CHAPTER LVII.

TRACES OF THE TRICKSY MINER.

Now that we have had a ramble among the lakes and the valleys of the Sierras, and are rested and recuperated by reclining under the tall pines, and breathing the cool air of that region of eternal snow, we return once more to the mines and the miners. A few chapters on the tricks of miners, and their characteristics, good and bad, may prove of interest to readers residing in regions purely agricultural.

The “honest miner” is sometimes a little trickish. Should he find that he has made a bad bargain in taking a contract, he will sometimes resort to “ways that are dark” in order to “play even.” A trick of rather an original character was some years since successfully played by some roving miners who had taken a contract to extend a certain tunnel at Virginia City, a distance of ten feet. The tunnel already extended a distance of five or six hundred feet, and in exceedingly hard rock. The miners, four in number, contracted to drive the tunnel forward ten feet, at $30 per foot, but soon found they would make nothing at this price, owing to the extreme hardness and stubbornness of the rock.

When they took the contract an officer of the mine caused a hole to be drilled in the rock, and a wooden plug inserted just even with the face of the tunnel. The plug was shown the contractors as their starting point—the point from which they were to advance the work a distance of ten feet. All this was quite satisfactory, but when the men began work they soon found that they had undertaken a very unprofitable job—a job that would not pay their “grub.”

As soon as they became fully aware of this, the men began to consider how they might best find their way out of the trouble into which they had involved themselves. That way they were not long in hitting upon. They drew out the wooden plug which had been placed in the rock as the mark from which they were to start, then putting a blast in the hole, blew it out, completely obliterating all trace of the place where it had been drilled. They then measured back from the face of the tunnel a distance of ten feet, good strong measure, and drilling a hole in the rock drove into it the plug. This done, the four men took their ease about town for some days—about the length of time that would have been required to do the work—when they waited upon the officer from whom they had taken the contract and informed him that they were ready to receive their pay: also, putting in a great deal about the hardness of the rock and the very poor speculation the job had proved. The secretary, if it was that officer, hunted up a tape-line and went out to the tunnel with one of the men to measure the work.

Mr. Secretary found the peg all right. Placing the end of his line upon it, he measured back to the face of the tunnel and found the distance to be ten feet, good and strong. The honest sons of toil received their $300, immediately slung their blankets across their shoulders and “lit out” in search of a new camp and another profitable contract.

The trick was not discovered until a “doubting Thomas,” a member of the company—some days after the money had been paid—called for a measurement of the tunnel from its mouth back to its face. The whole tunnel was then found to be exactly the same length, to an inch, as before the last contract was let. The language of the members of the company who were present when this last measurement was made, as they groped their way out of the tunnel, was such as would be discountenanced in any Sabbath School in the land.

“Doctoring the tape-line” is a trick that strolling miners have sometimes been known to perform, when the opportunity was found. This operation is simple enough. All that is to be done is to get hold of the foreman, superintendent, or whoever is likely to measure the work; and cut out a few feet. The line is then neatly sewed together again. In order to succeed in this game it is necessary for those playing it, to “doctor” the line a few hours before their work is to be measured—at night, for instance, when they know their work is to be measured the first thing in the morning.

A mining superintendent, on the Comstock range, one day said to me: “I had my tape-line ‘doctored’ the other day, and, confound the fellows! they got away with their trick nicely.”

“How was that?” I asked.

“Well, I had let a contract to some boys who came along to sink a small shaft to the depth of 50 feet. One morning they told me the shaft was finished, and asked me to go out and measure the work.

“One of the men got into the bucket and was lowered into the shaft, holding the end of the line, which was reeled off as he descended. When he got down he held his end of the line on the bottom of the shaft, and, looking at my end, I found the shaft exactly 50 feet in depth. I paid the men their money, and they left. In a day or two I had occasion to measure something—a stick of timber—and was astonished to find it much longer than it looked. Overhauling my tape-line, I found that just six feet had been cut out of it and the two parts neatly sewed together again. I knew then that my shaft was exactly 44 feet deep, and, I tell you, I never was more ashamed of anything in all my life!”

In 1861, a miner who had been out on a prospecting expedition, upon his return to Silver City, the place whence he started, showed several business men of the town some very fine specimens of ore taken, as he said, from a lead he had discovered in the foothills of the Sierras, a few miles below Carson City. He proposed to put the names of the business men down in his notice of location, informing them that all he asked of them was a trifle monthly to be used in the purchase of provisions, powder, fuse, and other supplies. He was ready to do all the work, provided these things were furnished him. As the specimens shown contained a considerable percentage of gold and silver, a number of men allowed their names to be used, and agreed to be assessed for the amount that would be required in pushing the proposed mining enterprise. This was in the fall of the year. From the time of perfecting the arrangement for working his claim, and all through the winter, the miner was punctually at hand every month for his assessments. He reported the work progressing favorably, and brought specimens of ore that showed steady improvement; each month the ore was just a little better than the last.

The men who had been taken into the company by the honest miner, paid the assessments willingly and smilingly; each man expecting at no distant day he would be able to sell for several thousand dollars that which cost him but a few dollars per month.

About the middle of the winter the assessment was more than doubled, but none of the stockholders found fault with this, as the miner informed them that his tunnel had attained such a length that he had found it necessary to hire two assistants, to help about the blasting and wheeling out of the earth. As it would have looked a little mean to have found fault with the miner about the manner in which he was doing the work, after he had as good as given them their shares in the mine, all spoke well of the plan of rushing along the work by hiring assistance.

All went on swimmingly until late in the spring, the honest miner appearing punctually on the first day of each month for his regular assessment. As it was no unusual thing at that day to locate as many as fifteen or twenty men in one claim, each man being set down in the notice for 200 feet of ground, the assessments, when they were all gathered in, amounted to quite a snug little sum. Finally, when the snow was all gone from the hills, and wild-flowers began to bloom in the little valleys on the side of the mountains, the honest miner came no more for his assessment. The stockholders wondered, yea, marvelled greatly at this—the man had heretofore been as true to his time as the planets in their course. They began to think some accident had befallen their honest friend—feared he might have been hurt by a cave in the tunnel. There were some, however, who held other views. “If this man was hurt by a cave,” said these, “his assistants would most assuredly have come up to Silver City and made known the fact.” Their idea was that their man had suddenly drifted into a bonanza of immense richness and that he was going to manage in some way to cheat them out of their share.

Finally, one of the party holding this opinion volunteered to spare sufficient time from his business to go and look after the mine, which, by the way, was called the “Royal George.” He arrived in the neighborhood in which the mine was understood to be situated, and after two days of inquiry at last found a man who said he could point out the Royal George location. This man led the way to a rugged hill and in its side, where there was a small streak of decomposed granite, pointed out a little open cut, such as any man of ordinary industry might dig in half a day. The stockholder thought his guide mistaken: “Where was the tunnel, where the dwelling of the men, the ore-dump and the rest of the works?” The guide, however, pointed to a notice posted on the trunk of a small cedar, a short distance above the cut; and proceeding thither, the stockholder read the name of the claim—the Royal George—and below it his own name and the names of fifteen or twenty of his business friends as the locators of—“this silver lode or lead, with all dips, spurs, angles and variations.”

During his journey back to Silver City, the stockholder had plenty of time in which to swear, and he doubtless made the most of the opportunity. It was afterwards ascertained that the honest miner who was the discoverer and original locator of the Royal George, never went near the claim after making the location, but was all the fall and winter engaged in cutting wood on a ranche he had taken up in the Palmyra Mountains, many miles away, and quite in a different direction from the region in which was located the Royal George. The assessments collected were sufficient to keep the honest fellow in provisions, to enable him to hire some assistance, and, indeed, to keep his wood-ranche running very nicely until he found a purchaser at a good round sum—good wood-ranches being at that time in brisk demand.