That area was part of a natural rise in the landscape, as he neared the top of the rise, parts of sandstone slabs could be seen through the prairie grass, where the sandy loam had been washed away during the heavy rains this area of the country sees, during the spring and fall seasons.
Mike could see a few slabs of sandstone sticking up, out of the ground, as if on their ends and a few large, roundish boulders of solid granite, here and there. This part of the property had a lot of scrub oak growing everywhere there wasn't prairie grass growing and had obviously been left fallow for a quite a few years. There was even a place, mostly hidden from the road by the hill, where large pieces of broken concrete, had been illegally dumped from the demolition of some commercial building, were sitting in a rather large, rectangular depression.
It was here that the entrance to the storage facility was very effectively camouflaged among these partial walls that had been leaned against the large, rectangular mound. Other concrete demolition scrap, was everywhere in piles. At the far side from the road of the rectangular hill, there was a pile of partial walls, one of which had a door in it. This was, in fact, the entrance to a partially underground storage facility that was about the size of a football field of a two story warehouse. From the ground level, it indeed, looked like something had collapsed under ground.
When Lt. Mitchel stepped inside the facility and walked down the stairs to the open, hanger like, underground structure and turned on the lights, he gasped in shock.
The storage facility was huge and filled with all kinds of emergency provisions. Lt. Mitchel couldn't believe his eyes. There were enough provisions here to feed an army for months. Inventorying the provisions was going to take a while. Mike added this task to the lengthening list of chores he would need to attend to.
Mike took an entire hour, inspecting the emergency rations, C-Rations, canned goods, water, oats, oat meal, corn, corn meal, flower, wheat and sugar, a lot of sugar, thought to be lost, within the storage facility, to get a general idea of what all might be there. He was particularly interested in what weapons might have been stored there. He was gratified that there were some weapons and ammunition for them stored in a large room, along the northern end of the building.
There were many of the older style, military rifles, the M-1s and M-14s. Although they were older weapons, they were in mint condition. They had been military weapons, wrapped in oiled paper packing, in sealed containers and ready for use, at the time of manufacture. He was actually happy to find 20 cases of, .45 Cal. Thompson sub machine guns and 250,000 rounds of ammunition. “These will be perfect for arming our men, if we get enough to form an armed contingent of military, here.” Lt. Mitchel thought. He was even more pleased when he found 2 cases of model 1911, .45 cal. Colt, semi-automatic, pistols. After further searching, he found 5 shoulder holsters for the .45 cal. pistols and a case of belt holsters for them.
Mike, left the storage facility and rode back to the main house, right at dusk of that day. He had added quite a lot to his list of things he would need to get accomplished as soon as possible. He was interested in viewing his assigned complement of undercover troops. His plan was to use them for taking inventory of the storage facility, starting in the morning.
When Mike got back to the ranch house, he put the saddle on a stand, and stabled Pico after brushing him down. Then, he took his saddle bags and double rifle holster into his office, putting them back where he had originally found them.
Lt. Mitchel went through his government paperwork and decided on four of the six men who were under cover soldiers from ranch or farm backgrounds.
The first thing he looked for in the men he chose, was race. Lt. Mitchel thought, “That Mex, SFC Gonzalez, is my Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge so, I'll have him work with that V.C., CPL Nguyen and the civilian hires to move the cattle and sheep to the Southwest corner section of the ranch. That should keep them busy and out of our hair until we get the inventory done. There's good grazing there and we're due to move the animals for crop rotation there anyway so, I won't need a reason other than that.”
Mike slept fitfully, awoke early, dressed, made a pot of bad coffee, by putting more grounds in it's strainer, adding some water, after pouring a cup, microwaving it and plugging in the dirty coffee pot, he wanted his coffee extra strong this morning. Mike readied himself for the morning round up and breakfast, before chores. He was wanting to get started as soon as possible. He felt that the sooner he got started, the sooner he'd know what was there and how he might be able to use the knowledge of no longer viable and thought to be lost stores.
Mike went into the main office, just inside the front door and sat at his desk, sipping his coffee. He was waiting for his assigned undercover ranch hands to come in, as they knew they should, for their breakfast and daily assignments.