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

[GhostMiner]

    AUGUST 1   1936

   The crew was up ahead of me for a change. I had a head that felt like a rock from all the whiskey I drank the night before. After breakfast and two cups of coffee that were half whiskey and half coffee I started to come around. Whiskey Jack was still in the tent we had fixed up for him. I told the crew to let him sleep and all four of us went up to the dig site with the truck. We couldn’t get the truck right up to the drift and had to park it about 200 feet south. That meant carrying buckets a ways if we decided to mine the old tunnel.

   First order of business was to pull all the timbers away that were hiding the opening. Once we did that we shined some light in there and it looked stable. There were a few sets of timbers back in a ways but other than that it was natural. Just like Jack told us, a small cavern going into the fault line. The height was about five feet and width nearly seven feet. The country rock above us was cracked open in some places allowing gravels and small rock to get in. The bottom was mostly smooth rock. 

   Jacob and me went back into where the old boys had stopped the work with our picks and shovels and buckets. There was a wall of gravel and small rock. We picked away at it and it became loose. We filled two buckets and took them to the tub down by our old site and the four of us set about panning the gravel. After a few minutes we saw why the old boys were working that ground. It was full of coarse gold. I told the crew that was all I needed to see and we had ourselves a mine to work. 

   We set up a plan where two men dug and one man carried out buckets to the truck. Then we rotated the jobs every two hours. John resumed his old job at the tom. I was surprised at the ease of the digging. The job required a lot of pick work but once loosened we could gain ground quickly. As long as we don’t encounter boulders we may be able to drive the drift east quickly.

   Late in the morning Jack came up to the site and took a look inside the tunnel. He said he remembered it well. He said they had no good water supply up there and had to haul everything to the creek by mule and wagon. The big company bosses would come up there once a week and raise hell about the slow progress. I showed him the gold from the test pans and he was real happy to see we were on it. Jack said he wished he was younger so he could help us work. I told him not to worry about that and he had done his job by coming to the mine and telling us about the drift. I told Jack he was welcome to stay with the crew if he wanted and he gladly accepted the offer. I told him I’d make sure he got some gold from the old drift as well. He was real happy about that also. Once we got going we did pretty good. It was slower work than the trench but we ended our day with 144 buckets. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[beatup]

sounds like they are into it now

[flakmagnet]

Hope they reinforce the drift...

[GhostMiner]

15 minutes ago, flakmagnet said:

Hope they reinforce the drift...

I don't like the idea of working under bedrock with cracks in it but Jed says it's fine. Not something I would do.

[phrunt]

This is a great story to sit down and read over a few coffees, I hadn't had time to read it up until today, an enjoyable experience.

[GhostMiner]

14 minutes ago, phrunt said:

This is a great story to sit down and read over a few coffees, I hadn't had time to read it up until today, an enjoyable experience.

Many thanks.

[Cascade Steven]

Unsupported gravels make me vary nervous.  I wish them well. 

[Muppet]

I think I just figured out who the dead man will be...

 

[Swegin]

15 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

Dang, I think I want some.

I had to look those up as well. LOL

[GhostMiner]

11 minutes ago, Swegin said:

I had to look those up as well. LOL

That cornbread looks darn good. And it's a southern dish. I wonder if Jed was from down south? I have no info on him.