Now it was that Superintendant Frank began to be frightened—began to curse all Mexican mining aphorisms and rules and regulations. Should the Mexicans now strike a bonanza, what kind of a bonanza, he reasoned, would it be by the time it came into his hands? In six months those Mexicans would have it completely skinned and gutted. He might as well have no mine. He now began to suspect that the fellows knew exactly where to drift to open out in a bonanza of vast size and incalculable richness—probably nearly all silver—but were only drifting about on the outside of it in order to get more time inside. He began to hate the very sound of those words: “As many days as you are in borrasca, so many days shall you be in bonanza.”
Being greatly worried about the bargain he had thoughtlessly made, Mr. Frank went to see old man Meer, an old Castilian who had but one eye, but who was the greatest “ore expert” that ever set foot upon the Comstock—whose one eye bored into the rock further and faster than any diamond drill. He told Meer about the bargain he had made and the fears and suspicions he entertained, asking him to go into the mine, give it a thorough examination, and tell him if there was a bonanza anywhere about. Old Meer went into the mine, traversed all the drifts, cross-cuts, and coyote-holes, boring into the rock at all points with that eye of his.
When they came out and again and stood upon the surface at the mouth of the tunnel, in the broad light of day, Mr. Frank turned to Meer and said: “Well, what do you think?”
Meer uttered only two words, but those two words lifted a great load off Mr. Frank’s breast. Old Meer simply said: “Nada bonanza,” and “no bonanza” it proved.
The Mexicans worked on for another week or two, when they became disheartened and gave up their contract, and with it, doubtless, some portion of their faith in their favorite saying: “So many days as you are in borrasca, so many days shall you be in bonanza.” They had toiled more than six long, weary months and the result was—“nada bonanza.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
HOW THE MINES ARE WORKED.
When the upper line of bonanzas had been worked out, and the shafts were sunk to greater depths in search of new bodies of ore, they eventually attained such a depth as brought them down upon the barren syenite forming the west wall. The shafts were then deflected from the vertical and passed down along the syenitic foot-wall to the eastward, in the shape of an incline. At length it was seen that these inclines were becoming too long to permit of their being worked through to advantage with the machinery then in use, and company after company moved to the eastward, a distance of a thousand feet or more, and then established a new line of shafts, over which they set up new and more powerful machinery than had yet been seen on the lead. These shafts did not strike the lead until they had been sunk to the depth of one thousand or one thousand two hundred feet, whereas the first line of shafts were either sunk on the lead, or at such a distance in front of the croppings as to tap it at the depth of from two to five hundred feet.
A third line of shafts had been commenced in 1875, and one of these, which is now being sunk by the Savage, Hale, & Norcross, and the Challar-Potosi Companies combined, is nearly a mile east of the croppings. This is intended to be a shaft for all time. It will be of vast size, containing several spacious compartments for hoisting and pumping purposes, and will be supplied with the most powerful machinery that can be manufactured. It will require some years to sink this shaft to a point where it will intersect the vein; meantime the several companies will continue to work through their present shafts and inclines.
