GhostMiner

The fault line & gold.

Hopefully today or tomorrow. Time constraints today. Thanks for reading.

No worries. I'll get more transcribed when I have the time.

Will still be posting. If a book comes out it will be in the classified where it's supposed to be. Perhaps in the Spring. For now the journal goes on.

Will do.

Thanks so much & you are welcome!

All true Clay & thank you. We had to get a POO & bond for the eastern drift. Wasn't hard to due. We had to take a skid steer out there & make a descent haul road to the site for trommel access. Then we had to pump water up 100 feet in elevation & 2000 ft in distance to get it to our holding pond. That required two 3 inch pumps in series as one pump didn't have the head to make the lift. I tended the pumps and learned not to let them run out of gas as we had no foot valve. When they shut down 2000 ft of 3 inch layflat needed to be purged which meant you uncorked the pumps and took a shower. Every morning LOL.

JUNE 23 1936 Three ounces of gold from the weigh. It seems nothing will stop us now. I am now sure we are digging a glory hole once again. Also, more prospectors were seen heading up the creek by John. He said they were a group of three and he talked with them briefly. They were from the coast of California with no experience but wanted to take a try at mining gold. John said they seemed like an honest bunch and he wished them luck. More and more people are looking for gold as an answer to the hard times this country is facing. It makes me realize how lucky our group is. We are getting about chest high in the hole now and are having to winch the buckets out to the top of the hole. Then the buckets are walked out two at a time up the ramp of the trench to the surface. This has become slower and harder work. I am hoping our gravels get richer now as our bucket count will drop. The smooth facings of rock in the kettle are something to behold. Our digging is contained to this area and we go deeper every day. We took 210 hard earned buckets down to John. He is washing them with a determined grin on his face every day. We all sat at the camp fire after supper and talked about our strike. I rolled Ripple and Burley and passed them around to the crew and poured cups of whiskey. We all speculated on how much gold was waiting for us at the bottom of the kettle. John and Jacob said they would buy their own farm. Will said he wanted to go into the automobile business or maybe own a feed mill. I told the crew I was going to keep gold mining until my body quit on me. We all had a few smokes and drank our cups. Eventually it was time for first watch and we broke up the get together. TO BE CONTINUED ................

JUNE 22 1936 One more ounce at this mornings weigh. We need to get deeper. We all saw the law dogs coming back down the mountain today. They said they had no luck in finding the gang of rif raf. Either they have a hideout in another area or are very well hidden. I think they are still on the mountain somewhere. I took a few hours after breakfast to go into town for some new work clothes which were badly needed. I don't know how many prospectors the town folk see but I seemed to be a curiosity to them. Maybe it was just the ragged look I now present. The heat is getting worse now it seems. We are hitting 90 degrees most days and we all know it will get hotter in the next few months. I tell Jacob and Will to work at a steady pace and take breaks when needed. We are getting steady gold which is a miner's dream. No one ever complains about the work. The gravels have not changed and the work is not too bad. We filled 230 buckets today. TO BE CONTINUED ................

JUNE 21 1936 Two ounces in the pan from the dig. The gold is constant and for that we are all thankful. The material we are digging has not changed. Nice looking pay gravels with some small rounded river rock. I could dig here the rest of my days and die a happy miner. What have I done to deserve such good fortune? This morning a group of law dogs numbering eight stopped by to ask us if we had seen the gang. We told them no and they headed up the mountain following the creek. We told them there were thousands of places to hide out up there. They seemed hell bent on finding them. Those rag tags are clever. If they sense the town is left short handed on law they may go back and pull another robbery. At the kettle we continue to gain nearly a foot a day in depth. We all take our turns at digging and hauling buckets to the truck except for John who has found himself a home at the tom. He is ready to challenge me as fastest panner now and may win. He has developed skills that any mining crew would want on their team. We ended up with 250 buckets today which was not too bad. I thought we might break our record but we were slowed by a boulder we had to pry. It took the three of us working together to move it. That boulder may be a sign of something good to come as far as gold is concerned. I am hopeful that country is still quite a ways down. I want to work this kettle for the rest of the season and retire. I also need to get to town and buy more shirts and pants. The ones I brought are nearly all worn out from the heavy work. I am proud of our crew. We are now all of us family. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

JUNE 20 1936 This morning's pan showed yet another two ounces of gold for our efforts. We are all happy miners. I sent Jacob into town for some supplies and Will and me worked the kettle. We are gaining about a foot or so a day in depth and can still lift out buckets easily. We took a break for lunch around noon and Jacob had just got back to camp. He told us hell had broke loose in town. The bank had just been robbed and there was a shootout on the main street. Three robbers had shot it out with a deputy and several armed citizens. As far as he knew the gang had got away with quite a bit of bank money and two of the town folks had been wounded. He didn't know how bad. They made the get a way in a truck presumed to be stolen. We all looked at each other and nodded our heads. It had to be the same crew who's deserted camp we had found. The guy we let go must have left the area, Will said he'd bet his gold they were still hiding out up on the mountain somewhere. There's a million places to disappear out here. I agreed. I just said for everyone to keep an eye peeled and be on alert. They know we're still here and probably figure we have gold. John said they might be waiting until we have more gold accumulated from the mining season and then make their move on us. I didn't like the sound of that at all. After lunch we went back to work with the pick swinging and the shovels scooping. We're getting near waste deep in the hole with country on every side. I've never seen anything like it. Not even the first glory hole was this well defined. If there was a gold bearing river running over this pot hole there has to be a lot of gold stacked in it. We all keep speculating as to the depth of the deposit. I told the boys that if we start seeing big numbers of ounces at the weighs we might be getting to the bottom. Right now we are all happy to get what we get evry day with the hope of a motherlode strike. Today our bucket count was 235. TO BE CONTINUED .............

JUNE 19 1936 I was on my watch shift late last night and sitting with a cup of hot coffee spiced with whiskey to keep me warm in the night air while the crew slept when I heard rustling down by the creek. I couldn't make anything out and cautiously walked in the direction of the noise. It got quiet. I tried to see through the gray darkness and whatever it was moved again. Then I saw it - a lion on the prowel. I had never seen one in the wild before. I hollered and made a rukus but it just stared at me. I'm figuring it could see me better than I could see it. It started to pace and move towards me in a deliberate manner. My hand wasn't as steady as I wanted but I raised the rifle and leveled it just over it's head and squeezed one off. That seemed to do the trick and it was off down the side of the creek. I stood there listening but didn't hear anything more. The crew was out of their tents wondering if we were under attack by hooligans. The daylight brought the weigh and we forgot about the lion as we were looking at 5 ounces in the pan. We were all hootin and hollering, even me. Back up at the dig we worked our tails off and I sweated out all the whiskey from the night before. We had a defined pot hole showing up now with signs of a really pretty smooth wall of rock on the eastern side where the waterfall had worn it smooth. I'm no geologist but i'd swear it was marble or something like it. I didn't say much to Will or Jacob but I had a real honest feeling that this was something real special and we were glory bound. Our days labor brought down 260 buckets to John. TO BE CONTINUED ..............

JUNE 18 1936 We are all happy miners. We took three ounces from what I now am fairly certain is another kettle. I don't think we have even scratched the surface. This one appears to be much larger than the first but we still have no knowledge of it's depth. Only God knows what may lie at the bottom. Jacob and Will are developing the fever and now rival John in this regard. I am doing my best to keep everyone focused on the job at hand and telling them we don't know how much gold we will get and keep your expectations realistic. I fear it is falling on deaf ears as the talk in camp is of buying all kinds of things with the gold. All I can do is keep them all working towards our goal of getting it all before the season ends while staying safe. If anything, this gold is acting as fuel for the crew. I tell everyone to work at a steady pace and don't burn out. The days now are over 90 degrees every day but at night it drops sharply at sunset and gets cold. The air is very dry and we all drink lots of water all through the day. We haven't seen rain for two weeks. Gravels are still fairly easy and the buckets are flying out of the dig. We took 290 out today and are exhausted. We should all sleep good tonight. I am drinking whiskey with John and dreaming of home. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

JUNE 17 1936 Another ounce in our till from yesterdays haul. We are all working our system now like a well oiled machine. The days are long and hot and it seems I never can have too much water. The kettle is now dug several feet below country level and we move the gravels at a steady pace with little talk between us except for the occasional grunt or curse word. The crew is able to work long days with good light. The creeks has slowed quite a bit but we have not needed the pump yet. At the level we are working the rock is small and being the size of a baseball mixed with smaller stone and gravel. We have not needed the bars yet. I have become accustomed to the work although I look forward to a long rest at the end of our season. We all pushed hard towards days end and delivered 260 buckets to the tom. Will will need to help John finish up the weigh tomorrow morning as we kept him under heavy lode. There have been no new prospectors hiking up the creek. Perhaps the word is out that there is a good crew working the best ground and desperados roaming the mountain and coming out this way is not safe. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

JUNE 16 1936 We got one ounce from the 115 buckets off of country rock and another one half from the 140 buckets of supposed kettle gravels. Seeing as this one half ounce is at the top layer and weakest part of a pay channel this holds great hope to us. Could this be another big strike? Will, Jacob, and me worked hard digging the top of the kettle today. We found the digging not too bad and there is enough room for two of us to dig at once. We alternate the work with the third person carrying the buckets out to the truck. We are able to walk the buckets out at this depth. When we come up out of the kettle we are in the bottom of the trench. Then we walk our ramp out to the surface. We kept John busy today as we removed 220 buckets. I don't know what is harder work, digging or carrying two full buckets to the surface. John has become quite proficient at washing gravels and at panning as well. He is now a first rate miner for sure. We all earned a good supper tonight and made a good dinner of hash and hot water corn bread. John said he was seeing good color in the heavies so tomorrow's weigh is holding some promise. My whiskey is a comfort to me and eases the tiredness of my body and helps me sleep. Jacob and Will are not big users of spirits but will toast with John and me most evenings. TO BE CONTINUED .................

JUNE 15 1936 One more ounce of gold was produced from the dig yesterday. We have dropped off the raised country rock and I have dug south picking it up again. We took 115 buckets of the country and ran out of pay. The area between the two lifted country slabs is about 8 to 10 feet in diameter. We are about halfway between our first and second holes and all trench work has now stopped. I am now thinking we have discovered another kettle in the channel at the base of the ancient waterfall. The depth of this pot hole is unknown. I panned some gravels at the surface with almost no color. This makes me think it is deep and gold is well below the surface. I had John come up to have a look as well. We will start digging out gravels and John will process everything as we go and eventually see where the bottom lies. The top gravels are fairly easy digging and we got down a couple feet today and removed 140 buckets for a total of 255 buckets. We will process them seperately. At supper we talked about this new area and are all eager to find out what this kettle may hold. It could be the glory hole we are all dreaming of. For sure it is larger than the first one. Things have been quiet around here lately. It's been good to be able to concentrate on work for a change. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

JUNE 14 1936 The weigh gave us two ounces. The gravels in the trench are steady pay and the work is not too awfully bad. We will stay with this plan and drive the trench deeper until we find country or another kettle. The days are getting quite hot with temperatures in the 90 degree area at the peak. At night it drops quickly after sundown and we wear heavy clothes to stay warm. We are all doing good, honest work and our pay exceeds every expectation for sure. We are a team now and all watch out for each other. I continue to hope for another big strike but even if that fails we are making hay with our efforts. There are many desperate people roaming about that would steal from us if given the chance. Will worked at widening our dig area at a higher level today. Jacob and me worked nearly side by side with shovels clanking and sweat flying. The sounds of our work here echos down the fault line. I have begun to see some country rock at the 10 foot depth but then it disappears under deeper gravels. To me this is showing a possible sign of a deeper hole to be dug which is just north of the first kettle. We are descending the trench in that direction. If only we could dig faster we would find our answer. At the end of todays dig we took down a total of 245 buckets and it was hard earned pay. The trench has taken shape and getting quite large. If we do hit a deep kettle we will have to make a plan to get the buckets back up to ground level, especially if it becomes deeper than the first one. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

JUNE 13 1936 We took Will up with Jacob and me to the dig site and worked the trench. It was a pleasure to get back into those gravels. We were also visited by two deputies who were investigating John's beating of the bounty hunter. Just what I didn't need or want to deal with. I backed John's story which we had worked out in case of the law dogs appearing at the mine. I told them that the bounty hunter had threatened John and lunged at him because John wouldn' take him as part of our crew. One deputy said that wasn't what he was told and why did John take his guns from him. I said the bounty hunter was reaching for his pistols and John was left with no choice but to defend himself and take the guns from him. The deputies looked at each other and went away to talk by themselves for several minutes. When they came back the deputy in charge said they had no proof either way as to what happened and couldn't make an arrest unless there was more evidence. They made John give them the bounty hunters guns though. Before they left John told them to tell the bounty hunter to stay away from our mining camp. They agreed. With that out of the way we worked the rest of the day and brought down 280 buckets. Hopefully we will see good gold at the weigh tomorrow. We all talked around supper about trying to keep everything from developing into trouble that brought the law down on us. We need to protect ourselves and our goods but not go too far in doing so unless we have no choice. We all had a few drinks of whiskey and Will took first watch. TO BE CONTINUED ....................

June 12 1936 We didn't do any digging as far as buckets of pay go yesterday. We worked at widening out the top area and ramping the trench for preparation of working there again. I finally gave in to my crew and tomorrow we will resume the glory gravels. I took John up to the site along with Jacob and we chopped away at making everything accessible by foot for now. It was hard work but it will pay off by saving time once we get deeper. We also dropped a few more trees and bucked them up for any timbers we might need for bracing the side walls. After supper John and me had a long talk man to man. I explained to him we didn't need any more trouble that might cause us issues. I told him I appreciated his loyalty to his crew but how about we keep it calm if possible. We have a limited time to be here working before snow comes possibly as early as October. I am hoping to have us all set financially by then. John seemed to listen to what I said and we shook hands and opened up a bottle. All four of us sat by the fire that night looking at the night sky, rolling burley shag, and swapping stories and lies. We talked about woman and gold and all kinds of things. The whiskey went down and we opened another. Pretty soon we were all drunk as sailors who hadn't seen port for six months. Finally we sent Will up to stand watch. I told him to take Jacob with him. Hell, by then it was past midnight. John ane me finally put up the bottle and went to bed. TO BE CONTINUED ....................

JUNE 11 1936 Yesterdays 260 buckets were a big disappointment to us all and yielded barely an ounce. The ground continues to be fickle. Just when I think we are once again glory bound we have a light weigh. I know that one ounce out of that volume of gravel is very rich. However, we all believe the pot of gold awaits us here. We must just keep working. Just before supper we once again were visited by the bounty hunter. Now he was becoming a nuisance. He announced himself and strolled into camp like he was one of us. He told us his trail had gone cold and he may quit the search for the gang of thugs. John looked at him and said why are you out here telling us your problems? Yesterday you were threatening us with some kind of order from a Judge you were going to serve on us? The bounty hunter said his name was Bill. He said he was sorry for that but was desperate to make a bounty as his funds were running low. He asked if he might join up with our crew. This was incredible and John laughed in his face. I just said sorry, we don't need any help. John told him to get out of our camp and fast. Bill the bounty man looked at John and said he didn't like being talked to like that. John said he didn't care what he liked and he wasn't welcome. The bounty hunter looked at me and said that I was the leader of the crew, can't I give him a try? He refused to talk with John anymore. He started to argue his point for joining up with us. John said we don't hire trash like you and to git. Bill said he wasn't talking to him. John simply reached out and pulled the guys hat down over his eyes and let go with a right hand to his jaw. The bounty hunter went down with a thud. John grabbed the guys rifle as the man got up shaking his head. He started to reach for one of his side arms but John clocked him over the head with the rifle butt and removed both revolvers. The guy cursed at John and John rammed the rifle butt into his belly and brought it up into his chin. This must have been something John had learned fighting the Germans in the Great War. The fight was all out of Bill. John told him to git or he'd get worse and thanks for the guns. Bill stumbled out of camp heading down towards the road. Now John and I got into a heated argument about all this. I told him this wasn't the way to handle things and he couldn't just haul off on anyone that crossed him. I don't know if he listened or not. I actually think he likes this kind of thing and it will catch up with us at some point. John just said that Bill wasn't leaving as told and he just helped move him along. The rest of the night was quiet and all of us had a few drinks to settle down. Jacob's eyes had been big as saucers during the beating. He was not used to this kind of thing and neither was I. John went up on first watch while the rest of us turned in. I feel like I am running out of time here and this mining venture is getting more dangerous by the day. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

JUNE 10 1936 We got another 4 ounces from yesterdays dig. The ground continues to pay like a glory hole. The three of us continued north into the easier gravel in the wall. There was a lot of broken shale that didn't provide us much resistance. We swung and chopped and shoveled with sweat flying and the occasional curse word when a pick bounced back off some hard stone. This was one of our better days as far as bucket totals and we kept John working with 260 of them. We were all exhausted by dusk and drove back down to camp with the last load on the bed of the old Ford. We'll help John finish up in the morning before we go up and dig. It was a pleasant evening and we were all sitting around the fire before first watch and toasting each other when we heard someone holler out as he came up our side of the creek from the south where down below the main road runs. It was the tin star bounty hunter again. John didn't think mutch of this guy to put it mildly. The bounty hunter yelled out he was comin' in to our camp. John got up and bluntly said that nobody here invited you into camp and we had no business with him. It was starting to get dark and we wondered what he was up to out here roaming at night. The bounty hunter didn't exactly like John's comment and told him so. John asked him why he was here. The guy said another robbery had taken place up on the mountain maybe 2 miles away. He figured this gang was still roaming up & down the creek robbing prospectors and also going into town and doing the same. He was sure they were hiding out. Then he said the wrong thing to John. He asked how much gold we were getting. Then he said he couldn't believe we hadn't run across this crew and who knows, maybe we were tied in with them in some way and helping them. My heart sank. I thought to myself why did he have to go and say that? John looked at him and said he'd had enough of his mouth and called him trash. I jumped in and said we don't know anything about the gang and we were hard working miners minding our own business. The bounty hunter asked again how much gold we were getting. John told him it was none of his damn business and to get the hell out of camp or he'd kick his ass. The guy said to look at his star. He had all authority to question and interrogate. John told him we don't know anything and if you ask about our gold one more time you're gonna' have a problem. He looked at John and could see he meant business. He started to leave but as he was walking out he turned and said he might be back again with paperwork to take us to town infront of a judge and make us give sworn testimony. Then he was gone, hiking back down to the road. I told everyone that he thinks we know something but doesn't have any real authority and is trying to bluff us. John said if he comes back and tries to force me to go into town he's in for big trouble. I just said not to worry about it and lets just keep getting our gold. John was so angry he couldn't sleep so he took first watch. TO BE CONTINUED ....................

JUNE 9 1936 Jacob, Will, and me again worked the east wall at the fault. About mid day John came up to the dig site with a visitor. He said he was a bounty hunter out of Nevada. This guy looked worse than the hooligans we had encountered. He was wearing two Colts and carrying a rifle. I asked him what he wanted. The man said he had been hired by a certain company to track down a gang of murderers and thugs who he believed were roaming our neck of the woods. He said he dealt in people - dead, captured, or detained. In his words he was hired to capture or eliminate the gang by whatever means possible. He was wearing some kind of tin star and showed us paperwork giving him all authority in both Nevada and California. He did not give us any information as to who exactly it was that hired him. I asked him if he was a law dog. He just said he was a bounty hunter and made his own law when he was working. He wanted to know if we had seen this gang and showed us some pictures. He said they were wanted in Nevada and California for strong arm robery and murder. I looked at the pictures and passed them around to everyone. It was the same group of rag tags we had encountered. Everyone knew the rule which was keep your mouth shut and we will handle our own problems alone without involving the law. We all told him we hadn't seen them but would keep a watch. He gave us his card and said to notify him if we saw them. He said if we didn't it would go hard on us. We watched him walk back down to camp and John followed him down. I told Will to go down there also just in case there was trouble. A little while later Will came back up and we continued our work. We were slowly widening out the dig area to the east. Some of the gravels had loosened up around some round rock and we made hay. I panned some as we dug and saw color. We ended up with 215 buckets which was a pretty good day. We'll see what we get tomorrow. At supper we were talking about the scroungy bounty hunter. John said we should have kicked his ass for the way he talked to us. And he meant it. I just said not to worry about it and I wondered if that crew was still in the area. Will said that the thugs most likely had a pretty good idea we were getting gold and he wouldn't be surprised if they were still somewhere on the mountain. I said to just keep on guard and keep standing watch at night and we should be ok. Secretly I was worried. TO BE CONTINUED ....................

JUNE 8 1936 The weigh was done this morning. The 47 buckets of wall gravels gave us half an ounce. Not too bad we thought but very hard work to get it. Then came the weigh from the 3 buckets from the seam in the wall. There was heavy gold in the pan that brought us another ounce. An unbelievable amount of gold for such a small amount of gravel. This gives me even more confidence that the trench holds a fortune in gold as I think much of the deposit lies below this depth in a depression or kettle in the old channel. We have now mined a total of 284 ounces which is already far beyond anything I could have expected. We all decided to take a day of much needed rest as the work has been hard on our bodies. I have run out of holes in my belt and have had to punch in a new one as I have lost quite a bit of weight from the heavy work. I told the boys to head into town and gave them a list of supplies. When they came back we talked about the operation over hoover stew. We built a small fire. The night sky was filled with stars and I broke out a special bottle of Four Roses I had stashed away. We filled our cups and toasted the mine and the gold. Eventually we all retired and Will took first watch. TO BE CONTINUED .............................

We have a few churn drill tests on our mine from the 1960's. Some of the attemps got stopped out by rock. Modern companies say it is too hard to drill where we are at because of the rock. Also, drilling requires a POO. This project is a treasure hunt and I don't want the Forest Service involved on this one. Alaska supports mining, California fight it. We'll just keep the hole going for now & hand sampling along the faultline in other areas for now. Thanks.

Thanks for the info. It sounded too easy LOL.