In the book "Think and Grown Rich", Napoleon Hill tells a true story about R.U. Darby.
An uncle of his had caught gold fever back in the gold rush days. He staked a claim and worked with lust for gold. After a few weeks of labor he was rewarded with some shiny ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. He covered up his mine and went back home to raise the money for machinery from friends, relatives and neighbors. Mr Darby and his uncle returned to the mine with the needed equipment and began to work.
The first car of ore was mined and shipped to a smelter, proving they had one of the richest mines in Colorado. A few more cars of that ore would clear their debts, then would come the big killing in profits.
Down went the drills, up went their hopes. Then something happened, the vein of gold disappeared! They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up that vein again, but to no avial. Finally they decided to quit.
They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars and took the train back home.
Some junk men are dumb, but not this one. He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer advised that the project had failed, because the owners where not familiar with "Fault Lines". His calculations showed that the vein would be found JUST THREE FEET FROM WHERE THE DARBY'S HAD STOPPED.
The "junk" man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine.
R.U. Darby later went on to sell millions in life insurance, of course, because he learned not to take no for an answer, and not to stop three feet before the gold...
ronnie