Well, same way Ole Birginey. He owe me forty-fi'
dollar when he die. He down to Dayton long time ago.
One day he bully drunk, he get on pony, pony he run,
drag ole man on the ground and kill him. Me help
dig one grave, down by Carson River."

A mining country is always dangerous to walk
around in, for there are hundreds of abandoned pros-
pect holes and shafts in the most unsuspected spots,
perhaps overgrown by weeds and bushes. Many a poor
fellow looking for a fortune has " mysteriously disap-
peared," and ten to twenty years later his bones have
been found in some forgotten pit. Within a year or
two after its settlement the country around Virginia
City was fairly honeycombed with worthless shafts that
served only to trap wild animals, goats, donkeys, horses,
cows, and occasionally an unlucky miner. It added new
terrors to the Comstocker's privilege of getting drunk
and going home " across lots."

Old Virginia City people tell innumerable stories
about these abandoned shafts, relics of the great rush.
In one case a man started to look up his goats, and found
footprints leading into an old tunnel. He ventured in,



70 THE STORY OF THE MINE.
