Mystery in the Mine- Gold Dust Returns Read online

  The whole thing about Michael owning a gold mine brings one major problem, that he doesn’t know a damn thing about mining. For all he knows that is what a vein of gold looks like. Michael thought he needed some help. No, he was sure he needs some help.

  He walked back out to the trailer. Blacky was glad to be outside and ran into the trailer a soon as Michael opened the door. He rooted through his other pants pockets. He was almost sure he had grabbed a card at Sam’s Mine Store. He found the card and grabbed the Sat Phone to call Sam.

  “Hi Sam, this is Michael Bishop, I was wondering if you could help me out?”.

  “Well Michael, I will certainly try what do you need?”.

  “First, I need an electric hammer drill, the big one with extra bits and a few very long heavy extension cords. I need a couple of sets of work lights and a healthy size propane portable generator. I am also going to need a big industrial box fan as a ventilator.

  Now the most important thing. I quickly realized that I don’t know enough to even get a start in this mining thing. I need a miner to help me. Any ideas?”.

  “Yes, I've got just the man for the job, a friend they call him ‘Big Bill’. You will know why when you see him. He has been poking around mines in this area for years. He is kind of a miner for hire. I think he charges a reasonable rate and I know he can give you some help.”.

  “Do you think you can get hold of Bill and have him meet me at your place?”.

  “Sure, he hangs out down the street at the saloon. Not a drinker but loves to socialize. I will get him up here and get this stuff together for you. Give me about an hour.”.

  “Thanks, Sam, see you in an hour.”.

  Ready for Mining

  Big Bill is the Answer

  Michael with Blacky by his side drove to Sam’s place about 45 minutes away. Sam had all the equipment there. Then he introduced him to Big Bill. Bill was 33 years old, blond, about 6’10” tall and must have weighed in about 370 pounds. It looked like every pound of it was muscle. His skin was rough, darkened and aged by the sun. Michael shook his huge hand and they greeted each other. Then he asked Bill, “I need you to help a rookie mine owner, me. I now own the Double Pick Mine.”.

  Bill responded, “Mr. Bishop I would be more than happy to do that. I’ve been needing some steady work. What kind of money are we talking about?”.

  Michael sneaked a look at Sam who was standing behind Bill. Sam signaled with two hands for twenty and mouthed the word, “Plus”. Like he knew what he was doing he asked Bill, “Twenty dollars an hour, plus 10% of the profit from the gold we find each month.”.

  Sam shook his head yes.

  Bill responded, “That will be just fine, Mr. Bishop!”.

  “Bill, please call me Michael. You are hired. Till we work out something else you can stay in my trailer on the site. Check out what I am buying and add anything else you think we need. Sam already got me set with most of the basics.”.

  Bill said, “I can only see one thing right now.”. He walked over to a tool display and grabbed the biggest pick Michael had ever seen. Bill held it up with one hand to Sam who wrote it down and then told me, “Bill, can make that thing sing.”.

  “OK, Bill lets go.” They went to get into the truck after everything was loaded and he introduced Bill to Blacky. They seemed to hit it off right away. But Blacky was always a sucker for a quick pat on the head. They stopped at Bill’s place so he could pick up some stuff. Then, they were off back to the mine.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Once they got back to the mine Bill helped him unload the truck. They started with the generator. Sam had all that figured out. He sold him the propane generator, fittings and a long hose to run back to the trailer. The trailer has two big propane tanks on it and they wouldn’t be using propane much except cooking dinner and hot water. Bill and Michael got the generator set about ten feet into the mine so the fumes would blow outside. Sam also included a big box fan to move any fumes out. They didn’t build ventilation into mines in 1852. Then they set up the work lights on their stands and aimed them into the mine. Plugged them into the generator and fired it up. Now they were going, they can see what they are doing. They stretched out the two bright orange 200-foot heavy-duty extension cords from the generator and carried in the hammer drill or Bill carried in the hammer drill, that was a big tool. Michael didn’t want to buy an air compressor and all the hoses so they would see how the electric tool worked.

  Bill went outside the mine and with a couple shoves of his massive arms, rolled an old mine ore cart over to the track. He got some oil spray from the truck and sprayed the wheels well. Then he rocked it up on the track and threw his pick into the cart. After getting the wheels set, he gave it a mighty push and it rolled downhill into the mine.

  After they took a short break, Michael told Bill, “I want to show you what I found in the mine.”.

  Michael walked up to the entrance and he stopped for a minute. His face full of pride, he touched the wall and said to Bill, “April 4, 2010, the Double Pick Mine is reopened for business, 157 years later, new proprietor Michael Bishop.”.

  Then he led the way into his mine. He showed Bill the new pile of rock and dirt by the side of the main shaft. Bill agreed that it was new and that there was no logical explanation. It also didn’t show anything useful. They walked on into where the tunnel off to the right was dug.

  Bill used his headlight to look very closely at the rock face. He grabbed his pick and just gently scratched the surface. Then he said, “Michael, I agree this is new. Maybe active in the last month, but Why and Who?”.

  “Bill, I wish I knew the answer to that. Look at this.”.

  He took Bill over to the back wall and showed him the black stripe across the wall. Bill again aimed the headlight at it and looked very closely and kind of scratched around at the stripe of rock. Then he said, “Put on your safety goggles.”, as he pulled his pair down. He motioned for Michael to stand back. Then this giant man took a full swing with this big pick. The black rock face exploded and large pieces fell to the ground. Then he took another swing about a foot away down the stripe. That area blew out too. He pulled up the goggles and walked up to the wall shining the headlight into the two holes he had just created. He pointed his big finger at a space about two inches square and said, “That’s it. Michael, that’s GOLD!”.

  Michael went a little hysterical, they had already found gold in a mine he owns. He and Bill sat down to rest a few minutes and talk. He asked Bill, “How did they miss that when the mine was first being worked?”.

  “I can only guess. They were following a vein of gold from the front entrance back into the mine. They were finding gold and just kept moving that direction. Eventually, I imagine the vein ended and at that point, they may have just given it up and decided to take what they had found and leave.”.

  “That makes some sense because Mr. Burns the surveyor said there was a story that old ‘Gold Dust’ walked into the assayer’s office with twenty-five pounds of gold nuggets in late 1853. That was worth over $8,000 a lot of money in that time. No one knows if that was one haul or he had made more than that?”.

  “Yep, Michael I’ll bet that was it, they just decided that the vein was dead and they had their little fortune. Time to go back to civilization.”.

  “Bill, who do you think knew to cut this new tunnel and that there was a parallel vein of gold here?”.

  “I don’t know. Back in those days, they mined by a kind of instinct. They watched the rock as they cut the tunnel. Many of them could read the rock and know where the main vein went and what else might be nearby. Hey, old “Gold Dust” Bishop might have known it was here.”

  “Bill, can we take some of that out?”.

  “I would rather not right now, we need to do it gently so we can see where the vein is heading. Then once we know that we can move more forcefully. Let’s wait until the morning.”.

  “OK, this is why you are here, I need to listen, let’s go see about some d
inner.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  After fixing some food and opening a couple of cold beers, he and Bill sat around a blazing campfire and talked over what they had found.

  “Bill, is there any way to tell how much gold might be there?”.

  “No Michael, not yet. We will have a little better idea after we do some probing around that site tomorrow. We can tell if it’s a vein of gold, the direction and how thick it is. What I saw in that wall looks like large nuggets, maybe five ounces, worth about $6,300. Not bad for part of a day’s work!”.

  “That is right, man I am excited.”.

  “Michael, don’t get too up about it yet. That might be all there is.”.

  “OK, let’s get some sleep. That couch over there opens to a bed. If you want to shower make it short, I want to conserve water. In a few days, we will get the stream tested and see if we can use the water. See you in the morning”.

  He went back to his bedroom at the rear of the trailer, washed up and hit the bed like a rock, he was beat.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He woke up early the next morning to the beautiful smell of coffee, eggs, and bacon. Bill had checked out the supplies and started breakfast for them.

  “Wow, Bill you are a big help to have around.”.

  “Hey, nothing is too good for the Mine Boss. Aside from that, we need our strength today. Eat-up!”.

  After a wonderful breakfast, he helped Bill clean up and they were ready for the day. Grabbed their helmets and basic equipment and headed into the mine. Hit the start button on the generator and the lights came on bright. They kept walking to the new tunnel. Michael told Bill he was naming this Tunnel 2. As they turned the corner and their headlights hit the wall, they saw something that truly took the breath away from both of them.

  Bill yelled, “My God someone has done the test probing for us. Look you can see the vein goes off to the left and up. Based on those probe holes it looks pretty thick. But who the heck did this?”.

  “Bill, I have no idea. This is kind of scary what the heck is happening in this crazy old mine?”.

  “Michael, let’s focus on getting the gold, the mystery will answer itself.”.

  “OK, I agree what do we do next?”.

  “Michael, we try to break open that wall and see what we find. This part we can do by hand but I think we are going to need some explosives to loosen the whole wall. I am glad we got that big exhaust fan to suck out dust and smoke and any gas we might hit.”.

  “Ok grab the impact drill and let’s make some holes.”

  Michael struggled to bring the impact drill over to Bill. He was glad when Bill took it away and went into drilling. Michael could barely carry the thing and Bill used it like a home electric drill even if it was five times the size and weight. Bill was drilling a series of holes cutting an outline around the area of gold that they could see from the test holes. After an hour he stopped and said grab your pick and see if this will break loose.

  Michael grabbed his pick out of the cart. His pick was about half the size and weight of the one Bill was using. He adjusted the work light onto the area and took a full swing with the pick. He managed to break out about a six-inch square area of rock. Not very good, but the great part they could see gold in the gravel behind it. The loose gravel, called ‘Pay-Gravel or Pay-Dirt’ fell out on the floor. Their headlights picked up the sparkle of the gold mixed with it. Bill grabbed a gold pan out of the ore cart and scooped it full of the gravel. Then he said, “Let’s go outside and check this.”.

  They walked out and directly over to the stream. There was a flat sandy spot next to some deeper water where Michael saw a vision of Old Gold Dust using this spot for panning gold in the past. Bill asked Michael if he wanted to try it. He very excitedly said yes and took the pan from Bill. Now they would see what Michael had learned from Sam at the mining shop. He filled the pan full of gravel with water and stirred it around with his hand. The muddy water rolled out of the pan leaving the gravel at the bottom. He repeated that a couple of times. Now he filled the pan with water again and began to swirl the contents, by tilting the pan the water drained off and the gravel stayed. He tilted it a bit more and some of the larger gravel went with the water. After carefully draining most of the water and large rocks he looked at the pan.

  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There were about five nuggets almost 3/8-inch square each practically glowing in the bottom of the pan. In addition, there was a layer of fine gold flecks across the bottom of the pan mixed with dark sand.

  “Michael, did Sam sell you a sluice and a separator?”.

  “No, I know what a sluice is but what is a separator?”.

  “A separator will separate this sand from the gold. We are going to need them both. But for now, let me try to pan it again.”.

  Bill took the pan with a mixture of sand and gold flakes and dipped it in the water to repeat the panning process. While he was doing that, he explained that this is called ‘Concentrate’, where the gold has been left with a minimum amount of sand. After Bill was done, he put the pan down and went over to his backpack. Michael could see the gold in the pan. Bill returned with a rare earth bar magnet about five inches long and one-inch square. He took the magnet and moved it around in the water just above the sand and gold left in the pan. Much of the black sand was actually magnet minerals and stuck to the magnet. After cleaning off the magnet several times they were down to just gold including some really good size nuggets. He handed Michael the pan and said, “Take this in the trailer pour it into a skillet and cook it for about ten minutes. While that is working get some of your little glass bottles and your scale. Bill sat by the stream just enjoying the peace. In about ten minutes he came in the trailer. He told Michael to turn off the stove and let it cool. He took the scale and placed it on the table and leveled it, then placed a clean plastic food container on it and zeroed the scale. Bill grabbed the skillet and began to pour the gold into the container. The numbers spun up fairly quickly especially when the nuggets fell in. The scale spun up to 3.4 ounces. He dumped the gold into a small glass bottle and sealed it tight.

  Bill said with a huge smile on his face, “That took us an hour and this gold is worth about $4,300. Not bad pay boss. You are going to need a safe in here too.

  Let’s wrap it up for today. You need to see about getting an explosive guy, a sluice and a separator, we are in the gold business. We can work tomorrow by hand again till we get that all together.”.

  Bill reached out his big hand and Michael shook hands knowing he wouldn’t have gotten this far alone. Maybe 10% wasn’t enough for Bill’s cut, he will see…

  Who did this?

  More help in the mine

  Next morning after another great night's sleep, they ate some breakfast and then headed into the mine. As expected, the lights were out in the mine so Michael started the generator and kicked them on. The mine came to life. Bill, Blacky, and Michael continued to walk into the tunnel.

  Turning into Tunnel 2, Michael’s light hit something that shocked the hell out of both of them. There right next to the back wall was about a three-foot-high pile of Pay. It had somehow been taken out of the wall and was just sitting there. Like most dogs, Blacky has a great nose. If someone other than the two of them had been in this tunnel he would have gone wild finding the scent. Their tools were in the ore cart where they left them, no footprints, no evidence that anyone had been there except this wonderful pile of Pay.

  Bill said, “I don’t understand what is happening in this spooky old place. At this point, the things that are happening are helping us to move along. So, as my father the rancher used to say, ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’. Let’s just say a silent thank you and move this Pay outside.”.

  Michael agreed with Bill's point for now. There was no apparent danger and they were moving gold so let’s just stay at it. So, they grabbed the shovels and began to shovel the pile of Pay into the ore cart. After it was loaded, they both got behind it and
pushed it out into the warm sunshine, stopping by the level spot in the creek bed.

  Bill said, “This is when we could use a sluice. Today we work the old fashion way. Grab a pan.”.

  They both grabbed a pan and filled it with Pay from the cart. They took spots along the fast-moving stream and went through the panning process three times with each batch. Then running the magnet over it to remove the minerals. They dumped the resulting concentrate into a five-gallon bucket and then repeated the process. A couple of hours later, they had panned about 15 pans worth of Pay. They had about ¾ of the bucket filled and Bill said, “Let’s go cook it.”.

  The cooking removes any remaining water in the concentrate and leaves just the fine gold and nuggets. Bill grabbed the bucket and carried it into the trailer. He set it up by the stove and went to the fridge to grab a beer and handed the Boss one too. Michael grabbed his biggest cast-iron skillet. Loaded it with concentrate and started cooking. After each batch was cooked, he poured the resulting gold into a large plastic food container. This process took over an hour.

  When they were done, it created a 5 x 7 food container about half-filled with shiny yellow gold. Bill set up the scale and put another empty container on it and zeroed the meter.

  He started to dramatically pour the gold into the weighing container. The scale moved very slowly. I think he was adding to the high drama. You could almost hear the Hitchcock suspense music.

  Michael said, “Bill, pour it! You are killing me with the waiting.”. He just continued the drama. At the end of the pour, they both focused on the scale.

  Bill with a proud voice announced, “The scale reads 8.2 ounces.”.

  He pulled out a small ledger book and said, “Let me see that is $10,471 in gold. We did that by hand with no equipment and just some strange help from the mine. That is amazing. Michael, I guess you can afford a sluice and separator now. So that is the job for tomorrow. Right now, it’s time for some chow.”.