Roland Cheek's Blog, page 2
February 10, 2014
Chapter Nine
* The previous chapter portrayed a developing bond between Jake Hoover and the third partner in their Yogo Sapphire Mine venture, Chicago veterinarian Jim Bouvet, who envied Jake’s obvious robust health and outdoors acumen. Chapter Nine Jim Bouvet had the run of Jake Hoover’s cabin in Yogo Gulch for two additional nights. Hoover’s and Bouvet’s
February 7, 2014
Chapter Eight
* The previous chapter detailed the Yogo Mine’s initial planning, the taking in of a third partner, and some concern over the burgeoning cost of development, threatening to overwhelm poor Jake Hoover. Chapter Eight As luck had it Hickson, the surveyor, and his helper, arrived at the Glendennan Ranch on the same day S.S.
February 5, 2014
Chapter Seven
* The previous chapter ended with Jake Hoover visualizing endless rows of cigar boxes lined up like cordwood, each filled with handful after handful of blue pebbles robbed from an endless line of marmot and gopher mounds. Chapter Seven When Jake Hoover finally blinked, he saw the Fergus County Bank President staring at him
February 3, 2014
Chapter Six
* All Jake Hoover could see was a check for thirty-five hundred dollars! And cigar boxes lined up like cordwood, each filled with handful after handful of blue pebbles robbed from an endless line of marmot and gopher mounds! Chapter Six Sapphires are a crystalline form of the mineral corundum, or aluminum
January 31, 2014
Chapter Five
* The previous segment ended Jake Hoover’s young friend, Charlie Russell, bringing a message from Lewistown Bank President, S.S. Hobson. Jake asked Russell if he was still getting along with Hobson? “He’s okay. Actually, he’s not around enough to bother …” Russell snapped his fingers and said, “That’s why I’m up here in the first
January 29, 2014
Chapter Four
* The previous segment ended with Millie Ringgold pouring the tiny blue stones Jake Hoover had given her out on her empty dinner plate and telling him, “Jake, those little blue rocks are jewels. I know they are. I don’t know what kind, or if they’re worth anything. But as sure as my black kinfolk
January 27, 2014
Chapter Three
* The previous segment ended with Millie Ringgold, the half-black woman who held two placer claims in Yogo Gulch, spending the night with Jake Hoover in his cabin, revealing that the two were lovers. Chapter Three Jake Hoover filed the first placer claim on Yogo Creek in 1878, near the mouth of Skunk Creek. The
January 24, 2014
Chapter Two
* The previous segment tells of how Yogo sapphire discoverer Jake Hoover was caught on a grass-covered plateau during a cloudburst, crouching miserably beneath his horse while the storm raged. And how, afterward, as he dried his clothes he spotted some queer blue stones in the pushed-up dirt of a gopher mound. Chapter Two It
January 22, 2014
Chapter One
* The first installment included the introduction and a prologue about the astounding geology forming the Yogo sapphire deposit. Chapter One He crouched miserably, with his black handlebar moustache tucked as far into the hollow between the dapple-gray’s left foreleg and his barrel chest as the big horse would allow. A worn and tarnished yellow
January 20, 2014
Prologue
Prologue In the beginning the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep…. Which may not have been entirely true, for somewhere between those eons of eternal darkness and the start of our story, there came a “big bang” (or at the very least, a series of
