They called him “Skinflint” MacIntosh and said if you happened to pass him sideways you couldn’t see him. It was kind of a local joke in every country store between Charlotte and Concord that the only way you could see MacIntosh was from the front or back.

Not only skinny in size, he also happened to be skinny when it came to generosity, or at least that’s what everyone said. But the old man was not concerned over what was said about him at the country stores or jokes about his appearance, for he owned the richest hill of gold between the Reed Mine and the United States Mint at Charlotte.

It may have looked like just another field of red clay on top but when MacIntosh got the report that the vein of gold 450 feet down was four feet wide, it brought the only kind of joy a mind like his could truly appreciate.

Of course, there was a problem. Even with the shaft dug he must persuade enough men to go down that far and dig in the damp darkness beneath the surface of the earth and haul out his treasure. There were plenty of fellows to be had for placer mining on the surface. This needed men with more skill and more courage.

But Mr. MacIntosh was unworried. He knew how to do it. He sat on his hill and looked at the broom-straw, a warm, rusty color in the flow of the setting sun. He picked up a lump of red clay, pressing and shaping it between his fingers, and he could picture shovel after shovel full of that red clay turning to pure gold!

It seemed hard to believe that he had been picked, perhaps, he thought, by God himself, to become the richest man in North Carolina. Why, someday people would still be talking about the gold that came out of his mine long after they had forgotten mines like the Dixie Queen, the New Nugget and the Yellow Dog. What if the Reed Mine had been the first mine in this country to gain fame and start the Carolina gold rush, his mine would outproduce them all!

The next morning Mr. MacIntosh went to the store at Georgeville where he knew he would find not only some experienced miners from the Reed Mine but also newly arrived young men who had flocked into the area eager to make their fortunes. Standing there resting one hand on the counter and smiling his friendliest smile, Mr. MacIntosh announced he would pay half again whatever the other mine operators were paying.

“You’ll have to,” said Joe McGee sitting back with his chair tilted against the counter. “Who wants to go that far down to dig? No amount a’ money is worth workin’ for if a man don’t come up at the end of the day to collect.” There was a sizzling sound as he spat at the stove.

For a moment MacIntosh sensed that something could go wrong. There was his fortune and he was willing to pay high wages for men to dig it up for him but somehow these men were not jumping at his offer. Was his mine any different from the others? He alone knew it was the richest. The hairs rose along the back of his neck and for no longer than it takes a snake to flick its tongue, MacIntosh felt cold enough to shiver. There was even a flash of foreboding, but it didn’t last long.

“Come up at the end of the day to collect. What are you talkin’’ about, Joe? It don’t matter how deep a mine is. Whether it’s two hundred or three hundred feet under the ground. You just brace the roofs of those tunnels up with good, hefty timber and you dig out the gold the same way. I’ve been down in that mine myself many a time and I’ve got the finest oak timbers and braces money can buy.”

Mr. MacIntosh knew that was a lie even as he said it. But he smiled his biggest smile again and said, “All right, men, sign up over here, all of you who want to go to work for me Monday morning and start getting rich.”

Joe McGee leaned back against the counter and said, “Mr. MacIntosh, if you got the safest mine like you say you have, and I got no reason to doubt you, then there’s no danger workin’ in your mine.”

“That’s right,” replied MacIntosh. “Why, you’re just about as safe down there as a man could be.”

“All right,” said Joe, I’ll come to work for you.”

Everyone was surprised because they knew that Joe was probably the best foreman at the Reed Mine and he knew the mining business well.

“But, Mr. MacIntosh, there’s just one thing. You wouldn’t mind paying my wife a thousand dollars if I did happen to get buried down there in your mine, would you?”

“Joe, I wouldn’t pay your wife just one thousand dollars. I’d pay her two thousand!”

Soon large quantities of ore were being brought up and MacIntosh’s excitement was so great these first few weeks that he even treated some of the men to a free drink in the local saloon.

The yield per ton of pure gold, after the Chilean mill had done its work, was incredibly high, it was said, but MacIntosh never told anyone exactly what the yield per ton was. Some of the men were finding sizeable gold nuggets. But most of the gold was found in fissure veins of quartz. This quartz was seldom glassy but rather milky white in color and often stained brown.

On his first payday Joe bought his wife a pair of fine silk stockings. She still worried about him and at first he had to reassure her almost daily. Finally, when he told her how safe the mine was, he would laugh and with his blue green eyes dancing mischievously, remind her that, “Why, if anything did happen to me you’d be rich, lassie! Old MacIntosh promised me himself that you would get two thousand dollars.”

So, as the weeks passed and Joe returned safely each night to the little house where his wife, and then a baby as well, awaited him, her fears eased.

But, on the evening of the winter’s first snowfall, Joe did not come home at the accustomed time. It had been a cold, gray, drizzly afternoon with the fine rain turning into snow and Jennie’s spirits were low. But she counted this due to the weather remembering that sometimes on a cold day, Joe would stop off with his friend Shaun O’Hennessy and buy a drink, so she refused to worry.

However, by nine o’clock she was quite alarmed. Wrapping the baby warmly, she left the infant with her neighbor and set out toward the saloon. She saw lights inside, laughter drifted out into the snow-flecked blackness and when she opened the door she was engulfed in the warm air, tobacco smoke and voices.

Tommy McSwain, the owner, walked over to her immediately. “What can I do for you, Jennie McGee?” But he was unable to answer any questions about Joe.

“No, mam. Last time Joe was in here was three nights ago. Seems like he and Shaun came in after work. Yes, that’s the way it was.”

“Anybody seen Joe McGee?” he called out to the men, a number of whom were looking curiously at Jennie by now, for it was plain to see she was upset.

There was a chorus of no’s and Jennie left, deciding she would walk on beyond the saloon to Shaun O’Hennessy’s. Mary opened the door and she could see Shaun dozing before the fire. He got up stiffly from his chair when he heard the door close behind her.

“What are you doing out at this time of night, my girl? Where is Joe? I waited for him this afternoon, but he said he was going to work awhile longer so I came on home. This back of mine’s been hurtin’’ somethin’ terrible.”

“Jennie, what’s wrong with you,” said Shaun’s wife, Mary.

Tears streamed down Jennie’s face but at first there was no sound. Then she flung herself into Mary’s arms weeping and screaming.

“He’s still down there. I know he is. He’s had an accident or he’d be home by now. Get him out, Shaun, get him out! Please! Go down to the mine tonight.”

“Mary, take her home and stay with her until I come and pick you up.”

O’Hennessy pulled on his still wet boots which sat beside the fire, reached for his coat and hat which hung on a wooden peg near the door, and left.

Near the saloon he met Big Pete and they rounded up several other men to join them. The mine was only a little over a mile away but the snow made walking more treacherous and the little knot of silent miners tramped along through the blackness punctuated here and there by pinpoints of light from miners’ cabins.

Three men passed, arms linked, singing a bawdy song at the top of their lungs. The one nearest Shaun jostled him roughly and if it had been any other time he would have regretted it for Shaun’s Irish temper would certainly have blazed up. But his face grew just a shade more grim and he pressed on, ignoring the fellow.

It was cold and raw and the road underfoot which led up the hill to the mine was muddy. But there were stars out and it had begun to clear. The men trudged on, their heavy boots making a scrunching sound on the pieces of quartz and dark greenish gray rocks which lay along the roadbed.

Finally, they reached the place where the mine shaft lay and Shaun and one of the other men, each with their lanterns, started down the ladder and, with the light from the lanterns flickering on the sides of the shaft hewed deep into the red clay, down, down they went, past the gaping holes of old tunnels worked in bygone years and on to the vein the men were working now.

The two men walked the full length of the tunnel where they had worked that day and for the past several months. They called and then they listened. But there was no sound save the muffled echo of their own voices and the scraping of their boots on granite-like rock. After they had searched fruitlessly for about an hour they went backup to the surface where the small huddle of miners who had accompanied them waited.

The next day Jennie went to MacIntosh’s office still certain that Joe was somewhere within the mine and asked him to send a search party to comb some of the lesser worked tunnels. Four of the men including Shaun accompanied her, but MacIntosh pooh-poohed the plan and said Joe would show up again “when he gets good and ready.” Two weeks passed and still there was no sign of Joe so Jennie, convinced of Joe’s devotion to her, was certain by now that the was dead. She visited MacIntosh again, this time to make claim for the two thousand dollars he had promised to pay if Joe were killed in the mine. MacIntosh suggested this time that perhaps Joe had not been so happy with married life, but to wait awhile longer. By now, Jennie and the baby were low on food and firewood and the other miners and their wives were taking by whatever food they could to share and Shaun O’Hennessy was chopping firewood for his own family and Jennie as well.

The next time Jennie went to the mine office MacIntosh sent a message out that he did not have time to see her. In tears she stopped by the O’Hennessy shack on her way home and Mary O’Hennessy made her stay on for some hot stew. Over and over she kept moaning, “He’s dead, he’s dead. He’s down there somewhere dead. What will the baby and I do now.”

That night it had barely struck twelve when there came a terrible rattling sound at the O’Hennessy door. Shaun pulled on his trousers and stumbled toward it sleepily. Without thinking he threw the door wide open and then he wished he had not, for before him stood the most frightful figure he had ever seen. The cheeks were a waxy chalk white. The eyes in their dark caverns looked like murky red marbles. Gaunt, clothes encrusted all o...