With that important detail out of the way I was ready once more to give my full attention to extracting the guano which had so far remained in the big cave in spite of all our endeavor.
Now we were ready to complete the final stage of our operation.
Since the iron bucket was much too slow, we decided some quicker means must be found. We held a consultation and several ideas were suggested. The best seemed to be to build a track out of 2×4 lumber and construct a small car or wagon to run on this track. Matt Ohnemus of Carlsbad was assigned to this job, and he built us a strong and sturdy car which I was sure would serve us well for a long time.
It was similar to the hand cars used on the railroad, except that we were forced to use wooden wheels, the iron variety not being obtainable.
Our system was now changed. We would scoop up the guano in shovels and place it in sacks. Eight or ten sacks could be loaded onto the car and hoisted to the surface.
The sacks, of course, were sewed across the top before being placed on the car. Johnny Forehand proved to be a master at sewing these sacks. He was fast and accurate, and many of the other fellows learned to speed up their sewing by watching Johnny.
I was really quite fortunate in having acquired such a fine bunch of fellows to work on the operation. They all seemed to adapt themselves quickly and well to any job assigned to them, and furthermore they seemed to take an interest in their work.
One of the big reasons for this was that all the men knew there wasn't too much work in that section of the state, and therefore they were eager to keep the jobs they had. Also, the cave seemed to possess a certain degree of mystery for the men and they felt a certain amount of daring and adventure connected with the whole operation.
Working with guano can't be classified as a glamorous operation. The very nature of the substance—bat deposit—has a rather disagreeable odor and it takes a while to get used to it. Also, there wasn't much circulation of air in the big cave with the result that the smell had been bottled up there for centuries and we were getting the full effect of it.
From time to time fellows would quit or leave for one reason or another, and whenever a new man started in he would comment on the odor, and then we were conscious of it, but otherwise we grew so accustomed to it that we didn't notice it.