Adventure, June 1911 — page 111: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Bread and Salt to-day,” I counselled, “don’t just take Black’s word for everything, Make some soundings for yourself.”’ Instantly his native optimism came to the front, and the clouds began to disappear.. “You're soured, George,’ he returned lightly. ‘They haven’t all had your luck. Besides, how on earth can they salt a placer mine? It’s preposterous!” “T don’t know,” I replied doggedly. “I don’t know whether they can or whether they can’t. All that I am laboring to get into your head is that you can’t believe all Black says. ever did salta mine. But Ido know that he sold a couple of bonanzas to Easterners like you and by some mysterious law of Nature they ceased to produce just about as soon as the purchase price was paid over.” Vincent nodded indulgently. ‘Quartz. Any fool can salt a quartz mine—shoot it in with a shotgun, mix it in the dump, squirt chloride of gold into the sample sack with a syringe—forty ways. That’s easy. But now you talk to me about salting a placer— where you just shovel up the dirt and pan it out—acres and acres of it. I say it’s out of the question.” Vincent had made his money in the East in commerce, and a man that can do that without help, as he had, is ordinarily able to take care of himself. On the other hand, this was Montana and gold mines, and, be a~man’s business ability what it may, any Easterner is a tenderfoot when it comes to mining. It was no fault of mine that he had fallen under Black’s spell, though I did introduce Vincent in the club where Black got tohim. But the man who has suffered himself from the mining fever—and I had— feels an obligation to protect the unwary from exposure. Moreover, as Vincent had done me a good turn once, I conceived it my duty to throw cold water. “Placer mining is not what it used to be,” I stated disparagingly. But my shot went wild. He began to spout statistics like an eruption of Old Faithful. “Of course not!” he assented with animation. ‘‘Neither are methods what they were. The old-timer with his pan and sluice-box let enough gold escape him to pay the national debt. Look at the fortunes that have been made by cyaniding the old dumps! Look at the low-grade ore they work these days! Look at the old placers: worked over for the third time at Mind, I don’t say that Black | 297 a profit! Why, do you know how much you need to make placer ground pay now under improved methods? Ten cents a yard, in the right places! Twenty-five cents is big. Give me a piece of ground that runs twenty- fivecents to the yard andI’ll make a fortune. Your old-time prospector wouldn’t fool with ground that didn’t run five cents a shovel. Generally they wanted about ten dollars. to the pan.’ “Oh, if you’ve got the ground——” I began. He made a sweep with his egg-spoon that left golden traces on the white tablecloth. “Ground! That’s the point.. Black says there’s oodles of it. He says it runs forty cents to the yard as far as he has tried it. That’s all I want.” “Ves, that’s what Black says,” I returned grudgingly, unwilling to yield. ‘I’ve had a little experience with mines myself, and I’ve seen a few of them sold that——’” Again he stopped me. “Quartz,’’ he re- peated serenely and exasperatingly. *“*And furthermore, George,’’ he continued with dignity, rising from the table, “‘I am perhaps not a complete ass, despite the fact that I wasn’t born west of the Mississippi!”’ By THROUGH the windows a big tour- ie ey) ing-car could be seen lazily rolling up ENS to the curb at the hotel entrance. “There they are,” remarked Vincent with a sigh of relief. “Get your coat and we'll be going.” | I maneuvered Black into the front seat with the driver. I hadn’t yet resigned my trust as guardian angel, even if the job was a thankless one, and I didn’t propose to leave Vincent with Black where I couldn’t hear all that was said. So Black was forced to lean over his seat and expound his theo- ries in the face of my openly exhibited skep- ticism. He treated Vincent to a highly scientific disquisition on placers, full of such phrases as “mother lode in the neighbor- hood,” “old river channel,” ‘‘pay streaks,” ‘“‘volcanic upheavals,” and something about “only a foot and a half to bed-rock,”’ while I assumed a look of exquisite boredom, as one to whom it was all ancient and stale. The day was such as is seen only in the high altitudes of the Rockies—a clear June morning filled with the tang of pure air, dry and cool. The car sped faultlessly over the hard,smooth road. On such a day even my settled habit of suspicion slowly yielded to Go JOO ANG <SEiG@