Boys of Crawford's Basin

by John Henry Goldfrap

  CHAPTER XV

  THE BIG REUBEN VEIN

  But it seemed as though Joe were destined never to get to Sulphide. Iwas still in the kitchen, when, not more than twenty minutes later, Iheard the rattle of wheels again, and looking out of the window, there Isaw my partner by the stable tying up his horse.

  "Hallo, Joe!" I cried, throwing open the door. "What's up?"

  Without replying at the moment, Joe came striding in, shut the door, andthrowing his hat down upon the table, said:

  "I came back to tell you something. I've a notion, Phil, that we've gotto go hunting for that vein ourselves, and not lose time by going up totell Tom."

  "Why? What makes you think that, Joe?" I asked, in surprise.

  "That's what I came back to tell you. You know that little treeless'bubble' that stands on the edge of the canyon only about half a mileup-stream from here? Well, when I drove up the hill out of our valleyjust now I turned, naturally, to look at the scar on the mountain, whenthe first thing to catch my eye was the figure of a man standing on topof the 'bubble.'"

  "Is that so? What was he doing?"

  "He was looking at the scar, too."

  "How do you know that, Joe?" I asked, incredulously. "You couldn't tellat that distance whether he had his back to you or his face."

  "Ah, but I could, though," Joe replied; "and I'll tell you how. After aminute or so the man turned--I could see that motion distinctlyenough--caught sight of me, and instantly jumped down behind the rocks."

  "Didn't want to be seen, eh?" remarked Peter. "And what did you donext?"

  "I felt sure he was watching me, though I couldn't see him," Joe wenton, "and so, to make him suppose I hadn't observed him, I stayed where Iwas for a minute, and then drove leisurely on again. There's a dip inthe road, you know, Phil, a little further on, and as soon as I haddriven down into it, out of sight, I pulled up, jumped out of thebuckboard, and running up the hill again I crawled to the top of therise and looked back. There was the man, going across the mesa at a run,headed straight for Big Reuben's gorge!"

  Joe paused, and for a moment we all sat looking at each other insilence.

  "Any idea who he was?" I asked presently.

  "Yes," replied Joe, without hesitation. "It was Long John Butterfield."

  "You seem very sure," remarked Peter; "but do you think you couldrecognize him so far off?"

  "I feel sure it was Long John," Joe answered. "I have very long sight;and as the man stood there on top of the 'bubble,' with the sun shiningfull upon him, he looked as tall as a telegraph pole. Yes, I feelcertain it was Long John."

  "Then Yetmore has started him out to prospect for that vein!" I cried."He is probably camped in the neighborhood of Big Reuben's gorge,following up the stream, and I suppose he heard the roar of the slideyesterday and came down this way the first thing this morning to get alook at the scar."

  "That's it, I expect," Joe answered.

  "And you suppose," said Peter, "that he went running back to his campto get his tools and go prospecting up on the scar."

  Joe nodded.

  "Then, what do you propose to do?" asked the hermit.

  "I've been thinking about it as I drove back," replied Joe, "and myopinion is that Phil and I ought to go up at once, see if we can't findthe spot where that big tree was rooted out, and stake the claim for TomConnor. If we lose a whole day by going up to Sulphide to notify Tom, itwould give Long John a chance to get in ahead of us and perhaps beat usafter all."

  The bare idea of such a catastrophe was too much for me. I sprang out ofmy chair, crying, "We'll go, Joe! And we'll start at once! How are we toget up there, Peter? There must be any amount of snow; and we areneither of us any good on skis, even if we had them."

  "Yes, there's plenty of snow," replied Peter promptly, entering withheartiness into the spirit of the enterprise, "lots of snow, but you canavoid most of it by taking the ridge on the right of the creek andfollowing along its summit to where it connects with the saddle. You'llfind a little cliff up there, barring your way, but by turning to yourleft and keeping along the foot of the precipice you will come presentlyto the upper end of the slide, and then, by coming down the slide, youwill be able to reach the place where the line of trees used to stand,which is the place you want to reach."

  "Is it at all dangerous?" asked Joe.

  "Why, yes," replied Peter, "it is a bit dangerous, especially on theslide itself now that the trees are gone; though if you are ordinarilycareful you ought to be able to make it all right, there being two ofyou. For a man by himself it would be risky--a very small accident mightstrand him high and dry on the mountain--but where there are twotogether it is reasonably safe."

  "Come on, then, Joe," said I. "Let's be off."

  "Wait a bit!" cried our guest, holding up his hand. "You talk of stakinga claim for Tom Connor; well, suppose you _should_ find the spot wherethe big tree was rooted out, and _should_ find a vein there--do you knowhow to write a location-notice?"

  "No," said I, blankly. "We don't."

  "Well, I'll write you out the form," said Peter. "I've read hundreds ofthem and I remember it well enough, and you can just copy the wordingwhen you set up your stake--if you have occasion to set one up at all."

  He sat down and quickly wrote out the form for us, when, pocketing thepaper, we went over to the stable, saddled up, and leaving Peter incharge, away we rode, armed with a pick, a shovel, an ax and a coil ofrope.

  According to the hermit's directions, instead of following up the bed ofthe creek which led to his house, we took to the spur on the right, thetop of which being treeless, had been swept bare of snow by the windsand presented no serious obstacle to our sure-footed ponies. We wereable, therefore, to ride up the mountain so far that we presently foundourselves looking down upon Peter's house, or, rather, upon the mountainof snow which covered it. But here the character of the spur changed,or, to speak more accurately, here the spur ended and another one began.Between the two, half-filled with well-packed snow, lay a deep crevice,which, bearing away down hill to our right, was presently lost among thetrees.

  "From the lay of the land," said Joe, "I should judge that this is thehead of the creek which runs through Big Reuben's gorge--Peter told usit started up here, you remember. And from the look of it," hecontinued, "I should suppose that the shortest way of getting over tothe slide would be to cut right across here to the left through thetrees. But that is out of the question: the snow would be ten feet overour heads; so our only way is to cross this gulch and go on up as far aswe can along the top of the next ridge, as Peter said."

  "Then we shall have to leave the ponies here," I remarked, "and do therest on foot: there's no getting them across this place."

  Accordingly, we abandoned our ponies at this point, and having with somedifficulty scrambled across the gulch ourselves, we ascended to theridge of the next spur and continued our way upward. This spur wascrowned by an outcrop of rock, which being much broken up and the cracksbeing filled with snow, made the walking not only difficult butdangerous. By taking care, however, we avoided any accident, and, aftera pretty stiff climb arrived at the foot of a perpendicular ledge ofrocks which cut across our course at right angles--the little cliffPeter had told us we should find barring our way.

  Here, turning to the left, as directed, we skirted along the base of thecliff, sometimes on the rocks and sometimes on the edge of the snowwhich rested against them, until at last we reached a point whence wecould look right down the steep slope of the slide.

  Covered with loose shale, the slope for its whole length appeared to besmooth and of uniform pitch, except that about three-quarters of the waydown we could see a line of snow hummocks stretching all across itscourse, indicating pretty surely that here had grown a strip of trees,which being most of them broken off short had caught and held a littlesnow against the stumps.

  "There's where we want to get, Joe!" I cried, eagerly. "Down there tothat row of stumps! This is a limestone country--all this shale, yousee
, is composed of limestone chips--but that tree-root in which wefound the chunk of galena held two or three bits of porphyry as well,you remember, and if it did come from down there, there's a good chancethat that line of stumps indicates the course of a porphyry outcrop, asPeter guessed, cutting across the limestone formation."

  "Well, what of that?" asked Joe. "Is a porphyry outcrop a desirablething to find? Is it an 'indication'?"

  "It's plain you're no prospector, Joe," said I, laughing; "and though Idon't set up to know much about it myself, I've learned enough fromhearing Tom Connor talk of 'contact veins' to know that if there's avein in the neighborhood the most promising place to look for it iswhere the limestone and the porphyry come in contact."

  "Is that so?" cried Joe, beginning to get excited. "Then let us get downthere at once; for, ten to one, that's where our big tree came from."

  "That's all very well," said I. "The row of stumps is our goal, allright, but how are we going to get down there? I don't feel at allinclined to trust myself on this loose shale. The pitch is so steep thatI should be afraid of its starting to slide and carrying us with it,when I don't see anything to stop us from going down to the bottom andover the precipice at the lower end."

  "That's true," Joe assented. "No, it won't do to trust ourselves on thistreacherous shale; it's too dangerous. What we must do, Phil, is to getacross to that long spur of rocks over there and climb down that. Itwill bring us close down to the line of stumps."

  The spur to which Joe referred, connecting at its upper end with thecliff at the foot of which we were then standing, reached downward likea great claw to within a short distance of the chain of snow hummocks,and undoubtedly our safest course would be to follow it to its lowestextremity and begin our descent from there. It was near the further edgeof the slide, however, and to get over to it we had to take a courseclose under the cliff, holding on to the rocks with our right hands aswe skirted along the upper edge of the shaly slope. It was rather slowwork, for we had to be careful, but at length we reached ourdestination, when, turning once more to our left, we scrambled down thespur to its lowest point.

  "Now, Phil," cried Joe, "you stay where you are while I go down. No useto take unnecessary risks by both going down together. You sit here, ifyou don't mind, and wait for me; I won't be any longer than I can help."

  "All right," said I; "but take the end of the rope in your hand, Joe.No use for _you_ to take unnecessary risks, either."

  "HE SHOT DOWNWARD LIKE AN ARROW"]

  "That's a fact," replied my companion. "Yes, I'll take the rope."

  With a shovel in one hand and the end of the rope in the other, Joestarted downward, but presently, having advanced as far as the ropeextended, he dropped it and went cautiously on, using the shovel-handleas a staff. Down to this point he had had little difficulty, but a fewsteps further on, reaching presumably the change of formation we hadexpected to find, where the smooth, icy rock beneath the shale wascovered only by an inch or so of the loose material, the moment hestepped upon it Joe's feet slipped from under him and falling on hisback he shot downward like an arrow.

  I held my breath as I watched him, horribly scared lest he should goflying down the whole remaining length of the slope and over theprecipice; but my suspense lasted only a few seconds, for presently agreat jet of snow flew into the air, in the midst of which Joe vanished.The next moment, however, he appeared again, hooking the snow out of hisneck with his finger, and called out to me:

  "All right, Phil! I fell into a hole where a tree came out. I'm going toshovel out the snow now. Don't let go of that rope whatever you do."

  So saying he set to work with the shovel, making the snow fly, while Isat on the rocks a hundred feet above, watching him. In about a quarterof an hour he looked up and called out to me:

  "I've found it, Phil. Right in this hole. It's the hole our big treecame out of, I believe. Can't tell how much of a vein, though, theground is frozen too hard. Bring down the pick, will you? Come down tothe end of the rope and throw it to me."

  In response to this request, having first tied a knot in the end of therope and fixed it firmly in a crack in the rocks, I went carefully downas far as it reached, when, with a back-handed fling, I sent the picksliding down to my partner.

  "Don't you think I might venture down and help you, Joe?" I called out.

  "No!" replied Joe with much emphasis. "You stay where you are, Phil. Itwould be too risky. I can do the work by myself all right."

  Still keeping my hold on the rope, therefore, I sat myself down on theshale, while Joe, pick in hand, went to work again. Pretty soon hestraightened up and said:

  "I've found the vein all right, Phil; I don't think there can be a doubtof it. Good strong vein, too, I should say."

  "How wide is it?" I asked.

  "Can't tell how wide it is. I've found what I suppose to be the porphyryhanging-wall, right here"--tapping the rock with his pick--"and I'vebeen trying to trench across the vein to find the foot-wall, but theshale runs in on me faster than I can dig it out."

  "What do you propose to do, then, Joe?"

  "Try one of those other holes further along and see if I can't find thevein again and get its direction. You sit still there, Phil. I shallwant you to give me a hand out of here soon."

  With extreme caution he made his way along the line of stumps, helpinghimself with the pick in one hand and the shovel in the other, until,about a hundred yards distant, he arrived at another hole where a treehad been rooted out, and here he went to work again. This time he keptat it for a good half hour, but at length he laid down his tools, andfor a few minutes occupied himself by building with loose pieces of rocka little pillar about eighteen inches high.

  "Can you see that, Phil?" he shouted.

  "Yes, I can see it," I called back.

  This seemed to be all Joe wanted, for he at once picked up his toolsagain, and with the same caution made his way back to the first hole.

  "What's your pile of stones for, Joe?" I asked.

  "Why, I found the vein again, hanging-wall and all, and I set up thatlittle monument so as to get the line of the vein from here."

  Taking out of his pocket a little compass we had brought for thepurpose, he laid it on the rock, and sighting back over his "monument,"he found that the vein ran northeast and southwest.

  "Phil," said he, "do you see that dead pine, broken off at the top, witha hawk's nest in it, away back there on the upper side of the gulchwhere we left the ponies?"

  "Yes," I replied, "I see it. What of it?"

  "The line of the vein runs right to that tree, and I propose we getback and hunt for it there. I don't want to set up the location-stakehere: this place is too difficult to get at and too dangerous to workin. So I vote we get back to the dead tree and try again there. What doyou say?"

  "All right," I replied. "We'll do so."

  "Very well, then I'll come up now."

  But this was more easily said than done. Do what he would, Joe could notget up to where I sat, holding out to him first a hand and then a foot.He tried walking and he tried crawling, but in vain; the rock beneaththe shale was too steep and too smooth and too slippery. At length, atmy suggestion, Joe threw the shovel up to me, when, on my lying flat andreaching downward as far as I could stretch, he succeeded in hooking thepick over the shoulder of the shovel-blade, after which he had no moredifficulty.

  "Well, Joe," said I, when we had safely reached the rocks again, "it'sjust as well we didn't both go down together after all, isn't it?"

  "That's what it is," replied my partner, heartily. "If you had tried tocome down with me we should both probably have tumbled into that holetogether, and there we should have had to stay till somebody came up tolook for us; and there'd have been precious little fun in that. Did itscare you when I went scooting down the slide on my back?"

  "It certainly did," I replied. "I expected to have to go down to Peter'shouse and lug _you_ home next--if there was any of you left."

  "Well, to tell y
ou the truth, I was a bit scared myself. It was a greatpiece of luck my falling into that hole. It's a dangerous place, this,and the sooner we get out of it the better; so, let us start back, atonce."

  Making our way up the spur, we again skirted along between the upperedge of the slide and the foot of the cliff, and ascending once more tothe ridge, we retraced our steps down it until we presently arrived atthe dead tree with the hawk's nest in it.

  Here, after a careful inspection of the ground, we went to work, Joewith the pick, and I, following behind him, throwing out the loose stuffwith the shovel and searching through each shovelful for bits of galena.In this way we worked, cutting a narrow trench across the line where wesupposed the vein ought to run, until presently Joe himself gave agreat shout which brought me to his side in an instant.

  With the point of his pick he had hooked out a lump of galena as big ashis head!

  My! How excited we were! And how we did work! We just flew at it, toothand nail--or, rather, pick and shovel. If our lives had depended on itwe could not have worked any harder, I firmly believe. The consequencewas that at the end of an hour we had uncovered a vein fifteen feetwide, disclosing a porphyry wall on one side and a limestone wall on theother.

  The vein was not, of course, a solid body of ore. Very far from it.Though there were bits of galena scattered pretty thickly all across it,the bulk of the vein-matter was composed of scraps of quartz mixed withyellow earth--the latter, as we afterwards learned, being itselfdecomposed lead-ore--to say nothing of grass-roots, tree-roots and otherrubbish which helped to make up the mass.

  But that we had found a real, genuine vein, even we, novices as we wereat the business, could not doubt, and very heartily we shook hands witheach other when our trenching at length brought us up against thelimestone foot-wall. With the discovery of this foot-wall, Joe called ahalt.

  "Enough!" he cried. "Enough, Phil! Let's stop now. We've got the vein,all right, and a staving good vein it is, and all we have to do for thepresent is to set up our location-stake. To-morrow Tom will come uphere, when he can make his camp and get to work at it regularly, sinkinghis ten-foot prospect-hole. What are we going to name it? The 'Hermit'?The 'Raven'? The 'Socrates'?"

  "Call it the 'Big Reuben,'" I suggested.

  "Good!" exclaimed Joe. "That's it! The 'Big Reuben' it shall be."

  This, therefore, was the title we wrote upon our location-notice, bywhich we claimed for Tom Connor a strip of ground fifteen hundred feetin length along the course of the vein and one hundred and fifty feetwide on either side of it; and thus did our old enemy, Big Reuben, lendhis name to a "prospect" which was destined later to take its placeamong the foremost mines of our district.