The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-02-09

I soon as he stepped over the threshold
Of the shaft house door; but I fancied
/ could notice that, some way, he
didn't seem quite SO clipper and care
less as he had the day before.
"see here / ripped out; whats
the use? You can't buy this mine at
any prieel It's not In the market and
1T isn't going to be. Not in a thousand
| years
But see here; what's the use of
butting your head against a stone wall?
You're stuck, world without end, and
you know 1t. This flooded hole in the
ground Is OF no more use to you than
a pair Of spectacles to a blind man"
Perhaps not .'t.s a poor thing, but
mine own guess I can keep 1t as
a souvenir Is + feel like II, can't II"
"Oh. hi. he gritted, and turning
on his heel went away.
After he had gone l patted myself
on the back a bit for not losing my
temper and then, just to have an ex-
cuse for stayfsax away from the cabin
and the Buiiertnn vicinity, | made fires
under the boilers and got up steam. I'm
the former pumping spasm Daddy and
I had operated only the two big en-
trifugals, ignoring ehe deep-wen pumps
designed to lift the water from the
lower levels OF the mine.
Just to try something that we hadn't
tried before, / got steam on the deep
welfers, and soon fond that the
machinery. which we hadn't taken
down in the general overhauilng,
needed t~inkering before 1t would be
safe TO run 1t. Banking the boiler
fires, l went at the job single-handed
and managed to wear out the llvelong
day at it.
1t took me all the afternoon and
then some to get the machinery cleaned
and tinkered up and reassembled. In
paving over the supplies in the mine
storeroOm-stuf left by the former OPP
erators-we had found an acetylene
fare torch and a can Of carbide and /
rugged the. torch so that l could 60 on
"OthitfS dlItF uaFk.
1t was along about nine o'clock when
I got the deep-wells ready to run and
freshened up the fires and turned the
steam on. In curious contrast to the
care which had been taken to provide
a discharge outlet for the centrifugals,
the Cornish pumps had merely an iron
trough which ran to a ditch leading
down to the bench below the mine
buildings. After a few minutes of the
clanking and banging, the water began
to come. It was horribly smelling
stuff, thick and .discolored; evidences
sufficient that 1t was coming from the
bottom Of the mine. The two pumps
together were lifting about an eight
inch stream, and 1T occurred to me at
once that If ! could set the centrifu-
gals going at the same time, the mass
attack might accomplish what the
piece-meal assault couldn't.
Throwing In the clutch that drove
the big rotaries, l ran up against what
Daddy would have called a "circum-
stance" There wasn't power enough
to drive both sets of pumps coupled
in together; at least, not with the
steam pressure the boilers were car
rying. Thinking to get more power by
pushing the fires a bit harder, I went
to the detached boiler room to stoke
up. leaving the deep wells changing
away In the shafthouse. I had fired
two of the furnaces and was at work
1 nvrv- tho third u-hnr a cnRfac nf MIN
ing crashes In the machinery sent me
flying to find out what was going
wrong.
What was happening-what had al
ready happened-was a plenty. AS I
have said, the great Cornish water
filters were driven through a train
of gearing. When I reached the scene,
the steam engine was still running
smoothly, but the pumps had stopped.
The reason didn't have to be looked
for with a microscope. The gear-train
was q wreck, with one of the wheels
smashed into bits, and half Of the
cogs stripped from It's mesh-mate, If
that's what you'd call II.
Mechanically l stopped the engine
and went to view the remains. The
deep-wells were done for-there was
no question about that; they'd never
run again until a new set of gears
should be installed. That much deter
mined, ! began to look for the cause
Of the calamity. Naturally, / supposed
that a cracked cog In one of the
wheels had given way, and with this
for q starter. the general smash would
follow. as a matter of course. But
a careful and ever painful scrutiny of
the wreckage failed to reveal the cog
with the ancient fracture. Each break
was new and fresh and clean; there
wasn't a sign of an old flaw In any
one of them. y
I think 1 must have knelt there
under the gear train for a half-hour or
more, handling the fragments Of iron
and fitting them together. 1t was like
a child's b~roken-block puzzle, and at
ter a time / was able TO lay all the
larger bits out upon the floor in their
proper relation to one another. II was
In the ground-up debris remaining that
found something which suddenly
made me see red. Battered into shape.
-lessness, but still Clearly recognizable,
were the crushed disJecta membra Of
our twelye-inch monkey-Wrenchi
+ / tried not to go OH the handle In a
ft Of mad rage. With q sort OF forced
calm / considered every beam and pro-
jecting timber where ! might incau-
tfousIy have left the wrench and from