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#PatientSpeculator:
@Newton, Bell Copper, and the Kabba Porphyry
By Peter Newton Bell

© Peter Bell, 2018

PRELIMINARY DRAFT

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-- Foreword --

To begin, I'd like to ramble on about fiction. It's clear that stories and storytelling is a big part of the
promotional business of junior mining and sales, generally, but why?

The creative license of a good story contrasts the hyper-rational arguments we use to give ourselves
comfort when making investments. I knew this, in a way, but it wasn't until 2016 when I first
encountered Doug Casey's novel "Speculator" that I saw how useful fiction can be for illustrating points
of view.

There are countless books out there about the strengths of independent thinking and libertarian
philosophy, but I found that one novel did a better job than all of them put together. The story shows
why some people think this way, why other people feel that way, and how it all interacts to create some
exciting stuff from the heart of the story through to the edges.

After first encountering Doug Casey's novel at the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium, I set about
writing a few stories myself. They were all set in the gritty underbelly of Vancouver and revolved around
aspects of financial markets. Looking back at one about someone who used bitcoin to launder ill-gotten
gains and start a new life, I have an eerie feeling. I wonder how many people had similar experiences
through the first bitcoin bubble.

If someone had actually done the silly thing that I described in that story, then they might be smiling
about it now and that's the kind of feather in the cap that means a lot to people who write about
investments. I don't care about bitcoin, but I do care about people. Particularly the people that others
have forgotten.

They say that a good speculator has to be able to go to the places where others won't and this bitcoin
story was a good trial run for me with that. Plus, it was a good example of making a point without telling
you to go buy something.

Fictional stories allow us to come at important things sideways. I'm been keen to do that again with
more of a mainstream investment activity, like Bell Copper and the Kabba exploration project in Arizona.
It's been about three months since I started following the story and I've already been shocked by the
twists and turns it's taken.

Things are fixing to get a whole bunch more interesting for Bell Copper over the next while and I will
endeavour to share my thoughts on the story in this book for your enjoyment.

Peter Bell

Victoria, BC

April 1, 2018

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Contents
-- Foreword -- ................................................................................................................................................ 3
Chapter 1 -- April 1st, 2018 ........................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 2 -- April 1st, 2018 ........................................................................................................................... 7
Chapter 3 -- April 1st, 2018 ........................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 4 -- April 1st, 2018 ......................................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 5 -- April 1st, 2018 ......................................................................................................................... 13
Chapter 6 -- April 30th, 2018........................................................................................................................ 15
Chapter 7 -- April 30th, 2018 ...................................................................................................................... 17
Chapter 8 -- April 30th, 2018 ...................................................................................................................... 19
Chapter 9 -- April 30th, 2018 ...................................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 10 -- April 30th, 2018 .................................................................................................................... 23
-- Afterword -- ............................................................................................................................................. 24

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Chapter 1 -- April 1st, 2018

The first chance I had to meet Tim Marsh and Dwayne Diehl was at "Mining Exploration Week" in
Vancouver in January, 2018. I had phone calls with them prior to that and wrote a couple articles that
showed them I was hungry for a good story and our first interactions in person were more of the same.
They were impressed and so was I. Before I get into that, let me back it up a bit and explain where I was
at the time.

Go back all the way to 2015, where I worked with a start-up company in Victoria doing financial
investment in farmland following my (incomplete) PhD on that very topic. I kept one thought in mind
throughout the experience: "Don't burnout."

I worked damn hard and had some success, but I went in with a certain passion about markets and
wasn't about to let anyone or anything make me lose that curiosity. I see some of that same
determination in the Bell Copper team today.

Through 2016 and 2017, I had a different thought in mind: "How do I use what I have to get what I
want?" I didn't have much, but I did have time, energy, and a Wi-Fi connection. I learned about a bunch
of exploration stories and did a lot of interviews with different people involved in the junior mining
business. There's a fairly well-worn path for newcomers to the junior mining business who want to
become independent commentators, but I still managed to find a way to put my own spin on things
bringing deep-dive interviews to the controversial internet chatrooms dedicated to stocks.

I may not have the contacts to put the interviews in front of the right people or the capital to write the
cheques to get the drills turning myself, but I had the time to dig into the story and bring the key people
to the public. A big thank you to Mark Campbell and Aton Resources, which is a whole other story.
Somehow, I found myself riding a wave that continues to swell with junior mining companies using
social media for advertising. Writing articles like, "How to Advertise on Social Media" might have helped.
Treating people fairly helped, too. Who do you think introduced me to Bell Copper?

My first real exposure to Bell Copper came through a conversation with Dwayne “Deal” Diehl. We talked
on the phone for an hour and I offered to do a free interview with Tim. Before I had even talked to him,
it was clear that Dr. Tim Marsh was somebody I should give my time and attention. After all, that's what
I had to offer – my time and energy to talk to people like Tim and report what I find to the masses.

Anyway, the best business deals seem to happen the quickest so I made sure things happened quickly
on that first day with Bell. I took 15 minutes or so to prep for the call with Tim and jumped in. For some

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strange reason, I took notes rather than recording the audio as I usually do so I don’t have a recording of
that first call, but it was a good call. I wrapped it up after 20 minutes peppering Tim with questions. It
was a rare treat to talk with him and see a company poised to benefit from his knowledge and
experience.

I wrote up that first article in an hour or published it to CEO.CA a day or two later as part of a trio that
covered Bell Copper and Coral Gold. Coral Gold is almost the opposite type of speculation: a cash box
trading at a discount. Coral had enjoyed an asset sale to Barrick in Nevada recently, but the stock was
unloved. As Steve Sjuggerud says, we’re looking for things that are “Under-valued, unloved, and in an
up-trend.” You may have to squint to see the uptrend in Bell Copper and Coral Gold, but they’re there.

Dwayne is a long-term affiliate of Bell Copper company and one of the few people out there who gives
love to Bell Copper. He’s working hard getting that up-trend going, too. The hardest part of the Bell
Copper story is probably this feeling that the discovery of a large porphyry copper deposit at Kabba is
imminent. That enthusiasm is essential for the promoter, but dangerous for the investor. The best
discoveries are always in the next drill hole.

With all due caution of investing in mineral exploration, Tim's conviction was immediately apparent
from the first time we talked. He calls the exposed footwall in the nearby mountains "Church" because
he goes out there to reaffirm his faith that the porphyry exists, is located nearby, and is a big one. A
company-maker -- my words, not his.

I'm not a geologist, but I can see that he believes it's big enough to spend decades of his life suffering
with a tiny public company trying to find it. When I hear about things like that, I have to pay attention.
Most of these sob stories end in tears, but not all of them. Sometimes these crazy dreamers are onto
something.

What did I have to lose? I was out there trying to make a name for myself and was hungry for a story like
this. I stayed interested in the company and kept on them for the couple weeks between that first call
and our first meetings in person. It may have seemed like a long time, but it was under a month.

There’s a certain thrill to finding out about a good exploration company, like a secret club or something.
In those early days, I felt like I was early to the story but I knew that time can be tricky. If I had heard the
story 5 years earlier, then I still probably would have felt like I was early. It’s dangerous to get caught up
in the excitement, but I ran with it.

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Chapter 2 -- April 1st, 2018

My initial impressions of the story in January 2018 were mixed. I liked the geology and the character of
the people involved, but there were concerns. The big one was the partner they had at the time,
Kennecott Exploration, which is a subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto. The joint venture for Kabba
looked like a tough one for Bell Copper.

If they had a discovery hole under that JV, then it would be good but would it be enough to make Bell
Copper stock go? My primary concern was whether they could be able to stay at the table and match
the ongoing expenditures to retain their interest that was to be diluted down to 20%. I wondered if
there was a cloud setting up to rain on the Bell Copper party. Worse case, there might be something of
value in the wreckage years hence.

That alone would be enough for some people to pass on Bell Copper. They might come back in 6 months
after there is a discovery hole at Kabba or 5 years after there is an economic study on Kabba, but that's
not what I do. I have to get in there ahead of that success and set the groundwork to be long and loud.
It's a lot riskier, but that's what advertising for junior mining stocks is all about. In the same way the
geologists are out there searching for minerals, I'm out there searching for opportunities.

The story wasn't all good from the first time I heard it, but it was good enough.

And that phrase, "good enough", was something I used in a research paper I wrote after some of my
more exhaustive conversations with Tim. I tried to adapt some of what he was saying to a probability
model that you have something that’s "good enough", as a technical term. I published that paper online
and it was a fun to write, even if it wasn't the most sound -- whenever you use the phrase "subjective
probability" you’ve got to be careful.

I shared the "good enough" paper with Tim and asked his thoughts. He said something along the lines
of, "Yes, I go through the same exercise myself, Peter, and the probability I get to is very high." We were
in the ballpark here.

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Chapter 3 -- April 1st, 2018

For our first meetings in Vancouver, I wrangled a private meeting space away from the hustle of the
AME Roundup and Cambridge House VRIC. Tim showed me a series of maps and walked me through the
exploration story at Kabba in detail. There were all kinds of people talking business at these
conferences, but Tim wasn't about to show these maps to just anyone.

Under the JV with Kennecott, Bell gave up significant control over the project by designating KEX as the
Project Manager. All that constrained what they could talk about publicly. We established a
confidentiality agreement that gave him some confidence to recorded almost 2 hours of audio with me
going through these maps in one day at the conferences. Those conversations formed the first set of
interviews that I published with Tim.

There was a busy day or two getting the transcripts of those interviews ready and then an additional
interview for a news release that was set to come out that same week, which we did over the phone
when he was back in Arizona. There wasn't much in that news release other than "We're getting closer".
No maps and limited information about drill results other than mention of some gold in one of the
holes.

As Tim said in our interview, "Not the kind of thing that will get the copper porphyry world excited." Yet.

The news might have done something for the market, but it didn’t. It’s not much fun watching paint dry,
although you do have to check on it periodically to make sure it’s setting the way you expected, and the
action in Bell Copper stock has been interesting. Junior mining stocks are illiquid at the best of times,
but Bell Copper didn’t seem to have much support in the secondary market January, when I first met
them, to today. It’s awful thin on the bid and there seem to be some shareholders out there ready to
sell. Always strange to have resentful shareholders, even if it is a minority. There sure is a lot I don’t
know about the long-term shareholders of Bell Copper.

My biggest surprise from this last week of January was the noise I created online. The interviews I put
out, the commentary on news same day it hit the wire, and all the back-forth discussion with people
online was fun. Bell Copper had a story to tell and it was great to be part of that. Shoutout to Caesars
Report for fair coverage of the company in the past. It’s telling that Caesars included the by-line “And we
know it’s there” in the title of one of their pieces on Bell.

There was a nice big wake for me to surf around on by telling and re-telling the Bell Copper story. I took
less risks than Caesars did when I wrote an editorial carefully explaining why there wasn't much meat on

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the bones in the news release just in case anyone was looking for the typical thing that characters in the
mining space like Brent Cook tell us to look for. The feedback I got from that article was strange – like
most people who read it already knew what I was getting at. I took that as a good sign that Bell Copper
actually had some kind of an engaged shareholder base out there somewhere.

I really don't know how many people follow any of the chatter on CEO.CA. We have numbers on the
interviews that the company posts to YouTube or transcripts that I post to Scribd, but they are small.
From 50 to a couple hundred reads -- not the never-ending views you might typically expect from cool
stuff on the internet. As interesting and important as all the geology and business around Bell Copper,
this kind of deep-dive information really matters for a small group who self-select by doing the work to
understand the story. Let alone investing in it!

Some friends said, “don’t waste your time if the views aren’t there. Listen to the market!” That may be
good advice, but I didn’t listen. I was getting Bell Copper ready to go primetime. The right drill hole could
provide a strong gust of wind to fill the coffers of Bell Copper and put the company on course for the
promised land of a massive copper discovery at Kabba.

Part of getting ready for that bigger audience is learning how to present things in a way that they want,
but there’s something to be said for training the audience. Training the audience to expect quality
information is a mission for me and opportunities to talk with someone like Tim who can go toe-toe on
this stuff for hours is just essential. I am grateful to think those interviews might be kicking around out
there for years to come.

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Chapter 4 -- April 1st, 2018

Following those initial interviews from the Vancouver conferences, we had another one over the phone
that went through some of the old drill holes and pictures of drill core from years gone by at Kabba. I
was pleased with Tim's ability to engage in the technical discussions but reframe things for the lay
audience I represent. We published those interviews within a day or two of recording them and they
have something for everyone investing in Bell Copper, other than the technical analysts.

Up till now, it was all text transcripts. We'd done one audio clip where Tim literally read the news
release out loud but I don't think that recording ever saw the light of day. If it did, it sure didn't get many
listens for good reason. It was a pretty boring piece of content, although not an entirely bad idea. Having
an executive read out a news release and provide some embellishment -- there's more and more of
those executive interviews being done these days. All these things called “social media” provide
companies with new opportunities to make content themselves and curate their own media.

In February, things paused. I chatted about Bell online, but still waters run deep. There was a lot
happening behind the scenes. Some of which I was kept abreast with, but much of which was probably
unnecessary detail. Even for me. Then, it all became clear that things were changing in March.

First, it was Dwayne, “We’re going back drilling at Kabba. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I
know we’re going back. Are you going to put this in the book?” He had reason to be enthusiastic, but I
wasn't surprised to hear him say it. I would have been surprised if he said they were never going back
drilling again!

The real question was, "Who’s paying?" That's always the question in junior mining, isn't it? That’s
where the screw turns. These companies operate without a real source of funding other than equity
financing and it's not always clear if they will be able to do the next round of work to test the geological
theories they have for a project!

When I heard that Kennecott was leaving Kabba, I was stunned.

I saw it coming when Kennecott signed an option for another early stage porphyry project in Arizona
with EMX Royalties, but I was still stunned. Never mind what it meant for Kennecott or anybody else -- it
may be the most meaningful twist to the Bell Copper story ever and it occurred just a few weeks after I
was introduced to the story. Goes to show how important it is to act quickly in this business.

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I had asked Dwayne about that project that Kennecott optioned from EMX a few times. EMX has a lot of
ground in Arizona and elsewhere around the world. Watch out for their Malmyzh property to earn an
entry in the history books of mining someday. I asked Dwayne about that property in Arizona, Elk Creek,
again and again. He said, "Tim knows it. We looked at it. We passed on it a few years ago, not that we
would have been able to have even been able to do any meaningful work on it at the time..." Right when
that news came out, I told Dwayne that it looked like Kennecott would leave Kabba. I thought it was a
clear signal that Kennecott was lining up the next thing to work on -- they had taken a stab at Kabba,
were done, and wanted something else to work on.

What stunned me about Kennecott leaving was what they didn't do in 2 years and $3 million. They
didn't drill Tim's target.

That's the kind of thing where you scratch your head, then accept it and move on. If you try and figure
out or guess at what was behind their decisions, then you're liable to end up off in some line of thinking
that's not particularly helpful. I just chalk it up to majors doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. As a
junior mining bug, that’s a page right from the contrarian hymnbook.

This idea that major mining companies can do the wrong thing at the wrong time is so fascinating to an
outsider like me. One of the most articulate expressions I’ve seen of the idea is in the book, "Rethinking
Housing Bubbles" by Vernon Lomax Smith and a co-author whose name escapes me. Smith is a Nobel
Laureate for his early work on experimental economics.

The story goes that Lomax taught an introductory course after finishing his PhD and it was a disaster. He
taught it again the next year and tried some classroom experiments and stumbled on some timeless
truths that were the beginning of the field of experimental economics. He shared the Nobel Prize with
Daniel Kahneman, author of “Thinking Fast and Slow”, and others decades later. I had the chance to
meet Dr. Smith myself at the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting in 2014. Very special occasion full of good
stories, like hearing him quote Hayek at length impromptu. The Austrian school may not be widely
known, but I was surprised how many of the Nobel Laureates referred to Hayek at the meetings.

Dr. Smith's book, "Rethinking Housing Bubbles", has a chapter or two about how central bankers are
really good at doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Some of those same biases can appear in other
organizations like major mining companies, too. When I looked at this way, I just saw opportunity. This
was an example of a foibles of human society that's created an opportunity for the independent thinker.
To find that in a situation with someone like Tim, who has worked so hard on this project for so long, is a
great speculative setup.

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Here we are in the first week of April 2018 and he is spinning up for the next round of drilling. Hole #20
at the Kabba project! It may be a significant discovery hole. It may be a let-down. It will certainly be
the first hole Bell Copper’s drilled since starting the JV with Kennecott back in 2016. What’s more, I like
to think of it as the next hole that Tim would have drilled. There’s always a "next hole" but drilling at
Kabba under the JV chased Kennecott’s ideas had more than Tim’s ideas. This next hole is, arguably, the
logical next step in his original sequence of ideas. Granted, he has adapted and revised his ideas from
the first hole to the twelfth but that’s exploration. With all the context about Tim, this project, and
everything else, it’s the best exploration story I’ve ever encountered. Yet.

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Chapter 5 -- April 1st, 2018

As we look out on to what might happen in the next weeks, months, and years, it's pretty exciting. Bell
Copper has been doing more of the things that a junior is supposed to do and that should continue. All
that stuff costs money and the word “should” is anathema to speculation, but there are funding markets
out there for the best companies that are willing to play ball with the street and do the work!

I've been down to Arizona once before and I really thought it was beautiful country. I'd love to spend
time there. I can just imagine if they had a dozen drills going. In fact, I couldn’t imagine that but I’d love
to see it. Talk of Quonset huts to put around the drills to reduce noise pollution might not be as far-
fetched as it sounds. Let alone what success at Kabba would mean for Bell Copper in terms of
exploration at other projects.

If Tim’s ideas are in the ballpark, then it will open up new game to apply them again and again. Pictures
on the company website of Tim’s bunk in the back of the truck or in the map hut at site are just a
glimmer of what might be coming if Bell Copper has success at Kabba. “Cantsay”. “Dontsay”.
“Wontsay”. Some say exploration geologists aren’t much good till they’re 50 and then they’re no good!
Look for Tim to prove ‘em wrong.

What kind of moments would we catch if there is a GoPro camera rolling at Kabba when K-20 starts
coming up? I’ve told Tim to set it up and think about it like a lab report. It doesn’t have to be made
available for the public, but you only get once chance to capture a historic moment like that.

Some of my interactions with other promoters or media groups in the space have surprised me when
they say, "No, we don't want to talk about this or that." I can understand putting your best foot
forward, but don’t dumb it down too far for fear of losing your real audience. Retail may buy the stock,
but majors buy deposits.

Again, looking forward, it's hard to pin down what may yet come for Bell Copper and Kabba. The sands
are shifting. I am of two minds for a discovery in hole K-20, 21, or 22. On the one hand, we've been
here before. Just because Tim has a high degree of conviction about this next round of drilling doesn’t
mean they’re gonna hit. He’s had strong conviction before and missed. It’s probably too simple, but it
gives long odds that the next hole hits.

On the other hand, just listen to Tim and study the story that he's putting forward. They know more
than ever before and have one screaming target that was left untested under the Kennecott JV, almost

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as a gift. It’s begging to be drilled. It’s probably too complicated, but it gives a very high probability of
success in the next holes.

There have been a few people on the internet tell me that they've been following this story for a long
time and have been frustrated before when Tim's said, "This next hole is gonna be the one." and then
not. I don't know what he said prior to my involvement, but if you're frustrated by the past holes then
just imagine how he feels!

Sure, some of those holes may have missed but damned if he didn't learn a lot from each one.

My favourite story is about the first hole. Surprise, surprise, he didn't hit bedrock where he thought and
the second hole stepped out by a full mile! His interpretation of that first hole was that the slip fault
was a lot shallower than expected and the thing moved further than he initially thought, which is
actually a very high-brow debate among some geologists. Again, I’m not a geologist but I haven't seen a
lot of info to suggest Tim’s interpretation of Kabba is incorrect. I have seen a lot of evidence to show just
how sophisticated the exploration model Tim’s building at Kabba and I'm very sympathetic to that.

Tim’s model for Kabba may scare some people away, but it’s not particularly difficult and it’s got a great
tailwind with the whole "Peak discovery" thing. It’s an important driver for a mining bull market --
shortfalls of new discoveries as a second-order effect of prior bear markets. I don't know much about all
that, but you can see that macro trend that "easy deposits are found already" reflected in the simple
fact that they’re onto their twentieth hole at Kabba and still don't have a discovery. If they can get a
meaningful discovery in hole K-20 then it will be a great success.

Again, I’m of two minds. Both make sense, but I probably give one more weight than the other. Of
course, I give the one with all the evidence behind the greater weighting than simply saying he'll miss
because he missed last time.

Regardless, now is the time for action. We’ve seen it from Tim in the aggressive timelines he put forward
in our interviews, talking about the first week of April, and I'm right there with him.

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Chapter 6 -- April 30th, 2018

It's funny how a month can zip by. This one sure didn't. Every day in April dragged on and the amount of
effort I've spent on Bell Copper since writing the first five chapters in an afternoon on April 1st, 2018 is
surprising. Nothing's really changed in the fundamentals of Bell Copper over this last month -- why work
so hard?

Nothing may have happened yet, but something's about to.

There's no shortage of tangents shooting off from all the touch-points this month as I start a new series
of 5 chapters here on April 30th, 2018. Most of all, I can’t wait to write the afterword when K-20 is
complete.

For now, top of mind is CEO.CA. These internet discussion boards are always a strange experience that
leave me wondering, who is that person I'm chatting with? Many stocks I follow on the site don't have
posts from anyone else, but Bell Copper is different. It has 2 or 3 people who are more vocal and angry
than I've ever seen with any other stock. Who are these people and how do they have time for this?

There's no point trying to convince someone on the internet that they're wrong, but there is some
interesting discussion to be had around the social norms for these discussion boards. By virtue of their
disgruntled bagholders -- sorry, legacy shareholders -- Bell Copper is in a unique position. I'll leave that
for the sociologists, but simply say now that seeing how these people suck the air out of the room
reminds me of how Tim's described picking himself up, dusting himself off, and going back out to drill
another hole after failing time and again at Kabba in the past.

Why should it be difficult to continue conversations online in the face of adversarial commentary,
anyway? Can't you just ignore them? Surely, they've learned to ignore you! For some reason, that
famous libertarian idea of the non-aggression principle comes to mind. It's all laissez-faire up to the
point where you start to hurt other people.

That's reflected in the behaviour of the moderators at CEO.CA, as they are inclined to let things play out
and only step in when someone is being hurtful towards other people. They give you a lot of leeway
when it comes to posting relevant links and trying to share insight, but hassling other people doesn't last
for long.

One of my favourite vignettes from this last month is the guy who says,

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"We need a plan! We need a plan! What is the exploration plan? You have to communicate this plan to
the market. You have to sell this to the market -- what are you doing? You guys couldn't sell a story if
your life depended on it."

Of course, this person was careful to note that they are a shareholder and wish the company nothing
but the best in future endeavours. I always laugh when someone using an anonymous identity online
starts talking about their status as a shareholder as a preface to hacking on management's performance.
If you've got serious grievances then you'd better have compelling points, or else you lower the quality
of the discussion for everyone. Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but not everybody is necessarily
entitled to the right to access CEO.CA and share their opinion publicly! I wonder if someone will rework
the non-aggression principle for CEO.CA into some kind of non-trolling principle. For the birds.

Anyway, this person wrote repeatedly that Tim doesn't have a plan and isn't communicating his plan. I
had to scratch my head because we have published over 4 hours of interviews by now talking about all
the different aspects of the company. If we haven't covered the exploration plan in detail, then I'm not
doing my job.

I may not have pushed Tim for as much detail on precisely where the next holes are planned as this
anonymous person would like, but I've certainly pushed Tim to explain the concepts in great detail and
answer every question I could think as to where he might put the next hole and why. Tim had an answer
for every question I could give him and sometimes his answer even included the words "I don't know,"
which is always a good sign. Anonymous people asking about drill collar locations online might be a sign
of concerned neighbours more than anything else and NIMBY-ism may prove to be a key challenge for
Bell Copper or whoever buys Kabba in the future.

This month felt like a year. Maybe it was the fact that Tim said we'd have drills turning in the "first week
of April" or maybe it was the hours spent arguing with people on the internet but despite all the drama
and delays the work itself has been fun. I know Tim would say the same when he's out in the field. I'd
certainly say it when it comes to preparing these interviews and studying every aspect of the story I can
get my hands on. You sure don’t want to let this one go too easily.

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Chapter 7 -- April 30th, 2018

The more time I spend around these junior mining companies, the more impressed I am that they ever
get anything done at all! The odds are stacked against them in so many ways. When Tim announced that
Bell Copper was getting the Kabba project back from Kennecott, he was so excited that he said, "we will
be out there in the first week of April." That’s a great goal, but what is everyone to do while they wait till
April 25th for a news release announcing that Bell Copper has finally mobilized for drilling? You might
look at that and say, "Bell Copper didn't do anything through the month of April!" but you would be
wrong. Still waters run deep in these parts, partly because so much of the information around these
companies is commercially sensitive.

The day after hearing that Bell was getting Kabba back, Tim was on the highway driving 8 hours to
secure an agreement with a private land owner for drilling access and a purchase option. He mentioned
the preliminary agreement in an interview and somebody seized on his comment to say that Bell only
had a "handshake deal" for the land and that would never hold up in court if Bell found something. You
can sure generate a lot of excitement in an information vacuum with a couple well-placed questions! Of
course, we nature abhors a vacuum and we resolved that a few weeks later when Tim explained in great
detail how it was standard operating procedure for Bell Copper to secure purchase options before
drilling on private land. He went so far to say that you don't want to drill a hole and have the owner find
out they're sitting on the most valuable real estate in northwestern Arizona, which sounds nice in the
interview but might whip up some excitement amongst the remaining land owners in the area.

If and when the local real estate agent comes knocking saying, "We have a buyer." Those sellers might
decide they're not willing to let it go for twice that price! The joys of mining speculation know no
bounds. For most people, those joys would seem to manifest in a clear sense of greed. Greed in the
stock market traders who bid these companies up to outrageous valuations and then say the share price
is surely gonna double again! Greed from the landowners who aren't ready to sell. Greed from the
majors who will need to mine life. Greed from society for copper as one of the first metals we ever
learned how to mine and master.

Probably the most important theme for this month of April 2018 has been basting those feelings of
greed for select participants out there as things roast away. We're at a point where "it's time for me to
put some core in the box." as Tim said to me. And not just any core, either. He knows what he wants to
see. I sure hope he's not disappointed.

There’s a recording out there of Rick Rule titled "How to ask Sprott Global for money" that is awful
useful. One of the first things he says is along the lines of,

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 "Most people who come to pitch me aren't prepared in the sense of knowing what I need
out of the investment. They have a great sense of how the capital would be transformative
for their business, but very limited understanding and appreciation of my goals and
objectives as a financier. Not just to get the best terms but to build out some runway where
we can really deploy capital in a meaningful way with a series of investments conditional
on success in the prior round!" -- attributed to Rick Rule

Just look at the recent success of Evrim Resources. They have been operating as a prospect generator
for years, successfully ticking away in Vancouver with a growing set of partnerships and
accomplishments, but it all came together when they announced some great initial exploration results
for a project they own 100%. Shares were bid up aggressively in the secondary market and there were
surely generous offers in the primary markets from brokers and other investors. Great success story that
leaves me wondering if all these lean years didn't make everybody a bit hungrier?

What's more, I gather there have been large sums of financial capital raised in global centers by private
equity groups you've never heard of and they don't have much runway to deploy that capital. I like to
hear about that because those guys speak the same language Rick Rule is talking about when he talks
about "deploying capital with a series of investments conditional on success." It's so simple that I’ve
figured out my own way to say it: "It's not buy and hold -- it's buy and keep buying!" That’s terrible
investment advice, but it might be a handy rule of thumb for a speculator. I don't mean to catch a falling
knife with a broken story, but I do mean to stick with your investments as you would a close business
associate.

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Chapter 8 -- April 30th, 2018

What does the future hold? The simple answer is "more of the past." That’s not particularly encouraging
for most junior mining investors.

There’s always a discovery after the next drill hole and you should take the fact that Tim is enthusiastic
about this next round of drilling at Kabba with a grain of salt, but don't discount it completely because
he now has access to a richer data set than ever before for the project. In one of our latest interviews, I
asked him to discuss the next unanswered question at Kabba. It’s a standard question and Tim had a
standard answer, "Same as it's been for a long time now, Peter: Grade. And after that, it's tonnage."
Great place to start, Tim, even if it is a non-answer.

Notice that Tim’s next unanswered question wasn’t "does this thing even exist?" For Tim, it's a certainty
that it exists. Even the location is fairly well understood now by virtue of having spent +10 years
identifying where it is not located. The process of elimination is very powerful when it comes to
exploration geology, which ties in with something else we discussed in our interviews: continuity. Not
geological continuity of the veins or something -- professional continuity in his role as the leader of this
business venture to make Kabba into a mine.

This continuity in the interpretation of Kabba as an exploration project stems from Tim being with the
story for so long and being an expert in this type of deposit. These porphyries attract some of the best
geologists in the world and Tim's had some great success finding these things, or so I'm told. I believe it
simply from the fact that he's been willing to spend so much of his life to make Kabba work. I’d infer that
he really sees something there. Just looking at the financial commitment he's made to the company
with forgone salaries and everything -- it's a big risk!

They say that the worst times in the market are when those who know it best love it least, and I’m sure
glad Tim hasn’t given up on Kabba yet.

Those holes sure can be deep.

One person was talking about, "Why didn't you keep drilling that one hole? What if the deposit was
below your hole?" I thought that was an interesting question I had never asked. Then, I poked around a
bit more and found out the hole they were referring to was already something like 4,000 feet deep. My
impression is that the person who was asking that question knew a lot more than they were letting on
and was setting up a strawman argument to say "Hey, you're wrong from the start."

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The standard fault model allows for much steeper fault than Tim's idea of what happened here. With
that mountain moving such a large distance, if it had moved at a steep angle as per the standard theory
then it would be thousands of feet deep. If they had kept going, then they might have hit it! Drilling
4,000 feet and keeping going? They might have hit it! That steep angle and far displacement puts it very
far down.

That hole didn't go down that far so we just don’t know, do we? Well, we may not know to complete
certainty but my understanding is the alteration seen at depth in that hole was indicative of the edges of
the system -- not the top edge either, but the lateral edge of the system. I don't know about that, but I
will trust Tim to navigate the company through this aspect of geological uncertainty and point us
towards the most important questions.

The standard line against Bell Copper seems to be, "Too deep! Too deep! It’s too deep!" I’m sure it’s
tough to take all that and keep going, but Tim’s made the wonderful point to me several times: "How do
people know it’s too deep when we haven’t found it yet?" Classic Tim.

It takes a certain optimistic determination to stick with any exploration project, let alone one that’s
taken so long for Bell Copper to work up. Some would say it’s irresponsible to keep working on it at all
and that it’s best left for someone else, but if Tim hadn't stuck with it then he never would have found
some of this stuff that's come out recently like these little bits of native copper from overburden in one
of Kennecott’s holes. The fact that Tim was able to find native copper where Kennecott just goes to
show how much care and attention Tim is putting into this exploration program. That’s the kind of
person you want as a business associate, right -- the guy who’s going to find the contractor’s mistakes?

And all this talk of native copper in overburden fits in with a nice geological story where the Kabba
porphyry is actually much less deep than previously expected. It all starts to get a bit complicated, but
the people were saying "too deep" in response to a prior version of Tim’s thesis for Kabba. With new
data and new interpretation, things look different. Don’t assume that nothing’s changed!

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Chapter 9 -- April 30th, 2018

Would you believe that Tim Marsh gets upset? He said in one of our interviews that he was frustrated
by all the noise and confusion online one day he went out to his workshop to look at the heavies from
old holes and that’s when he found this new example of native copper. That’s a great example of using
somebody else’s negativity to fuel you on to greater things.

Dwayne says the most inspiring words for him in the English language are, "It can't be done." Or, even
better, "You can't do it." Doesn’t that sound like a page out The Contrarian Handbook? Whatever it is,
it’s a sign of the character of the Bell Copper team. Tim finding that native copper in the sludge is
nothing if not optimistic determination! And he still has buckets of that stuff to go through.

It makes for a great headline about native copper and a sophisticated geological argument about the
deposit being shallower than previously expected, but what it says about the corporate oversight aspect
is huge: Tim and Bell Copper are the careful custodians of this project. He collected the fines in a hole
drilled by Rio and panned them later, just as standard operating procedure. He’s been treating this
project right for years and all that hard work could make a exit all the more sweet for all of us.

The junior mining industry is all about outsiders and David vs Goliath stories -- this one has that stuff in
spades. Whether it’s Tim taking on the academic consensus with his hypothesis of a low-angle-slip-fault
at Kabba or Dwayne running making noise in the concrete jungle, this junior is more of a company than
most. Tim and Dwayne together are very complementary and effective. Spend some time with them
yourself and decide if they’re the kind of people you’d chose to do business with.

The number of times I have a five-minute call with Dwayne that goes on for an hour is getting to be too
many to count! Of course, we know how to shut up when we have things to do but we make sure to talk
about everything when we have time for it. That kind of brainstorming is critical and it’s important for
the company to have their ear to the street in every way they can manage.

And my impression is that Tim and Dwayne have been managing things very well. As good as Tim is with
everything, Dwayne’s right there with him. I have never seen someone so hands-on with all their
corporate contractors. They may be spending more money these days, but it doesn’t look like they’re
wasting any of it. It’s important to delegate, but it’s probably more important to make sure the job gets
done right. Especially when your entire raison d’etre is exploring Kabba. It’s almost a mind-numbingly
simple business. At least the accounting is simple with no revenues to reconcile!

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I appreciate all this stuff at Bell Copper because it reminds me of my own experiences. I’ve worked
around some of the same promoter groups that Bell Copper is working with now and some early
experiences there have made it clear to me how important it is for me to focus on being independent at
this point. If I can control the quality of my work, then that's really quite important at these early days in
my career.

I see this single-minded-focus reflected in the shareholder base of Bell Copper in a way, too. I was on a
call with Tim today where someone went through a standard set of questions. They asked about the
debts that everybody seems to be concerned about, which are a non-issue as far as I can tell (don’t tell
the market!), and then they asked, "How much of the stock is closely held?" Tim's answer was "About
half." That’s one of my favourite answers.

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Chapter 10 -- April 30th, 2018

The good news is that we're right on the edge of something! The bad news is that we have to wait. The
company has money and relationships necessary to get this next round of work done. This is make-it-or-
break-it time.

There are a series of conferences in mid-May and Bell looks to be spinning up for drilling just around
that time. I am planning to go to the conferences in Vancouver but would leave town to go to Kabba if it
would help. My priority is the same as it has been for a while now, position myself in the place where I
can have the greatest impact on those around me. The ability to go run around in Arizona again with a
video camera and voice recorder might be worth something, but the long game is helping Tim keep
using the camera after I’ve come and gone.

It's exciting to see the Bell Copper going as fast as they can and still wish they were going faster. That's
something I respect -- to see them moving as quickly as they are and then hear that they wish they were
going faster. It's good because it means the holdup isn't coming from their side. There's no shortage of
delays in this exploration business and I do everything I can to make sure I'm not one of those sources of
delay.

At some point soon, they will have to close the door on this round of financing. They’ve kept it open
longer than some might like and I hope it proves worthwhile. Getting to yes is the goal, but Chris Voss
has some insightful comments about the value of “No” on the road to yes.

What next at Kabba? Even if they have a discovery hole, there are no guarantees. No guarantee the
stock trades hot, no guarantee of further funding, no guarantee of an exit. Tim might start to envy
Sisyphus for he doesn’t have to worry about taxes.

The worst-case scenario for Bell Copper now is to get a hole into the thing, and then throw a party
where nobody shows up. That's always a risk, but I’ll be doing my part to fight it. I’ll show up for that
BBQ in the desert.

Looking around at everything we've seen in the markets lately, things are heating up towards a mining
bull market. End-use demand is there, supply is tight, financiers are hungry -- it might be the best of all
possible worlds for Kabba. As I finish 10 chapters on a book about the Bell Copper story, damned if I
wouldn't publish the thing immediately after a discovery hole! Just get going on the next book.

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-- Afterword --

As I reach the end of May, I feel compelled to finish a draft of this novel and release it. It’s tough to
release it before Bell Copper has started the all-important next hole, which will test Tim’s concept in way
that Kennecott never did. It may prove to be a long time “Waiting for Greatness at Kabba”, but the
journey has been a pleasure and the intended destination stands to make it all worthwhile.

A big part of my experience following Bell Copper in Q1 2018 was arriving at the hashtag,
#PatientSpeculator. It might not seem like much, but it’s a fun little phrase that seems a bit
contradictory. Aren’t people who speculate fickle? How can you be patient with something that is
contentious? I don’t know quite what it is, but there’s something there. Just look at how Tim has fought
to find Kabba for years and years for inspiration about the need to be patient. Don’t stick with a broken
story, but don’t think it’s broken just because it hasn’t worked yet.

At the Metals Investor Forum today, I had a conversation with Jayant Bhandari about EMX Royalty Corp.
He was concerned that 5 people at the company earn over $1 million each. That’s a lot of money for a
junior mining company, but if they finally execute sale of Malmyzh and bring +$100M into the company
then it could be worthwhile. They may even deserve a raise! I mention that because it’s similar to Tim
Marsh and Kabba: it’s important to get meaningful work done quickly, but more important to do the
work the right way. I’m sure Tim would have loved to get out drilling in the first week of April more than
anybody else but, as we approach the start of June and trade significantly below the financing price, I
trust they will get the work done. Long and strong!

In the opening paragraphs of Mark Twain’s book Roughing It, he describes how his writing uses a
rambling narrative style. I intend to take less liberty with facts than he might have, but you may be able
to tell that my writing process for this novel was somewhat similar. I literally transcribed audio
recordings of myself speaking to you, dear reader, in hopes that my thoughts might have some value.
Time will tell.

Peter Bell

Vancouver, BC

May 26, 2018

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