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

[GhostMiner]

  September 21   2002     Part Two

 

   These guys looked to be middle aged but it was getting hard to see clearly in the fading light. The sun had just set when they appeared out of nowhere. Clay hollered over to them and asked them where they were going but they ignored him and kept getting closer. They weren’t on a path directly towards our camp but were following the creek about 100 feet away. I stood up and shined my flashlight in their direction and asked them what they were doing. The one in the front turned toward me and said they were prospecting for gold. Mighty funny I thought as they weren’t carrying anything with them. Not even backpacks or shovels. I asked them where their gear was and all five of them stopped walking. I saw the one in front say something to the others and before a few seconds had passed two of them walked away down the creek and three of them cut up the floodplain north towards the base of the mountain. Then I heard one or two of those three trampling through the brush just above us to the north. They had us surrounded.

   Conor said he saw some side arms on them. Clay said he did as well. Jacob said they might have been watching us weigh the gold and waited until dark to make their move. It was almost as if they had walked up near enough to size us up. Jacob said that if it's trouble they want he will give it to them in spades. He had his old Thompson ready for action. I was thinking to myself that what the hell is all this? Have we gone back in time to the 1930’s ? None of us were ready to give up our gold. If they wanted a fight they would get one.          

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

[GhostMiner]

 

 

 

 

[GhostMiner]

 September 21   2002     Part Three

 

   The only place we had to go would be back into the creek and they had quickly gotten the high ground and to the north as well as blocking us east and west. I hollered out and asked them what they wanted. There was only silence. Then I heard Jacob holler out. His voice was loud and deep and enough to scare off a grizzly. He told them that if they wanted a gun fight then they would get one. He called them every foul name I had ever heard and maybe a few others I hadn’t heard. He told them we were well armed and would shoot them to pieces and bury them in a hole on the mountain where no one would ever find them.

   One of the thugs hollered back to Jacob saying we misunderstood what they were doing and they only wanted to talk with us about possibly leasing a spot to mine on our claims. I hollered out that they had a mighty suspicious way of approaching us about a lease. Then I told them we were not interested and to get off our mine. Once again there was complete silence.

   Suddenly, without warning, Jacob opened up with his Thompson. He discharged an entire magazine up into the woods in the direction where the voice had come from. The rest of us opened up with our guns but kept our shots high. It sounded like a war was on. They did not return fire and all was quiet. Once again Jacob challenged them to fight like men. I heard some rustling of bushes up to the north and it sounded like they were leaving. We all fired more rounds up that way and also a few to the east and west but kept them high. Then it got quiet again. I was thinking they might not have realized what they were up against but now they knew. Would they leave or come back?      

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

. 

[Mike Furness]

If they are smart they will return with better concealment or better yet not at all ... but then again if they have a pea brain they might just regroup and try again with the same or worse results. Sounding a bit like 1937 ... wonder if any of the 'prospectors' are relatives of the old hooligans from back in the day?

[GhostMiner]

 September 22   2002     Part One     Back To Mining

 

   Last night’s trouble ended as quickly as it started with no further incidents. The five men had vanished into the night. We must have scared them off. The question for us now is did they leave the area or are they still hiding out on the mountain waiting for the right time to rob us? There is no way to know. This morning we all got back to the work at hand after we had a quick meeting over breakfast. We will need to take turns on night guard duty for the remainder of the season. The weather remains in our favor and we will push on and hopefully get all of the gold out of the glory hole we are working. The mining season is growing short and I am anxious to get back home with my gold.

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

 

[GhostMiner]

 September 22   2002     Part Two

 

   Conor and I were working gravels through the tom when I got a call on my walkie talkie. It was Jacob and he wanted me to come up to the dig site. He said he had something to show me. When I got up there he had shut down the excavator and was standing near the edge of the giant hole he had been expanding. He pointed to the west side of the pit and said he had struck a solid wall of sloping bedrock. He had found the lateral boundaries of the rich material. Then he told me that the bedrock continued to drop in that area with no sign of a bottom. He showed me a test pan from and there was still plenty of coarse gold there. The area of the second stage drop zone was about 20 feet by 20 feet. He figured the best gold was still to be found wherever the bottom of that drop contacted bedrock. 

   There was no way to tell how deep he would need to dig. He had a nice platform sitting on the first area of bedrock to start the next section. He would be able to go down about 20 to 25 feet from there without expanding his footprint. If the bedrock was still deeper than that he would need to back out and come back in from the south side by digging what would amount to a massive trench that would slope downward deep into the channel. If that was needed it might require timbering the sides for safety or digging a very wide cut. In other words, a big project. All we could do was hope he struck bedrock from where he was presently stationed. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ..............

[GhostMiner]

   September 22   2002     Part Three

 

   We finished up our day without any problems or interruptions with 100 yards of washed gravel. We will do the cleanup in the morning. Guard duty will be shared in shifts tonight starting at dusk. I am ready to get the season finished up and head for home. I have not talked with Jacob or Conor about their plan to stay the Winter out here but I think it is a bad idea.

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

 

[GhostMiner]

  September 23   2002     The Gold Fades

 

   Conor and I did the gold cleanup today while Jacob and Clay worked the dig site and hauled pay. The gold weigh was disappointing and surprised us. There were 35.5 ounces. This was about a third less gold than the last cleanup gave us and I was puzzled. However, Jacob told the crew he thought he knew why the gold total had dropped. He said that he was no longer digging at the bedrock level he had been at but now digging at the top of a new area where the bedrock dropped deeper as he had shown me. Therefore, the gravels from this weigh were well above bedrock but still fairly rich in gold. He continued on to say that what he believed about a huge pot of gold in the bottom of this digsite should still be correct. The only way we would know for sure was to find it. Our gold count from this pit now total’s a whopping 419.7 ounces. Our total for the year now sits at 1115.9 ounces. Jacob actually believes that we could double this total when our current pit is finished.

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

[GhostMiner]

   On the subject of gold and its value back in 2002  --  gold was anywhere from $310 to $350 an ounce that year. There were several partners that were part of the crew early in the season and left. They got their gold cut up to the time of leaving. When they were there and working it was a 4 way equal split. After they left the gold was being split up equally amongst Jacob and myself.  When Conor came to the mine Jacob paid him out of his cut. Gold cuts and percentages can be a touchy thing, especially when there is gold fever in the camp. It can destroy a crew and ruin friendships. We were lucky. Jacob was not a greedy person. In fact, he was quite generous. Did we ever hit the jackpot at the end of the rainbow? Let's find out. 

[GhostMiner]

Hang in there - We're almost home.