The first tunnel run at Moore's Flat was called the Paradise, and had to be started low on the side of the mountain in order to drain the ground, and had to be blasted through the bed rock for about 200 feet. Four of us secured ground enough by purchase so we could afford to undertake this expensive job and we worked on it day and night. Jerry Clark and Len Redfield worked the day shifts, and Sam King and Wm. Quirk the night shift. When the tunnel was completed about 100 feet, the night shift had driven forward the top of the tunnel as a heading, leaving the bottom, which was about a foot thick, or more, to be taken out by the day shift. They drilled a hole about two feet horizontally to blast out this bench. King would sit and hold the drill between his feet, while Quirk would strike with a heavy sledge. When the hole was loaded they tramped down the charge very hard so as to be sure it would not blow out, but lift the whole bench. One day when they were loading a hole, King told Quirk to come down pretty heavy on the tamping, so as to make all sure, and after a few blows given as directed, there was an explosion, and Quirk was forced some distance out of the tunnel, his eyes nearly put out with dirt blown into them, and his face and body cut with flying pieces of rock. He was at first completely stunned, but after awhile recovered so as to crawl out, and was slowly making his way up the hill on hands and knees when he was discovered and helped to his cabin where his wounds were washed and dressed. Then a party with lighted candles entered the tunnel to learn the fate of King, and they found him lying on the mass of rock the blast had lifted, dead. On a piece of board they bore the body to his cabin. There was hardly a whole bone remaining. A cut diagonally across his face, made by a sharp stone, had nearly cut his head in two. He had been thrown so violently against the roof of the tunnel, about 6 feet high, that he was completely mashed. He had a wife in Mass. and as I had often heard him talk of her, and of sending her money, I bought a $100 check and sent it in the same letter which bore the melancholy news. King had a claim at Chip's Flat which he believed would be very rich in time, so I kept his interest up in it till it amounted to $500 and then abandoned the claim and pocketed the loss. We made a pine box, and putting his body in it, laid it away with respect. I had often heard him say that if he suffered an accident, he wished to be killed outright and not be left a cripple, and his wish came true.