The truth was that the highly
intelligent Greaser was using the cigarette trick in salting the
pan. There was much fine gold in his cigarette and under his lip!
THE MULATOS MINE SALTING SCHEME
All sorts of methods of salting mines, even to the injection,
with a hypodermic needle, of strong solutions of mineral salts
into a mining engineer's carefully sealed sample bags, have been
worked. The most honest, careful, and expert mining engineers
have been deceived time and again, and salted right under their
own eyes. Even a bland Chinee may be fooled. Take the instance of
the Mulatos Mine: The bunch of Chinamen who proposed to buy it
insisted on a mill-run test on fresh-mined ore, taken out BY
THEMSELVES, for a five-days' run. They were not taking any
chances, in their own belief. The owners of the mine, however--so
runs the story--had a platform of plank arranged above the
timbers at the top of the drift where the Chinamen brought out
their ore cars. On this planking a man lay face downward where he
could see each ore car that passed. He had a rather hard life for
five days on the sandwiches and water which he took up there with
him, but he managed to drop a pinch or so of nice gold dust into
every car of ore that came trundling under him.
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