Calle de Concordia 19, Buenaventura,
Sobrante, C. A.
Dear John:
I would address you as “dear friend John,” did I but possess sufficient courage. In my heart of hearts you are still that, but after three years of silence, due to my stupidity and hardness of heart, it is, perhaps, better to make haste slowly.
To begin, I should like to be forgiven, on the broad general grounds that I am most almighty sorry for what I went and done! Am I forgiven? I seem to see your friendly old face and hear you answer “Aye,” and with this load off my chest at last I believe I feel better already.
I did not know until very recently what had become of you, and that that wretched Cripple Creek business had been cleared up at last. I met a steam-shovel man a month or two ago on the Canal. He used to be a machine-man in the Portland mine, and he told me the whole story.
Jack, you poor, deluded old piece of white meat, do you think for a moment that I held against you your testimony for the operators in Cripple Creek? You will never know how badly it broke me up when that Canal digger sprung his story of how you went the limit for my measly reputation after I had quit the company in disgrace. Still, it was not that which hurt me particularly. I thought you believed the charges and that you testified in a firm belief that I was the guilty man, as all of the circumstantial evidence seemed to indicate. I thought this for three long, meagre years, old friend, and I'm sorry. After that, I suppose there isn't any need for me to say more, except that you are an old fool for not saying you were going to spend your money and your time and reputation trying to put my halo back on straight! I doubt if I was worth it, and you knew that; but let it pass, for we have other fish to fry.
The nubbin of the matter is this: There is only one good gold mine left in this weary world—and I have it. It's the sweetest wildcat lever struck, and we stand the finest show in the world of starving to death if we tackle it without sufficient capital to go through. (You will notice that I am already—and unconsciously—employing the plural pronoun. How rapidly the old habits return with the old friendships rehabilitated!) It will take at least thirty thousand dollars, and we ought to have double that to play safe. I do not know whether you have, or can raise, sixty cents, but at any rate I am going to put the buck up to you and you can take a look.
Here are the specifications. Read them carefully and then see if there is anybody in the U. S. A. whom you can interest to the tune mentioned above. We could probably get by with thirty thousand, but I would not jeopardize anybody's money by tackling it with less.
Jack, I have a mining concession. It is low-grade—a free-milling gold vein—twelve feet of ore between good solid walls on a contact between Andesite and Silurian limestone. The ore is oxidized, and we can save ninety per cent, of the values on amalgamating plates without concentrating or cyaniding machinery. I have had my own portable assay outfit on the ground for a month, and you can take my opinion for what it is worth when I assure you that this concession is a winner, providing the money is forthcoming with which to handle it.