Now, ordinarily I'm apt to talk a lot
too much about my own affairs-PH
admit it; but this was one time when
l had a sort of bunch not to. SO 1
merely said
Il saw you doing the same thing"
Sure you did" he admitted cheer
fully. Then he told -4ne his name
which l got as Bullion, or Bulletin, or
something like that-and said he was
a mining engineer, which was the rea
son why he had asked me if 1 wasn't
one.
Past that, the talk ran mostly upon
his profession, and since the mysteri-
Gus bunch was still nudging me, I let
him have the floor. so to speak, figur-
ing chiefly myself as good listener.
Yes; we do run across some rather
queer propositions in our trade" he
said, after he had given me some sort
of an idea of what mining engineers
job is like. In my own experience,
for example. the only sure shot 1 have
ever had-or possibly ever will have
got away from me-"
1t was up to me to bite, and, of
course, 1 did it.
How was that?"
1.-The man died." he replied laconi-
cally.
That sounded rather interesting, so
[ gave him another pinch.
Tell me about it; if it won't bore
you"
He grinned OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES ac-
cepted another cigar out of my pocket
case.
You'll be the one to be bored. 1t
was this way: A little over a year
ago 1 was on my way to Chicago with
report that l had been making on
some properties in the Cripple Greek
district. In the Denver-Omaha Pull
man L fell in with nice old gentle
man who had been buying himself
gold brick in the shape of a flooded
mine. The mine had at one time been
a producer though not by any means
what you'd call a bonanza. After
rather extended dividend-paying period
Il don't know just how long, though
it was some years-the luck changed,
as sometimes happens. In sinking and
drifting the operators had uncovered
another vein which was exceedingly
rich. Don't let me talk your arm off. .
go ahead" said /. My arms are
insured"
"Well, at about the time that they
struck this new underlying vein, they
also struck water; so much of it as to
lead them to suspect that they had
tapped an underground lake. The old
gentleman wasn't exactly a woolly
the Wall Street sense of the
term. He had owned stock in the mine
for long time, and it had been pay
ing him dividends, right along. So
after the new strike was an
he was perfectly willing to
own more. l don't know what his in
vestment was, but he gave me to I'M
lerstand that it was something like
half a million. In less than a month
after the deal was closed the mine was
drowned and went out of business"
"Still, don't see your lost oppor-
unity" l threw in.
I'm coming to that. As it happens. |
ny speciality as an engineer is the un-
watering of wet mines. The old gen. |
.leman had maps and profiles with |
him; the records of a very careful and |
excellent Typographical survey. I'm |
certain that l discovered a /
way in which that mine can be drained |
It comparatively small expense.
.I told him thought l could do 1t
tut / didn't give my plan away. In
stead. made him proposition; Of