Beschreibung:

2 loose-leaf brad-bound notebooks, 32pp and 40pp. A fantastic and presumably fictional tale of mining, brotherhood, death, generosity, and horse love. Written in 2 notebooks, this dramatic narrative begins with a carefree club of five bachelors somewhere in the eastern states: In our social intercourse, the pleasure of one was the pleasure of all. We were a band of brethren indeed. According to the narrator, the quintet decided to go west as a company to find their fortunes and pleasure in the gold and silver mines of Colorado, keeping no separate accounts, but sharing all and all alike. After raising cash to fund their efforts, the party traveled to Denver in 1901, running on wishes and dreams rather than on practical knowledge of mining and no awareness of what lay ahead. We had but little idea as to what was necessary for us to have further than food and transportation to our destination, Grundy wrote, the latter gave us much concern. We soon found pack-horses coming in from the “Diggins” for supplies, some going out with their loads. We paid close attention to every detail, garnered much useful information as how to load a pack horse and the kind of supplies taken out &c.... They learned, according to Grundy, by traveling about the camps, observing what others were doing, taking very little along, but trusting they could get what they needed. Finally we left the camps in search of new “diggings.” We “prospected” in our own way -- many sand barrs -- finally we struck a place that showed some “pay dirt” -- located the spot -- and after about 2 weeks spent in this way, we returned to Denver to buy such things as needed for a 5 months trip. The members of the company taught themselves to shoot and mine and other manly things, with Grundy claiming that he became the best shot, particularly when confronting the vicious bears for which the west was known: if it [a bear] was wounded and showed fight, I never lost any “nerve” as did some others when they were caught in a tight place. I saved not only my own life but theirs also by cool nerve. Grundy describes his small company’s work in the mines near Denver and Boulder, Leadville (where they saw only large operations and low profit), and finally Grand River, where they engaged in profitable placer mining. By April 1902, they moved on to diggings in Wyoming near Yellowstone and then into Idaho along the Snake River, earning the substantial sum of $17,000 for the year. Montana and Wyoming are good states to stay out of, he wrote, as far as our experience goes, in the way of mining for profit. Wyo. is much the richest -- some good strikes may be made in it, but in our opinion they will be far apart and few -- unless maybe developed by quartz mining and mills. In the next year, the five-some mined profitably along the Snake into Washington, staying over winter at Spokane, but finding too little metal there, they decided to spend the next year prospecting and trust to making some big “strikes.” If it should become necessary by reason of failure, to increase our funds we would revisit some good “Diggings” that we had worked heretofore to recuperate. All had faith that we would make a big strike some time. From Battle Mountain, Nevada, northward, they scoured the land for ore, hunting as they went. Grundy’s associate killed a massive cinnamon bear, He killed it dead at the first shot -- something unusual -- they generally make a fight even when dying. We often burnt or used bears-oil in our cook range, but this fellow was so gross that we left his carcass severally alone. We also killed many wild turkey…also the venison or deer meat... As if the tale was not fantastical enough, in 1911, Grundy writes that he and his comrades became lost in a canyon in the Bitter Root mountains with dire consequences. After their horses began to die, one after another, from overwork and no food, his friends Lewis and James both took ill and died before they could find their way out of the canyon. Henry an