Echoes from the Hills

The following item, reprinted with permission, has been extracted from Echoes from the Hills, a book compiled by George S. Baker's daughter, Betsy Webb. It was originally printed by Baker's friend, Hal Wright, in the Sierra Booster using Baker's pen name.

Dark

Photo courtesy of Cory Peterman via the Underground Gold Miners Museum.

Power went off the other night. Seems some feller was disputing the right of way with a P.G.&E. pole and lost. Booze and car mixture don't help none. 'Course you fellers in the Hills is used to outages, specially in the winter, but down here it's different'. Some people get real shook, 'specially at night'. Gotta hunch they're just plain scared of the dark. Funny thing is, not too many of us here humans have experienced total darkness - the kind so black you kin touch it, smell it, and yes, almost hear it. You boy's havin' worked underground knows I'm not just whistling' Dixie. And if this ain't a foxy way to con you into listening to a story, I don't know what is. Here goes:

Happened at the Sixteen to One mine up in the Alleghany in the '30s. If you're looking for a hero to this tale, go somewhere else. On the other hand, if a real dummy will fill the bill, he's writin' this. Me and Elmer Hawkins was muckin' in the drift, or tunnel, at the 1500-foot level, a good 1900 feet in from the lit station at the Tightner shaft. Elmer trammed or pushed the ore car back on the crooked track for the last load of the shift. He left to help Scotty MacLeod load his round up on the 1000 North. Afore he left he was kiddin' me again about the next jumper coat I'd brought underground with me that morning. You boys remember them—made outta Levi material with a red and black blanket-like stuff for a lining. I'd hung it on a nail out at the station and Elmer accused me of not wanting to get it dirty.

Well, I filled the car and noticed that my carbide lamp was burning low, and I had the gravity ride out of the long, crooked drift. Funny thing about a carbide lamp—had to show it to a bunch of 3rd grade kids I got snookered into talkin' to a while back an' they thought it right up there with the space shuttle in wonderment. Showed 'em how it were made of brass and with two compartments - bottom one holding the little gravel-like pellets of carbide and the small water reservoir on top of with the lever that limited the amounts of drops that dripped to form the gas. When them kids saw how you could run your hands over the little rough steel wheel and the flint would throw a spark and turn the gas into a flame, they thought it was magic.

Well, let me tell you, they wouldn't athought I was such hot stuff back at the time we were talkin' about. Oh, everything started out right. Got behind ore car, took lamp off hard hat, unscrewed two halves of lamp, placed them on muck in full ore car after knocking used carbide from holder, reached back to my pocket for a can of fresh carbide and realized, darkly, that it safely reposed 1900 feet away in the pocket of my fancy new jumper out at the station!

Guess you realize when you're over a ¼ mile from the nearest light and that's down a twisty tunnel and its source is just a weak 60-watt globe, the outlook is dim. As they would say in Hawaii, "Brudder, you is in the dark."

After a brief lecture of Panic, there were only two things to be sure of: I was here and so was the ore car in my vise-like grip. Everything else had disappeared. No matter how wide you opened your eyes, there was a total of nothing. After a little thought I figured there were three choices: 1.) Wait 'till I was missed, and somebody came to find out why - (no deal… some of the shift would be blastin' pretty quick and it'd get gassy); 2.) Walk or crawl out - (too slow and wet, muddy, and risky) and 3.) Ride the full ore car out, hoping the brake held, she didn't jump the track and I didn't whack my stupid head on the low hangin' ceiling.

The vote for #3 was unanimous! After feeling for the 2-foot drill steel that hung over the wheel for a brake, and slowly taking the wedge out from under the rear wheel, a three-minute ride started that I can't forget and don't want to tackle again.

The speed of the car wasn't too fast, but in the total black and even with the pressure on the brake, it seemed like a ride on the roller coaster at Santa Cruz. A little curve in the track always seemed to catch a feller learnin' the wrong way. Had my head so low my chin was almost restin' on that old, used carbide I'd knocked out of the muck.

Finally saw the light from the station and that 60-watt lamp looked like the rising sun! Dumped the load and here comes Elmer down the shaft in the skip.

"Well," he says, "Guess we got sixteen cars. We'd better get up to ten hundred and pick up Scotty after he blasts… Say, your lamp's out."

"I know," I says, sauntering over to my new jumper, "I'll fill her and light her on the way up." You know, a person can act real cool, but this is the first time I gotta confess, it were more near a cold sweat.

Tap her light,

Hugh Gagg