FOUR

 

 

Moscow, Idaho

October 17, 1999

 

Actually it was while I was standing under a hot shower trying to clear some of the aches from grueling football practice that I figured out how to get into Grandpa’s old mine. Grandpa himself had told us in his journal, but we just hadn’t seen it.

Since we had found the journal Dad had become a different man. He was pricing equipment for digging and making all sorts of plans to get inside that mountain. He and I had been back up there twice and his excitement was starting to be catching. I found myself daydreaming about it in class and now standing in the shower after practice I figured out that there had to be another way in.

I got dressed as quick as I could and headed for the university library. After a full hour I had discovered a huge number of books on gold mines and mining. But nothing I could use right off. So I did the next most logical thing. I headed over to the College of Mines. It was supposed to be the best in the country, so it seemed realistic that someone there would be able to answer my question.

And I was right. A mining grad student named Carol occupied the giant wooden front desk in the college office. She stood, on a good day, five foot even, and had big brown eyes and a smile that made me stammer. The desk dwarfed her, yet somehow she held her own against it.

She listened patiently to my request and then took me to a huge book of diagrams about how most gold mines were dug in the northwest, depending on location and ground formation.

I told her what the area around Grandpa’s mine looked like, approximately when it was dug and told her it was in this area. She showed me how those mines would have been dug, made me copies of diagrams, and then asked if there was anything else she could help me with.

“Actually, there is,” I said. “I was wondering if it was normal, and how, and maybe why, someone would open a second entrance to a mine.”

“Sure. They did it like this,” she said and flipped to a section farther back in the same volume. It took her a moment to find what she was looking for, then pointed it out to me. “Almost always they went sideways along the same line and started a new shaft. Usually the second shaft would angle in to help cut down distance to the surface after a main shaft had followed a vein too far underground.”

I stared at the illustration. It seemed so simple in drawings, but I knew what that hillside looked like, covered in thick trees and brush. This was not going to be as easy as it sounded.

“Of course,” Carol said, “if the original shaft went down or up following the vein, then they would start the second shaft to attempt to match the rise or fall.”

I sighed. “What you are telling me is if there is a second shaft it could be anywhere in a radius of 500 feet around the first shaft.”

Again she laughed. I was starting to enjoy that sound even though she was mostly laughing at my problem. “Actually it could be a lot farther than five hundred feet. Some of the old gold mines in this area went on for thousands of feet underground.”

“Great. Just great. You want to spend some time with me Saturday hiking in the mountains looking for a mine?” I actually meant the question almost jokingly.

“I’d love to,” she said, “on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You tell me your name.”

I did and we also agreed to have dinner Friday evening. I left thanking Grandpa and his stupid mine. The week was looking up.