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

broke into Jeanie's kitchen and raided
the cupboard for a bite Of something
to eat. There was plenty Of bread
and some cold fried ham, and cutting
a couple. Of generous sandwiches, ]
liked out to make my breakfast In
the epen.
Tie sandwiches disposed of, I began
to quarter the bench woodland back
and forth, searching for some tndica-
tons Of the railroad survey. In due
time found one of the location stakes.
and from its facing ana sAe markings
on It, got the direction of the proposed
line and vas able to trace it for some
distance along the bench. AS Dad
dy had said, it ran within a few hum
dred yards of the Cinnabar claim, and
a short sidetrack would make his sug-
gestion perfectly feasible; u ore
could be shot into the cars with but a
single handling.
From tracing the railroad survey, l
edged around to take another look at
the possibilities of the drainage tunnel
Daddy and I had figured III. Going
over the ground this second time, and
with some better knowledge of the diff
ficulties, it appeared that we must have
ridiculously underestimated the prob
able cost. Pacing the distances care
fully, and guessing at the differences
in altitude by the heights of the trees,
l saw that it wouldn't be safe to count
upon less than a mile of tunneling,
and this, in the solid porphyry Of Old
Cinnabar, and In a situation remote
from the nearest base Of supplies,
would run-no, it wouldn't run; 1t
would fairly gallop into money.
Was this what Fullerton meant to do
If he could Gust me? That he was ut
terly confident Of his ability to drain
the Cinnabar IA evident. But how
was it to be done? Would he, or his
hackers, be willing to spend a quar-
ter of a million or more, and the better
part of a years time, driving that
mile-long tunnel?
The longer l thought about 1T, the
larger the conviction grew that no
SuND CApC1lStfC SApCulSIt was ~ Uc
resorted to. Fullerton, or his hackers,
or both, knew some other and far
cheaper and expeditions way of
getting rid of the water. Sitting on a
big rock that had in some former earth
CONFUSION tumbled from the broken
cliffs above the mine, I gave the me-
chanical fraction Of my brain lit was
a small fraction and sadly under-de-
veloped) free rein. .
Two possibilities suggested them
selves. A siphon, a big pipe, starting
at the bottom of the shaft and leading
out v e the top and down the noun
tain to a point lower than the shaft
bottom, would, after 1t was once
started, automatically discharge q
stream of it's own bigness, whatever
that should be. But the cost of ovel
a mile of such pipe was beyond my
means; and If two six-inch pumps
driven night and day had failed to
make any impression upon the flood
what could be expected Of a siphon
which, in the nature Of things, couldn',
be much bigger than an ordinary
street water main?
The other possibility was even less
hopeful. 1t was the driving of a short
tunnel. which Daddy and I might IN
dertake without additional help, from
the level Of the high bench straight In
to an intersection with the mine shaft
This, l estimated, might tap the water
at a point possibly twenty feet below
its present level in the shaft. IT'S sue
cess. as l saw at once, would depent
entirely upon the location and volume
of the underground lake which wal
supposed to be supplying the food. Il
this reservoir were shallow and high
1 n the mountain, the short TUNE
might drain 1t. II 1T we're deep ant
low, nothing would be accomplished.
The question was still hanging hope
lessly up in the air when I made n,
way around to the mine buildings b,
the left-hand gulch path, sneaked IL
and began to shuck myself into Dad