Year: 1871

.. A Miners Story. .


ats caved !" exclaimed Bill Bea-
yer, bursting into the cabin. where
was leisurely eating my break fast
and reading the news from some last
years papers that were pasted on the
wall. 1.-The ground has eaved! 1t
came down mighty sudden and
Little Jimmy was at the breast, /
was further out In the drift, and had
the start of it; but 1t made such
close call for me, that | know he
must "a got ketched."


This technical jargon revealed to
me the fact that our mine had caved,
and had buried one of our compan.
ions-for Little Jimmy" was not an
infant, but man-a. miner, and
man working at the "breast,n or
farthest end of the drift" but was
now perhaps sleeping his last sleep
in the bosom of the mother of us all.


Three years before this we had
come to this creek. We had pros.
pected the " side gulches" and the
bars, and found "colors" every
where. Indications were favorable,
SO we staked' a body of ground a.
long the main creek, built cabins,
organized a company, of which the
writer was elected president, and
went to work to open our claim.


Those three years had been years
OF toll and privation, We were i'm the
heart of the Rocky Mountains. Our
camp was pitched i'm little basin of
valley, warm and sunshiny. and
just at the entrance of deep and
gloomy canon which We named
The DEVILS Gate" and through
which our sparkling little stream
foamed and tumbled down to that
great river, the Missouri. Our ground
was deep and very wet. Drainage
was necessary, and we had driven a
tunnel for this purpose through the
earth and boulders that filled the pri.
meval bed of the creek, until we had
attained a horizontal distance of
thousand yards; but the slope of the
gulch was so gradual that we had not
reached the Bedrock" where we
hoped to find the gold laid in heaps.


Bed rock being the objective
point, must be reached so we sank
shaft at the head of our tunnel and
betook ourselves to pump,


As it was a couple of thousand
miles to the nearest foundry, and we
could not afford to await the compile
ton of the North Pacific Railroad, a
pump under the circumstances was
a problem; so / will tell how we got
one. We had blacksmith's and car
penter's tools which most of us coald
use; there was plenty of timber
growing on the mountains, and a
pair of dilapidated freight-wagons
| supplied our stock of iron. Great slabs
otsegments were cut from fir>trees,
and hewn and dressed OH one side
to a smooth plane. The other side
was rounded To- an arch or convex
surface, so that when four such seq
ments were placed together length
wise, secured with pins at the edges
which were first squared and then
made parallel, they now formed q
long hollow trunk or barrel, four.
square within, but outside cylindri-
cal, and tapering slightly from one
end to the other. Upon this were
driven hoops or bands of iron which
forced the joints close like those of q
cask, and thus we had pumps or
pipes of considerable length and So
lidity. 1t was easy to fit to them
valves or pistons, and to work them
with a wooden walking beam moved
by the crank of water. wheel.-
This crank was master piece. II
had all arm or leverage of two feet,
and was forged from the iron axle of
one OF our wagons, and its gudgeons
or bearings were turned in lathe of
our own contriving. This was q
heavy job for our resources, but IL
was finished after an age (it seemed
to us) Of toll, puzzling and perspira-
ton and we had to produce machi>
merry that was capable of raising to
heighth Of nearly thirty feet many
tons of water per day, and which
answered all our requirements for
drainage, so we were able to reach
that long sought bedrock, ut
depth of ninety-feet below the pre-
sent hed of the creek. j will men,
tion here that our pump was twelve
inches square inside, and had a
stroke of four feet, raising the water
twenty-nine feet into our drain .tun-
mel, whence it flowed out to the sur
face thousand yards down the can
ON.


We had reached "bed rock" but
had not "struck it very rich" and
were running drift or tunnel OH
bed rock across and up the gulch in
search of the ''pay>streak" which
we were hoping every day to find,
when the announcement of start
ling accident was made. Here was
the ruin of our hopes and the death
of our friend for there was little
room to hope for any other result.


ii must not be supposed that much
time was wasted in such reflections,
for telling Bill to rouse the entire
camp; rushed OFF to the mine. Such
of the men as had heard of the occur
renee hurried from their work bring
ing with them their picks an6
shoyels as likely to be needed, and
the miners from wet digging came
clad In coats, high boots. and hemlet-
shaped caps Of India rubber, and
looking like knights in armor.-
knights they were, too, for that mat
fter, for though armed only with
shovel and pick, they were as daring
and as generous as ever belted prince
who rode with lance i'm rest to
right imaginary wrongs; and they
were ready now to risk every danger
to save the poor fellow buried i'm the