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Keep Going - The True Story of R.U. Darby

Back in the gold rush days, there was a man (R.U. Darby’s uncle) who heard about the riches that were being ‘found’ and struck in mining for gold out on the western frontier. He left Maryland to journey to Colorado and stake a claim to the newfound gold. After some preliminary digging, he discovered that he had found a deposit of gold so vast that it boggled everyone’s mind! It was thought they had found the biggest goldmine in history. So he travelled back to Maryland to ‘raise’ the funds necessary to buy and install all the equipment they would need to mine the gold.

On the return trip to Colorado, both the uncle and Darby staked their claim. They went to work on the mine. They pulled the first car out filled with ore out and sent it to the smelters to determine the gold content. The results came back and they were able to prove that indeed this had been one of the richest finds of gold in history. Of course everyone was mesmerized with dollar signs/wealth in their eyes. They ‘knew’ that in just a short period of time of mining they would all have amassed more wealth than they had ever dreamt about.

So they fired up the drills and went after the gold with a vengeance; and that’s when they hit their wall. Something happened. The gold ‘vein’ had mysteriously disappeared. It was nowhere to be found – they kept digging, and digging, and digging further down but the gold was not there. Their hopes, dreams, all their wishes vanished as quickly as the gold disappeared.

Down and out, depressed, and dragging their feet, with their shoulders stooped – they finally decided to quit. 

So they decided to walk away from it, and sell it for whatever they could sell their equipment for. They found a man who bought junk for pennies. The ‘junk’ man bought all their machinery and equipment for a few hundred dollars. The Darby’s took the next train back home to Maryland. Mr. Junk Man decided to bring in a mining engineer (a specialist) and look at the mine and do some analysis. Well it didn’t take long for this specialist to discover where the Darby’s had gone wrong. It turns out as he explained to the junk man; the Darby’s had overlooked or were unaware of “fault lines.” He further explained that according to his calculations, the huge gold vein would be found again just three feet away from where the Darby’s had stopped drilling! Needless to say, they started drilling in the place the specialist had indicated and … The Gold Vein was Found Exactly Three Feet Away! Exactly where the fault line shift indicated.

Remember this poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, when you are wanting to quit.

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit—
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.