3A Business Venture Appears
"Early this morning," I began, "while waiting for you to return, Brown, I took a walk around and noted a lot of bats going into a large cave,—a really large cave. Let's go have a look at it."
Sam didn't need to say a word. I could tell from his expression and his disappointment that he had no desire to go into any more caves, even if the entrance was on the side of a hill where he could safely get out.
"Not me," he exclaimed in no uncertain terms. "Damn your cave. I'm going back to Carlsbad, and the quicker I get started, the better."
Sam would have it no other way, and since I felt partially responsible for his feeling the way he did, I decided to take him back to Carlsbad.
However, I couldn't get my mind off the new cave. I had to know what it was like inside. So, I made immediate arrangements to return.
I didn't want to go alone, so I inquired around and found two men who said they would be interested in going back with me and explore the cave.
The three of us set forth on the 28 mile journey to DonahueSprings, Andy Fairchild, a fellow I knew only as Lynn, and myself.
Andy Fairchild Jacob "Jake" Lynn
Andy Fairchild Jacob "Jake" Lynn
They kept asking me about the cave, and I told them all I knew about it, that thousands of bats apparently made it their home, and that the entrance was quite large. That was all I could tell them because I had returned with Sam and Brown without even looking inside.
When we arrived at the spot both Andy and Lynn were quite excited. The cave was deep enough so that a rope ladder would be necessary in order to reach the bottom. I had brought back the same rope ladder we had used to extricate poor Sam, so we didn't have to waste time making another.
We soon had it securely fastened outside the entrance and then I said, "Well Andy, would you like to go first?"
"Heck, no," he replied, backing away. "You just went into one cave and said it was an interesting experience. Why are you afraid to go into this one?"
For a moment I thought I had another Sam on my hands. ThenI realized he was right, and also that I had instigated this cave hunting party, so why shouldn't I lead the way?
If I backed out now, there would be no cave exploration, so, without a further word being said, I began to lower myself into the mouth of the cave.
Down, down, down I went. As I looked up I could see two heads peering down at me. They both wanted to make sure I reached the bottom safely. A moment later my feet touched a pile of rock on the floor of the cave. It was so dark that I couldn't see anything except the dim outline of the nearest wall.
"How ya' coming?" Andy shouted down at me.
"I made it all right," I replied. "Come on down, and bring that torch that is in the back of the wagon. It's black as night down here."
Lynn ran to the wagon to get the torch as Andy prepared to come down the ladder. He came down more quickly than I did, probably because I had blazed the way and he knew it was safe.
Before I knew it, Lynn had entered the opening and was coming down the ladder. In my excitement I forgot to ask him to remain outside for safety's sake. If the rope ladder should slip or in any way become insecure, we could never have gotten out and would surely have died in the cave.
But my attention was certainly not on safety at that moment. I was much too excited about what we would find.
We lit the torch, but the cave was so large that the light of our one torch didn't help much.
Our first concern was whether or not a bear or some other wild beast might attack us. We searched the floor of the cave for tracks, but not a sign of man or beast did we see. The floor of the cave seemed devoid of any evidence of any walking creature having preceded us into this mammoth underground cavern.
Occasionally a bat would sail by, missing us by inches.
With the dim light of the torch we looked around and were struck speechless by the immensity of the great cave. We inched along over the floor of the cave which at times was rocky and difficult. We encountered large boulders and had to climb over them.
"What do you make of it?" asked Andy
"Biggest thing I ever saw underground," I answered. "Seems like we're suddenly in another world. Notice that peculiar odor?"
Lynn, who had been the most quiet of our trio, spoke up. "Animalsof some kind," he said. "But I wouldn't know just what."
As we proceeded further the smell became stronger and more pronounced. Our caution increased, for I know all of us expected at any moment to see some animal lunge out at us. We kept our eyes open and, with the torch held above our heads, were able to see several feet ahead of us. Beyond that the outline of any object was too dim for us to definitely make out what it was.
The animal odor was getting stronger. We were definitely nearing something, but just what I didn't know. As a result of this uncertainty we slowed our pace, stopping every few feet to listen for any sound, yet nothing did we see or hear.
At any moment I was sure we would see two moving balls of light race toward us, which would indicate the eyes of some wild animal, but as we progressed further inside the cave our fears were unfounded.
Finally the smell became quite pronounced and at the same time we came upon huge mounds of something which was unlike the rest of the floor of the cave.
I glanced upward, and on the walls and ceiling of the cave I had the answer to the smell.
"Bats!" I exclaimed. "Millions of them. This is where they live. And those mounds beneath them are the result of their living here. Why, there's enough fertilizer there to ..."
I didn't finish the sentence. As far as the eye could see, which wasn't too far in that dim light, there were piles and piles of guano, which is the commercial name for fertilizer created by animals of this type.
Now our fears were ended, as we felt relatively safe from bats, even though there must have been millions right there over our heads. Now they were asleep, but shortly after sunset we knew they would suddenly come alive and head for the cave entrance, where they would fly off into the night in search of food.
By morning they would again form that black, funnel shaped cloud I had watched previously as they re-entered their home—a home that must have been theirs and theirs alone for countless centuries—if the huge piles of guano at our feet was any indication, and it surely must have been.
In places these piles of bat deposit reached almost to the top of the cave. Later we found that this guano reached almost a quarter ofa mile in length and stretched some 75 feet in width. Some of the piles later proved to be over a hundred feet deep!
Even the crudest calculation would have shown that there was enough guano here to merit the cost and trouble of getting it out of the cave and selling it commercially. At that moment I decided to stake a mining claim on the cave.
We felt that for one day we had seen enough and were ready to head back to the entrance and call it a day. The bats were apparently the sole tenants of the cave, for we saw no evidence of any other living thing ever having invaded its dark, vast interior.
Lynn headed up the ladder first and I asked him to go to the wagon and get four small cloth sacks for me. When he dropped them through the opening, Andy and I went back to where the guano was and filled the sacks. I wanted to have the guano tested to make sure it was of good enough quality to make my contemplated mining operation worth while.
It would be silly to go to all the trouble of getting this guano to the surface and into Carlsbad, only to find that it was of inferior quality and not worth the cost and trouble of extracting it.
"How are you going to get this stuff up to the surface?" Andy asked as I was filling the sacks.
"By Ned, I don't know, but there's a way, and I'll find it."
As we wound our way back to the rope ladder, Andy and I each had two sacks of the guano, one in each hand. We made it up the ladder and out into the open again.
"Now I'm going to do something about marking this place, to show I've been here." A short distance from the entrance to the cave was a mescal pit, possibly left by Indians.
"Here, Andy, give me a hand," and with that we began gathering several large stones and placed them one on top of another until we had a pile some four or five feet high. This would have to serve as a marker until the claim could be completed.
"Well, what do you think, Lynn? Was it worth the trip?" I asked.
"Didn't know there were so many bats in the world," he replied.
"The size of that cave is unbelievable," was Andy's comment. "How big do you suppose that cave really is, anyhow?"
"That's anybody's guess. Maybe we saw it all today, and maybe we saw only a small part of it," was my humble answer.
"Bet that entrance is a busy place at sunrise and sunset," Lynn observed. It was clear to see he was more interested in the millions of bats than the size of the cave. "I'd like to get more torches and see more of that bat cave."
"Some day we will," I replied. "Right now we're heading back to Carlsbad. I'm not going to waste any time filing a mining claim."
And with that the three of us climbed aboard the wagon and headed down the hill.