June – Sometime during the month Cal Higbie, after several attempts, entered the Wide West mineshaft and broke off a sample from the ledge. He returned to the cabin he shared with Sam and “with smothered excitement” announced that it was “a blind lead”—that is, one that does not show on the surface of the claim. Mack explains the significance: “Since the ‘Wide West’ Company did not know of the blind lead down in the shaft, it was public property, and therefore Cal and Sam could locate it for their own” [166]. The pair took in a third partner, Mr. Allen, the foreman of the Wide West, and put up a notice that night, then registered their claim at the recorder’s office before ten o’clock. According to the rules then in place, those who located claims had to do “a fair and reasonable amount of work on their claims within ten days” [Mack 166-8]. Such was not to be.