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Some people go to
any lengths looking for gold.
Author describes this San Bernardino
mountain road as "not exactly a
highway." Search area was in
mountain in background.
Right in the middle of the ticklish
problem of trying to anchor the ears
of the reverse clutch band, I heard old
man Dunnaway calling me. I wiped my
hands and went over to the fence to see
what he wanted. He came right to the
point. "I hear you're learning mining
in school."
I admitted to a marginal struggle with
an advanced geology course, but confessed
I was still pretty green as to my
practical experience.
Apparently satisfied, he related that
on a hunting trip several weeks prior he
had found something he thought was
gold ore. Being unable to find any more
he had a proposition for me. If I could
help him find it, would I "go halvers"
with him?
Since I was head over heels in debt
for books, tuition and laboratory fees,
and school boy jobs were like hen's
teeth, it was an unnecessary question. So
I casually agreed, as I figured he probably
had found an outcropping containing
pyrite, marcasite, or yellowish mica
occurring occasionally in the local mountains.
He said, "I know durn well it ain't
fool's gold; it's either soft gold or brass
in that rock!" and I twitched my ears.
Not wishing to embarrass the old man
I didn't quote him the current annual
production figures of the California
"brass mines"—but it was a good, illustration
of what he knew about mining.
So I suggested we look at his sample. He
went to his car, and by the time he was
back within ten feet of the fence my eyes
began to pop.
The spear head shaped slab of rock
he handed me was about 15 inches long,
a full hand-span wide, about three inches
thick and very heavy. It was a dirty, bluegray
quartz, slightly granular in texture
(but not as fine grained as quartzite).
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You could not put the end of your thumb
on it anywhere without touching a little
curlicue, a thin wire, or tiny button of
raw yellow gold!
Neither of the flat sides showed any
trace of the striated gloss of a slickenside,
so by rule of thumb the sample had
come from a treasure ledge at least three
times its own thickness—perhaps even a
full foot wide!
It was like being handed the key to
the U.S. Mint. I didn't see Dunnaway,
the ore, the fence, anything—because I
was already mentally ordering the red
Morocco leather upholstery for a shiny
black, sparkling new, Auburn Straight-8
coupe; and the tweed plus-fours and
Bobby Jones type gqjf socks befitting the
driver of such a rig.
Faintly from far away I heard the old
man angrily say, "For the last time, I'm
asking you, is it any good?"
I told him, "We're rich, we're rich,"
and I must have been shouting because
he dragged me half across the fence and
told me to quiet down.
After I had gained some measure of
control he said, "O.K., it's good, but
just how good is it?"
"It's bonanza rock; we would have to
assay it to know exactly how much it will
run—but I can tell you right now it will
go thousands of dollars to the ton!"
He paused. "How much do those
assay things cost?"
"I can do it for free in the lab at
school—but we would have to grind up
the rock to assay it; and you can't break
up a specimen like that!" Up to that
time I didn't even know such rock existed;
it was a veritable museum piece; and
the idea of smashing it to powder appalled
me as unneccessary sacrilege when
any fool could see it was spectacular
bonanza ore.
The old man remained adamant. If
there was one hunk of rock up on the
mountain, there had to be more around
somewhere; and he wasn't taking a step
until he knew for sure it was worth
hunting.
We finally compromised by breaking
off the pointed end to save as a small
comparison sample; and I sacked the
rest to assay the next Tuesday when we
made the first of the bi-weekly furnace
firings in the lab.
Since I was half owner of the ore,
nothing was left to chance, and I ran
four assays, as getting a truly accurate
report on really rich ore is never easy.
When the first white-hot button "blinked"
on the cupel, I was sure I had somehow
salted myself—but the three buttons
that followed blinked out even bigger!
After they were "parted" with acid,
1 weighed out the buttons on the delicate
beam balance in the lab office. I
couldn't believe what I read, so I called
in my geology prof to check my figures.
He thought I was tinkering with a bullion
assay, was unimpressed, and gave
me heck because he had found I was
$17.50 under. The average of the four
assays was $81,747 per ton !
At daylight the next Saturday (like
the dozens of weekends that followed)
the cockpit of the Model T was loaded
to over-flowing with tools, grub, canteens,
coats and blankets; with only room
for Dunnaway's head to protrude so he
could give directions.
We headed out through Cajon Pass,
and turned right off the highway about
opposite where the Forest Service's Cajon
Campground is now located. We pro-