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** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **


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   May 8   1937

 

   We decided on a place to hide the treasure. Once that was taken care of Sarge and the crew headed up to the location to do some digging. We all carried rifles and Sarge had his BAR and would be our security while we worked. Ben would guard the main camp.

   When we got up to the treasure spot we realized that someone had been digging last night. We should have guarded the area. Our temporary camp had been ransacked as well but there wasn’t much up there. We would now need to stay here at night and guard the sight as well as our main camp below. We were getting stretched thin.

   Whoever had been up here last night was digging holes on the east and west side of the rocks. They’d only gotten down about three feet or so. Maybe something had scared them off or they were waiting for us to do the hard work and then rob us. It was stone quiet and we went to work with the shovels. We were professional diggers by now and could outwork most men. 

   We continued to dig the holes that the unknown people had started. We dug down about eight feet with nothing to show but rocks. After a quick lunch we went back at it. The hole on the west side facing the mountain was getting pretty deep. I was working it along with Will. I’d say we were down about twelve feet or so. We had cut a walking slope onto the end of the trench to haul out buckets of gravel. Then I hit something that sounded different than rock. I scraped away the loose material and saw what looked like the top of a wooden box. I let out a whoop and Hudson came over from his side to have a look see. We had found another chest. I told Sarge to keep an eye peeled because it was looking like we were about to pull out more treasure.

 

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

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   May 9   1937

 

   When we pulled the chest out of its resting place we saw that it was slightly larger than the first and seemed to be a bit heavier. It appeared to be made of the same kind of wood and the lock was the same as what secured the first chest. It was slightly rotted and we cradled it as we took it to the surface. John pried off the wood at the bottom and we flipped it onto its side. He let out a curse and the rest of us just stood there dumbstruck. It was full of small gold bars. They were identical to each other and I carefully set them on a blanket as I counted them out. There were 160 of them. They had been placed on an old cloth inside the box. There was nothing else in the chest. We were hoping for a note or drawing or some clue as to who the original depositors were. John assumed Spanish Conquistadors. He said the treasure probably came from South America or Mexico hundreds of years ago. We were all amazed.

   Now we were wondering if there could be even more. I said we should go deeper in the two holes where we had found the treasure. Perhaps they had buried more in the same place but at a greater depth. We covered the gold bars with the blanket and Sarge kept a sharp eye out while we went back to digging. I was working the first treasure hole with Hudson carrying out buckets of dirt. By late afternoon I was down another eight feet in depth and hit something once again that had a dull thud sound to it as opposed to the ringing echo of shovels hitting rocks. I scraped back the top material and used my hands to pull away the last of it. I hollered out to the crew to come take a look. It was the top of yet another chest. And laying beside it was the skeleton of the man who had buried it.

   TO BE CONTINUED ...................

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   It seems as though the mining crew has made a significant treasure discovery. The question is now how much gold and other treasure is buried at the site. And how many bodies are buried along with it? Not a place I would want to camp at. And who were the five men with rifles who were watching them? I see  red flag warnings flashing all around them. 

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18 minutes ago, dig4gold said:

It is just a story don't forget.....

D4G

It's an adventure series.

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   May 10   1937

 

   Yesterday we pulled out our third chest. It was nearly identical and contained another 160 small bars of gold. They weighed half a pound and seemed to be all the same. No markings at all and no idea where they came from. We are thinking there could be more buried gold. The only way to know for sure is to dig up the entire area around the rocks down to 20 feet or so. It is looking like we will be camped here for some time.

   Ben has now joined us at our treasure camp as we call it. I feel it is better to have as much security here as possible. We haven’t seen any sign of the five men from the other day and perhaps it was just a coincidence. Sarge and Ben think otherwise and so does John. I’m just not sure.

   The gold is hidden in three separate locations. We had a good breakfast of bacon and beans and I made Jed’s favorite hot water corn bread. Jed would have been jumping for joy with this discovery as would Whiskey Jack. It’s a real shame they aren’t here to see this. 

   We got a late start to the digging but were hard at it by 10:00 AM. The plan was to dig a circle as close to the rocks as possible and widen out as we went. We would go down to 20 feet. The distance from the rocks would be 50 feet. Everything we had found so far was close to the rocks.

   We broke for lunch after about four hours of hard labor. Sarge told us he thought he had seen someone up on the ridge above us earlier but wasn’t sure. Ben decided to hike up there with his Thompson and have a look around. He was up there a good half hour and when he came down he was holding several cigarette butts in his hand. They looked to be fresh. Sarge said we are being watched. I did not want to hear this. John said it's just a matter of time before we have trouble. We dug until dusk and broke work for the night. We found nothing but rocks. We’ll get a good night’s rest and be back at it in the morning. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...................

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   May 11   1937     Part One

 

   Last night Sarge woke me up. He said he saw a light from either a lantern or flashlight up on the ridge above us. I got up but let the crew sleep. Ben was standing there with the Thompson pointing up in that direction. Sarge said he had a bad feeling that something was up. I decided to wake the crew. Once up we put out the campfire and grabbed our rifles. We took positions in a circle around the camp. Ben worked his way up the mountain towards the ridge and Sarge took a position of cover on the opposite direction in case they were coming on the east side of camp. I wasn’t sure if they knew we had armed security with heavy weapons but if they tried something they would find out in a hurry.

   I saw a lantern light up on the mountain and there was a crack of a branch. They were circling to the north of us. Or at least some of them were. For all I knew they could be all around us. Then it got stone quiet. There was no moon and it was completely dark. I think that’s what they had been waiting for. Then I heard Sarge holler out.  

   TO BE CONTINUED .....................

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              I think he said OH MY !😳

Looks like you're having fun with your story.

I know more than one musician that turned novelist just for a hobby.

Very similar to song writing...

And .thx for the distraction...I could use it right now...

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8 minutes ago, rvpopeye said:

              I think he said OH MY !😳

Looks like you're having fun with your story.

I know more than one musician that turned novelist just for a hobby.

Very similar to song writing...

And .thx for the distraction...I could use it right now...

Musician/singer,miner,writer. Full plate.

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