10 
prospect looks good, but Sam simply 
won't listen. He has found a prize 
and Bill and he are going to keep it. 
Things run along for a few days, 
then a wire comes—Bill has married, 
bought a ranch and has all the gold 
mine he wants in Colorado. 
This telegram is given to the spec- 
ulator. 
Sam has the blues for a ay or two. 
Refuses to drink or talk and writes 
many letters in the rear room of the 
saloon. 
Then the speculator ane in again. 
He wants to see the “strike” and if 
it pans he will buy a half interest. 
Now when Sam was on his week 
out in the hills he went to an aban- 
doned prospect hole, took with him 
a sack of rich ore and planted it, then 
loaded the fiilings of two or three 
gold rings into cartridges, which he 
shot into the hole and into the rocks. 
This method of “salting” has separ- 
ated many a man from his coin, 
So finally Sam takes the man out 
to the mine, and explains if the man 
who abandoned the hole had dug a 
yard further he would have found 
the ledge and the wealth. 
Sam will only sell one half of the 
mine, and not that if he had money 
to develop it. And he sells a half, 
makes the price high, and will put 
part of it in toward a stamp mill. 
Then the next train out. 
This is but one of a dozen different 
games that are worked by the men 
who make more money selling worth- 
less mines than finding good ones. 
Every week there is a new one, and 
when a fellow really does find a prize, 
it is often very hard to get money to 
develop it. 
At the little station where tourists 
leave the train to go to the petrified 
forests, I met and talked with a mine 
owner who no doubt thas had _ the 
strangest luck in history of Arizona 
mining. 
I have every reason to believe the 
story is absolutely true, for I had 
heard it told long before I saw the 
man who luck or fortune smiled on 
when he was down and out. 
As a young lawyer he came into the 
mining camp and tried every way to 
get a start, practicing law, teaching 
school,. giving boxing lessons and 
prospecting, and failing in all he tried 
the booze and ‘‘hemp” games. 
After a prolonged debauch, from 
which he nearly died, the physician 
told him he must get away from the 
booze and sober up or he would die. 
He related to me how he took a 
quart bottle of whiskey to “taper off 
on” and rode with a freighter 20 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
miles back into the mines. The third 
day he was in a terribly nervous con- 
dition. 
He said he walked over a moun- 
tain, so the people he was staying with 
would not catch on and was going to 
phone from the adjoining mine to 
have some whiskey sent out by the 
mail carrier. 
ixhausted by his 
down to rest. 
A ground squirrel came out and 
played near him, and in sheer  ner- 
vousness the threw a rock at the little 
animal. With the jerk of his arm a 
signet ring on his finger flew off and 
when flying through the air, he said 
he caught the glitter in the sunlight 
as it fell into a clump of bushes in a 
little gully. He hunted for it in vain, 
and after ordering his booze gave it 
up. 
The next day he met the carrier at 
the same point and got his goods, He 
climb he sat 
brought an ax with him to cut the 
brush, as the ring was a present and 
he did not want to lose it. 
“I searched for an hour, and cut 
nearly all the brush in the ravine, but 
could not find the ring, but by chance 
I saw a brown, soft rock sticking out. 
I broke it with the ax, and though 
not a miner it looked like rich ore 1 
had seen. It was soft, like sandstone, 
and almost ia black-brown in color. 
“T filled my hat with it, carried it 
to the mine bunk house, pulverized it, 
panned it, and before the sand had 
been half worked out I saw the 
‘color’ and I knew I had ‘struck it.’ 
“Investigation showed a ledge and 
contact. I have already taken out 
several orange groves in southern 
California and I guess there - are 
plenty more ranches in the mine.” 
And how’s that for a “luck story?” 
He said he never found the ring, and 
never wants to. 
The lure of the weird old south- 
west. draws all kinds of people, but 
one of the most singular instances I 
found up in the lonesome Navajo 
country, 60 miles from a railroad, 
A tire blew out and while the 
driver and his boy were repairing it I 
walked on up to the head of the can- 
yon, and a little back from the road 
I saw three large new tents — a 
strange sight in that country. 
Soon a young fellow walked out to 
where I was sitting and we were 
soon getting acquainted. He was 
from Columbus, O., a man well edu- 
cated, well bred and he had a dia- 
mond ring on his finger as large as a 
pea. 
“He was entirely alone, and had un- 
der the tents a stock of general mer- 
chandise. He told me that through : 
his congressman and the Interior De- 
partment | ie had been granted a per- 
mit to open an Indian trading store 
on the reservation, but after he had 
} 
purchased his stock, some complaint — 
was made, he did not know just what, 
= 
and the permit had been held up. He q 
had stored his goods under the tents — 
and was waiting. He had been there 
three months and had no idea how 
much longer he might have to stay 
before he could build his store. And 
in the meantime he could not even 
sell a package of tobacco. ‘he stock 
of goods had cost him $1,000 and the 
store building, the lumber for which 
he had ordered would cost $800 more. 
And I wondered why a young man 
with $2,000 at least, a man of educa- 
tion and refinement, would ever con- 
ceive the idea of burying himself in 
this lonesomest spot in Arizona, and 
live a life so foreign to his raising. 
These trading stores are usually 
run by grizzled old prospectors, trap- 
pers or Indian fighters, men who are 
more at home in such a location than 
in the towns, but to see this young — 
fellow taking the chance seemed al- 
most pitiful. 
No doubt there was a reason, but 
he did not tell it. There are many 
bright men in the southwest who do 
not tell why they are there—that is 
do not tell the truth, 
An accident in a coal mine just out 
side of Gallup, N. M., a few weeks 
ago brought to light a "glimpse of one 
of life’s secrets. Falling walls caught 
a dozen men, and when they were 
rescued they were badly mangled. 
A tool dresser who worked in the 
smith shop took hold with the two 
doctors, set broken limbs, helped am- — 
putate and wrote out prescriptions. 
He was at once recognized as a medi- 
cal school graduate by the physicians, 
but he would not answer any ques- 
tions or make any explanations. ‘The 
next day the mine manager offered 
him the position as mine physician, 
but he declined. 
There are many out of place men 
and women in the southwest. Some 
of their stories would be stranger 
than fiction. But this class don’t 
tell stories. 
THe Evustvé Ipiom 
Miss Smith—Can you pick out 
Archie and Kate down there, Mr. 
Calembert ? 
Mr, C—Oh, yes, I am _ ver’ 
looking. 
Miss S. (gently)—That does not 
mean “keensighted. +! 
Mr, C—Ah. yes; 
looking ver’ well!—Fun. 
good 
vat I mean I am 
oo «lai — le i 
