C. A. Earle Rinker letter to his mother, Mar. 4, 1907, page 2

MACMASTER & MACMASTER MINING STOCK BROKERS P.O.BOX 1063 GOLDFIELD,NEV. - 2 - Tell you my heart was in my mouth all the time but I tried to be as wild and wooly as the rest. We raised thunder until about 12:00 oclock and then we fixed our beds. Three of the boys slept in the tent and Texas and I slept in blankets out side. It was a pretty hard bed and I would have slept well but I had developed a pretty severe case of stomach trouble and did not have much time to sleep. I was pretty tired for I had walked the most of the way that day. I was out early the next morning and we had breakfast and prepared to go out in the hills and look for some claims. Billy Malcoy took the wagon and went over to Lida to get some mining tools. All the rest of us went out in the hills. We located a claim for myself and one for Dingman. We found a place that had been worked a long time ago. We could not claim this as work enough had been done to hold the property forever. My claim is safe enough for it had never been located before. There is quite a lot of new ground out there. The place we found that had been worked was in a mountain that stood out by itsself. They had sunk a tunnel into the side of the mountain for about 100 feet at an angle of about 45 degrees. The end of this encline tunnel was about 45 or 50 feet lower than the mouth of the tunnel. They had run two cross cuts from the lower end of the tunnel. They drifted on one for about 200 feet and on the other about 100 feet. I am sure we were backin the mountain for at least 300 feet. We did not take any candles with us as we did not expect to strike anything of this kind. The only thing we had for light was matches. We explored the whole business with matches. The parties that had done the work had found no traces of gold and have given up. It has took a long time to do this much work as every inch of the way was solid rock. We tramped around the rest of the day and did not find anything worth locating. We got back into camp about five o'clock. On the way back to camp we came down the side of a mountain about 450 feet high. Our camp was right at the foot of this mountain. I had looked at the mountain from our camp and thought what a thing it would be if a fellow should get top heavy and start to slip from the top. We had reached the summit from the other side and it was a gradual slope up. When we got to where it pitched down so steep,Texas never hesitated a minute but started right down. My hair stood on end for I was next. I was carrying two Indian Cactases that I had found early in the day and two sacks of samples of ore. I thought I would never be able to make it but I did not want to show the white feather at that stage of the game so I started down after Texas. You cannot imagine my feelings. I thought every step that I was going to fall and roll to the bottom. I finally reached the bottom alright and felt safe for a little while at least. We went in and got our meal about 6;00 and by that time Malcoy had got back from Lida. We had lots of experiences that day that I will tell you all about when I can talk to you. After our supper the boys got pretty reckless with the guns. They had been shooting at each others feet but Dingman and I did not try to mix in any of it. I was feeling pretty tired and so was Ding. Tony and I were laying side by side on a roll of blankets in the tent at the farthest end from the Door. Texas was standing near the door and swung his gun over his head and intended to shoot in the ground just in front of our feet. By accident the shot struck Tony in his left leg and hit the bone and glanced up into his body. I felt all along that something was going to happen and right here it did.