From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) PEACE: Gold hunt's end at the box in the hole
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 14:15:02 -0600

mantis wrote:
>But the fact remains that the diggers seem to have hit a container of some
>kind: if it was not the strongbox, then the next most likely item would be
>a coffin.  In order to be sure that it was not a strongbox with gold, they
>had to excavate enough to determine its size.

In the further cause of pedantry, I should point out that there doesn't seem
to have been a coffin, any more than there had been a strongbox. The text
reads: "My shovel had struck a stone, causing the blade to ring, and in a
spot of moonlight I had seen the glint of metal in Lois's hand."

The gold never existed; Lou Gold made the whole story up, including the
geographical reference points they were using to locate it. People don't
locate graveyards in or near creek beds, for obvious reasons. Sugar creek
had water in it at the time the gold was supposedly buried. It was a dry
creek bed at the time Weer and Lois dug there, but would have been subject
to flooding in the wet season. It is very unlikely that anyone would bury a
body where it was commonly subject to being washed out, whether the grave
site was hallowed ground or a clandestine burial. Also, in the 19th century,
most coffins would have been made of wood, which would not cause a shovel
blade to ring when struck.

>Yet it is a tad difficult to imagine them doing further excavation after
>Lois has pulled the gun on Weer.  Whatever happens, it is not in the spirit
>of easy cooperation.  So maybe she tells him to keep digging, and he does,
>and then they figure out it is a coffin.  Then he gets the gun from her.
>(I don't think he kills her, even though there is a ready-dug grave right
>there.)

I think the digging stopped when Lois pulled the gun.

>Weer confronts Lou Gold, then Sherry makes her visit.  Sherry speaks of her
>"magic ring," and aside from the link to the title of this message (the
>spooky link between tomb and womb), what she describes can also be termed a
>ring of gold.

Speaking of magic rings: did Lois ever employ hers in her quest for gold?
Weer was certainly hoping so, and planned to "bring a flask, and make
certain we had a blanket to spread upon the ground". They were two days
digging that trench, and they were there by moonlight.

-Roy


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