C. A. Earle Rinker letter to his mother, Mar. 4, 1907, page 1

MACMASTER & MACMASTER MINING STOCK BROKERS P.O.BOX 1063 GOLDFIELD,NEV. March 4, 1907 Dear Mother, Expect you will be surprised to hear from me so soon after getting my letter I wrote to you Saturday. Our trip was brought to a sudden step by a very sad accident. We were in camp last night ard one of the boys while fooling with a gun shot a fellow that was laying on the bed with me. I had to tell you the last of the story first but I am going to start in at the first now and give you the whole trip. There were five of us started out together Saturday morning. Texas Taylor ( The friend I had told you about before) M. J. Malcoy Tony Petrusion, Ray Dingman and Myself. We all were feeling good and having a good time on the way. We had two guns in the crowd and we were all shooting them. We shot at bottles and every thing we came across. When we got about half way to our destination we stopped at a place called the Half Way House. We fed the mules and got our dinner here. After dinner we started on. After we had gone a few miles Ray and Texas got off the wagon and were wrestling on the ground. Tex lost his pocket book and did not know it until we had got within about four miles of our camp. He went back to look for it and the rest of us camp on. Tony had left us a short time before and cut across a range of mountains to meet us on the other side. We were going up through a canyon and I was on about a half mile of the wagon walking. I had the gun and was hunting for jack rabbits.. Tony had the other gun and was hunting too. I had not seen the wagon but a couple of times, since I went on ahead of them but I knew the trail they would take and I kept on ahead of them. I had stopped at the foot of a mountain to rest and was waiting for the wagon to catch up. I had sat down on a rock behing a ledge in the sun. Toney was about three hundred feet above me and I did not see him. He could see the wagon coming but I could not.. He did not recognise me as I had throwed my heavy coat on the wagon when I started to walk. He thought I was some fellow that was hiding there to hold up the Wagon. He did not know I had left the wagon. He came near taking a crack at me as he saw my gun and thought I was laying for the wagon. I had got tired of waiting for the wagon and had started on. As soon as I started off he recognised me and called me. He then came down to me and we went on together.. He had been over the ground before and we went on to where we were to camp and waited for the wagon. The boys pulled in with the wagon about six oclock and we pitched our tent. We got our supper ready and ate it. About 9;00 Tex came in to camp. He had walked about 20 or 25 miles but he found his money. The boys got to playing with their gunds and making each other dance.. Who ever happened to get hold of a gun would make the other fellow dance. We had all had our turn. They would shoot near the boys feet to make them dance. It looked pretty rough to me and I was afraid of an accident all the time but I did not show a white feather. We had shot the tent full of holes and the stove pipe looked like a screen.