Ginger took hold of Natalie’s hand as they walked and said, “There is magic in these mountains that we will never understand. I think this mountain is where the creator of this universe lives.”
As the girls stepped up onto the back porch of their cabin, the first snowflakes of winter began to fall. They walked out to the barn and let the animals out to play. As the goats wandered out from the barn, a tiny white kid followed its mother out onto the green grass. The tiny creature shook its head and tried to butt the snowflakes as they fell.
Chapter 2 – The Tin Pan Ring
Robert had purchased his forty-acre farm at a bank repossession sale. The price was right and the water rights were included. He fenced four acres and began raising chickens, goats, rabbits and chinchillas. He knew that farming would not pay the bills so he continued to work for a printing company that produced magazines and short run periodicals.
A small creek ran through the property. It flowed from the northeast corner of the property and made a couple of switch back turns behind the barn. Since some miners a few miles downstream had discovered gold in the creek, Robert decided to try his luck at gold mining. He decided that a trip to town was in order for tomorrow. There was a large hardware store located there that carried gold prospecting equipment. They should be able to give him some guidance in choosing the proper equipment.
When Robert entered the mining section of the store, he was amazed at the amount of equipment they had in stock. As he looked over equipment and asked questions, he finally decided to purchase a two-inch suction dredge/highbanker, a high quality sluice mat and some miscellaneous gold processing equipment. By the time he loaded his purchases into his pickup truck, he had over three thousand dollars invested.
As Robert drove the truck back to the farm, he thought hard and long about what he was about to attempt. He knew that the chances of finding any large quantity of gold was unlikely, however, he decided to dedicate every waking moment towards this project. If he had not returned his investment and made enough money to live on in one year, he would abandon his dream.
When Robert arrived at his ranch, he unloaded his new equipment and moved it into the barn. The sun was beginning to set, but the barn had lights. He decided to spend a few hours getting the dredge and the highbanker working. He had a small twin axle trailer that the equipment would fit on top of, so he moved the trailer into the barn and began work. Once he completed assembling the equipment and mounted it to the trailer, he needed to test the pump and set the water flow rate as it entered the top of the highbanker, but it was now dark.
Robert decided to come back in the morning when he could see what he was doing before he began dredging. He was too excited to sleep, but decided to fix some supper and then lay down for a while. He could not work in the dark, so trying to get some sleep was his best option.
When the sun came up, Robert headed down to the creek. The air was warm, but the water in the creek was cold. Robert went up to the barn and put on his dry suit over some long underwear. He hoped the dry suit would keep him warm enough in the cold mountain feed creek, but he could not be certain until he got into the water.
Once he moved the trailer out of the barn and hauled it with his tractor down near the creek, he started the gasoline engine that operated the dredge pump and began testing. He sucked up mud and small river gravel with the dredge suction hose, which carried the material up to the highbanker. When the gravel entered the top of the gold concentrating sluice, the large rocks quickly rolled down over the classifier screen and out the end, but the finer, heavier material settled into the crossbars. The idea was to end up with material less than one-quarter inch in size remaining in the hopper box. Robert would use a machine called a blue bowl gravity separator to separate the remaining black sand from the gold. The only thing that should remain in the bowl of the separator would be pure gold.
Once Robert had run the dredge in the shallow rocky creek bed for a few hours, he returned to the highbanker and turned off the water pump. Once he began poking around in the small material located in front of the crossbars, he began to see small yellow flakes of what looked like gold. As he used a screwdriver to move some of the small pebbles, he began to see small nuggets of gold. There was actually quite a bit of gold in the gold mats. It was getting close to suppertime and Robert was hungry, tired and very cold. He decided it was time to clean out the sluice box and retrieve the gold he had already found.
He hauled the trailer back to the barn with his tractor and pulled it inside for the night. He closed up the barn and headed towards the house. Once there, he quickly fixed a sandwich and opened a can of Bud Light beer. He sat down at the table to eat his food, but soon discovered he could not wait one minute longer to find out how much gold he had sucked up out of the river.
When he opened up the barn and stepped inside, he located a large steel washtub and sat it on the trailer. Once he carefully removed the mats and placed them into the washtub, he carefully washed them out with river water from a storage tank in had installed on the trailer. Once the mats were clean, he reached his hand down into the black sand and pebbles at the bottom of the tub and retrieved a large handful. As his hand broke the surface of the water so he could see what was inside his cupped hand, he felt a wave of excitement pass over him. There was a lot of gold in his hand. He picked out a couple nuggets that would easily be worth a couple hundred dollars each. As he continued to inspect the black sand that remained in the large tub, he decided to begin running the material in the gravity separator.
As Robert ran the black sand from the large tub through the separator, he soon began to see a trail of gold form along the rim. As the gold ran off the edge of the blue bowl and into a half pint glass jar, he began to realize how much gold he had discovered. By the time he finished running all the material from the large tub through the separator, the jar was half-full of wet gold. He screwed a lid on the glass jar and decided to dry and weight his treasure. When he opened the barn door, he laughed as the morning sunshine lit the barn. He had worked all night long.
After Robert cooked some breakfast and washed up, he poured his gold into a small metal pan and placed it in the oven to dry. Once it was dry, he would weigh the gold and see how much he had earned with his new mining operation.
By the time his eggs, bacon, and toast were ready to eat, the gold in the oven appeared to be dry. He sat the pan on top of the stove and moved the gold around on the pan to insure it had thoroughly dried, then moved to the table to eat while the gold and pan cooled. As he ate, he did the math in his head to determine the value of the gold he had found today. He guessed the value to be around five thousand dollars. He was not certain the exact value he could expect for placer gold in town, but assumed the value to be somewhere around $1300.00 per troy ounce. Some of the gold buyers were paying between 70 to 90% of the spot gold market value.
Now that the gold in the pan was dry, he weighed a glass pint size-canning jar on his scales and zeroed out the reading. When he poured the contents of the pan into the glass jar, he had a total of 4.3 ounces of gold. He held the jar up to the light and marveled at the beauty of the precious metal. He placed the glass jar in his safe and carefully checked to be certain the door had locked.
When Robert returned to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, he realized how tired he was. He considered taking a shower, but decided against it. Instead, he washed up, stripped off his dirty clothes and crawled into bed. Before he fell asleep, he set the alarm clock for noon.
Later that day, Robert decided to cash in his gold and see how much money he had earned. He knew that the mining company where he purchased his equipment had an assay office in the building and would work with him to get the best price for his placer gold.
When Robert entered the mining store, a man spoke to him and asked if he could help him. Robert explained that he hoped to sell a little placer gold. The man looked at the jar Robert was carrying and said, “Most miners bring their gold in here in small s
toppered glass test tube bottles, by the looks of that jar you are carrying, it appears you have found a rather large vein of gold.” Robert laughed and said, “Nay, this is all the gold there was in the mine. The vein has run out.” The man smiled and said, “If you walk to the back of the store, you will see the assay office. The man working in their goes by the name of James and he will be able to help you with your transaction.”
When Robert stepped up to the counter, the man behind it asked if he could help. Robert sat the glass jar down on the counter and said, “I would like to get a price on some placer gold I discovered. Can you help me with that?” The man smiled and said, “I can.” The man picked up the jar and sat it down on the table behind the counter. He opened the lid and then began pouring the contents into a small metal tray on top of his scales. Once all the gold was in the tray, the man looked up at Robert and said, “You have 4.36 ounces of gold here. I will do the math and give you a price.” He picked up a pad of paper and began writing. Within a minute or so, he laid the pad on top of the counter and turned it so Robert could see the pricing the man had worked out. He began explaining how he converted the gold into troy ounces and the going spot price of gold. Then he said that he due to impurities in the placer gold, he would offer Robert 78% of the spot price for gold. He turned his computer screen around and showed Robert the market value for gold.
Robert inhaled a deep breath as he looked at the price the man was offering. He looked up into the man’s eyes and said, “I suppose I should check around and see if others are offering more value for placer gold.” The man smiled and said, “That is easily checked. There are three others here in town who purchase placer gold. I will give you their phone numbers and addresses so you can contact them. I will tell you one thing. Most often, my prices will beat those in the area by a small margin. If the gold is clean and in larger nuggets as yours is, the price can go up a little. The larger nuggets are prized by the jewelers in the area and can bring a nice price individually if you want to check with them.”
Robert looked the man in the eyes and finally said, “I trust you not to cheat me. I will sell you this gold if you wish to purchase it.” The man said, “I do not have that kind of cash on hand, but I will write you a check, which you can take across the street and cash. They will give you cash or deposit the money as you wish.” Robert looked across the street and said, “I will take your check. I have a checking account with that bank and they know me.”
Once the man wrote the check and handed it to Robert, he said, “If you find more gold with large nuggets, I will up my placer gold rate. Once I smelt the gold you have brought here today, I will have a better idea about how pure your gold really is. At that point I may be more comfortable with any future transactions.” Robert shook the man’s hand and headed across the street to the bank. The deposit of over four thousand dollars into his checking account was exciting, to say the least.
The two-inch suction dredge/highbanker system Robert purchased to suck the debris from the cracks and crevices of the creek bed had paid off. The lower than normal water level in the creek, due to a yearlong drought, had made dredging much easier. The high quality sluice mat easily sorted out the heavier gold from sand and small stones. Robert decided to spend most of the day tomorrow in the creek. Selling another four or five ounces of gold would really help his financial situation and help him catch up on some of his bills. His taxes were unpaid for the year and he would need to take care of that yet this week. He had charged his dredge on his credit card. He would have to pay that bill in full when it came due. Interest charges on a past due credit card would simply increase the purchase price of his prospecting equipment.
During the night, Robert had a dream about dredging in the creek. During the dream, he had looked up into a tree behind his barn. Sitting on a lower branch of the tree, a raven was making ungodly sounds. Robert spoke to the black creature and said, “Bird, how am I expected to understand what you are saying when you make such a racket?” The bird looked down at him and said, “I am trying to tell you that I have found a place in the creek where you can see the yellow metal you seek from the surface. You don’t need your noisy machine to find the riches.” The bird flapped its wings and headed towards the creek.
Robert followed the bird and watched as it perched itself on a large rock in the creek. Roberts walked on the smaller stones until he reached the stone where the bird waited. As he looked down into the water where the water pooled, he could see the glimmer of gold. He carefully reached his hand down into the water, not wanting to disturb the gold, and picked a large nugget between his finger and thumb. Once his hand was out of the water, the raven squawked and flew into a nearby tree. Robert inspected the nugget and then looked up into the tree at the bird. He said, “I would like to apologize for the rude comments I made to you earlier. Thank you for showing me where to find the gold.” The raven said, “You are most welcome,” as it flew off into the forest.
When Robert woke from his very vivid dream, he sat up on the edge of the bed. As he recalled the details of the dream, he realized that he knew exactly where the large rock was located. It was just a few hundred yards upstream from where he dredged yesterday. Robert showered, ate breakfast, dressed and headed out to the barn. As he pulled the large sliding door along its tracks, a black raven resting on the edge of the eve trough spoke to him and said, “How am I expected to talk to you when you are making such an ungodly racket?”
Robert jumped when he heard a human voice so close to him. He stepped back from the barn and looked up at the raven. The bird said, “I hope you understood the dream you experienced last night. I realize that most humans are unable to recall their dreams, but the information was very important.” Robert said, “I got your message. I know where the large stone is located in the creek and will investigate the gold in a few minutes.” The bird did not respond, it simply flew off and perched in a crown of a large pine tree.
As Robert walked into the barn, he laughed out loud at hearing a bird speak to him. However ridiculous the dream and the bird being on his barn this morning truly were, he decided to follow his instincts and check out the stone in the creek. He picked up a long handled screen dipper from his workbench that he used when ice fishing and a small glass bottle with a screw on top.
As he walked towards where he remembered the rock being located, the raven followed him, flitting from treetop to treetop. When Robert located the rock, he stepped on the smaller stones just as he had done in his dream. As he sat down on the large rock and looked down, his heart tried to leap from his chest when he spotted the color of gold resting in a tiny pool on the creek bed. He carefully dipped up all the gold he could see and put it into the bottle.
As he stood up, he saw the raven in a tree near the edge of the creek. He held up the glass bottle and said, “I thank you for your help. I will put this gold away in my safe and save it for the purchase of a wedding ring for my girlfriend. I love Billie and hope to raise a family on this farm with her if she will have me. With the gold from this creek, I hope to make that dream come true.” The bird squawked and headed towards the mountains located north of the farm.
Robert decided to bring his dredge up to the north side of his property later in the week and begin working the stream from the north to the south, ending at the south end of his property. He walked along the edge of the creek until he found the fence line. He decided to check below more of the larger rocks in the creek as he returned to the barn. When he carefully walked out to another large rock, he soon discovered more gold in the pools. Once he dipped all the gold he could see, he began looking around for more rocks. He soon discovered that even the small rocks had some gold around them. The gold pooled wherever the water flow slowed and allowed the heavy gold to settle.
As Robert stepped out of the creek and headed towards the barn, he smiled as he looked inside the small half pint container; it was half-full of gold nuggets. He had no idea how much the gold would weigh, but was certain it woul
d be more than he took into town earlier. He took the gold into the house and put it into the oven to dry. While the heat of the oven dried his gold, he fixed a sandwich and opened a can of beer; he felt like celebrating his discovery.
Once the gold was dry, Robert poured the nuggets into the same canning jar he had used before and screwed on a lid. The jelly jar was half-full with gold as he held it up to the window to view the contents. He decided to put the jar into the safe and save it to pay for a wedding ring and wedding if Billie agreed to marry him. He decided to ask Billie for her hand in marriage on Sunday during dinner at Billie’s house. They had planned to get together after church and spend some time together. He chuckled as he thought about sitting the jelly jar on the table during dinner. Billie would be flabbergasted over the shiny gold nuggets he had found in the creek.
As Robert washed up the dishes in the sink, he spotted a leather drawstring bag he had purchased the last time he visited the mining store. He retrieved the jar of gold from the safe and poured the gold into the bag. He placed the empty glass jar inside the leather bag to store it. Then he headed into town to visit the woman he had dated for three years.
As he drove into the driveway of Billie’s home, she walked out and met him as he stepped out of the truck. She giggled as she slid into his arms and planted a kiss on his lips. He pulled her up close and said, “I missed you too. Are you ready for church?” Billie quickly walked around to the passenger side and climbed into the cab of the truck. She laughed and said, “I see you cleaned out your truck. The empty fast food bags that normally hide under the seats seem to be gone.” Robert laughed and said, “I left the door open and a raccoon pulled all the bags out and spread them all over the driveway. I then spent an hour emptying out the cab and sweeping it out.” Billie began to laugh as she slid over on the bench seat of the old truck and kissed Robert hard on the lips.
Ronnie Coleinger: A Winter Collection Page 4