gradually slowed down until after sunup the next morning. Then the road turned to sand and their pace was halved. The company stopped for a 20-minute rest, long enough to give the mules and oxen a drink and a small meal of the grass that had been cut back at the sink.
Then the plodding continued. When the morning temperature climbed to 96 degrees, Dan inspected the oxen. Two had tongues hanging out of their mouths and eyes that appeared to be sunken into their skulls. Their skin was hot, dry, and blistered. Dan halted the company.
“Unhitch these two.” He pointed at the most distressed stock.
“But why?” Smithton complained. “They’re still moving.”
“The other ones are dragging them along.” Dan waited as more compliant ones unhitched the suffering beasts and led them behind the wagon.
Dan joined them. He talked softly to them, patted them on their heads, and thanked them for their faithful service. Then he shot each in the head and cursed himself for taking his job as a guide. To him there was nothing worse than animals dying for no reason other than a human’s stupidity. As one from the company hitched the remaining oxen to the wagon he grumbled about Smithton’s moccasins.
“What’d you say?” Dan interrupted him.
“Just that Smithton here should give some of them to the oxen. Their hooves feel like they’re on fire.”
“I told you not to tell him about them.” Smithton wagged his finger.
“How many pair of moccasins you got left?”
Smithton knew that it was useless to lie. “Three dozen or so, I suppose.”
“Let me see ‘em.”
Smithton removed the wagon’s false bottom and Dan studied the stash of the silverware and footwear.
“Let’s see, we got four ox left and they got four feet apiece. How many feet is that?”
“Sixteen.”
“If we put moccasins on their hooves it’ll keep them from burning so much so they kin pick up the pace and git us to water. Give me 16 moccasins.”
“But they won’t fit.”
“I’ll make ‘em fit.” Dan waved his Bowie knife in Smithton’s face. “I’ll cut ‘em along the top and then lace them back up.”
Smithton howled. “But that’ll ruin them.”
“If you don’t give ‘em over the oxen can’t keep up with the mules. Then we’re gonna have to leave you behind with yer dang wagon. Then you kin keep company with the oxen while all you dies off, one by one.”
Smithton cursed. Then he threw the 16 moccasins at Dan and stomped off to see what cuts of meat he could salvage from the two dead oxen. Once the soft leather was attached to their hooves, the oxen’s pain eased and their morale and pace both rose. The rest of the day was filled with mirages, hallucinations, swearing, hysterical laughter, longing glances at the snow on the distant Sierra’s peaks, and promises and bargains made with God if He would only help them reach the river.
By nightfall four of the men who had gone ahead on horseback returned with all of the company’s canteens full of water from the Carson River. A short rest and the water revived the men and animals enough to endure the last four miles. When the livestock smelled the Carson River they began to outpace all of the men until, at last, all were drinking from it. During their travels through Digger country, the company lost two horses, one mule, and four oxen to the natives’ arrows, the unrelenting sun, and bad water.
The first sign of something resembling civilization since Salt Lake City was a group of tents along the Carson River called Rag Town. Some of its inhabitants were honest. The rest were little better than the carnivores that raided the graves along the trail. Card sharks, outlaws, dishonest traders, and others waited to take advantage of the bone-weary westbound trekkers. A handful from the company felt right at home there and spent the last of their money gambling and drinking. Dan knew there would be nothing to collect for his services from them once it was time for him to part company with the Elmira Argonauts.
Dan shrewdly traded with the other wagon trains to get better deals than could be had from the dishonest Rag Town predators. First to go were ten of the mules in exchange for food. Dan next wanted to barter with the wagon and four oxen but Mr. Smithton refused. Having heard of the trials of hauling wagons over the Sierra, Dan tried to reason with him.
“Look. This here company, leastwise what remains of it, is plumb wore out. They ain’t gonna push, pull, grunt at, curse at, and die fer yer getting a wagon over the Sierras. If’n you wants to be keeping it so bad, you can pic ‘n’ mix again, I reckon.”
“That I will. Good-bye and good riddance you worthless excuse of a guide.”
“Wait a dang minute, you polecat. You owe me $8 for getting you this far.”
Smithton cursed as he counted out the money. That was the last any of the company saw of Smithton until he arrived in the gold fields two weeks after they had. By then he was riding his one surviving ox. One of the other three had been rustled away by hungry miners; the other two had died when his wagon tumbled off of a slippery mountain road with turns so sharp that only one pair of oxen could be used on it. Ironically, if he had left the moccasins on their hooves the oxen would have had enough traction to climb the steep grade instead of falling to their deaths.
The company now numbered 55 as they left Rag Town and headed west along the Carson. Then, to their surprise, the trail veered off from the river to enter the Twenty-six Mile Desert. At least the water that they carried across this last stretch of desert was fresh river water instead of the brackish water that they had hauled through the Forty Mile Desert. The trek was also made easier by the absence of Smithton’s wagon and worn out oxen. Once again they chose to overcome the barren wasteland in one long haul with only short rest periods. When they got to the Carson Valley with its plentiful watered green meadows, the peaks of the Sierra overpowered the rest of the landscape. The summit they would have to cross dwarfed the previous ones that they had climbed in the Rockies. They would have to climb to almost 10,000 feet before they laid eyes on the western side of the Sierra.
Now there were small game to be shot and fish to catch. They traveled this last easy stretch for two days before reaching the place dubbed The Canyon. The only trail through it included a few simple bridges that had been built by the Mormons. The Canyon was only a five-mile long segment but it seemed to be the longest five miles of the trip. Very narrow and extremely steep, it was full of rocky obstacles, some small that could be moved, others huge immovable boulders. The company’s remaining six horses and 37 mules had a much easier time than those who still traveled with wagons. Because of Dan’s strategy the company would eventually reach the diggings before every wagon train that had left from Kanesville before it did. Most of them had taken the Donner Pass, which lay to the north. That route was even more treacherous and unforgiving to livestock, be it horse, mule, or oxen. It was in The Canyon that Smithton lost his wagon and two oxen two days after his former company safely had passed through without losing anything.
Next the company reached the Devil’s Ladder, an ascent a mile long where slick granite forced oxen to their knees. The company sat and watched as the wagon train ahead of them crawled up the so-called ladder. First the wagons had to be unloaded. Then the goods were packed on the backs of men, women, children, horse, and ox to the top of the steep grade. Finally, chains, block, tackle, and men’s muscle and curses aided the exhausted oxen at they pulled the empty wagons to the top of the first pass. If a wheel came off or an axle broke, the broken wagon was pushed off of the narrow trail to the canyon’s floor below. With other wagon trains backed up at this bottleneck there was no time for repairs. Dan and his company passed the train that had been ahead of them as its wagons were being reloaded and livestock rested. The more sure-footed mules would pass more than one wagon train on the journey through the Sierra.
Next to be climbed was The Pass, 9,500 feet above the Pacific, which lay about 200 miles due west. Once the company reached this summit they stopped to catch their breath and tak
e in the view, which stretched hundreds of miles in every direction. Then a tiny dot far off downhill caught someone’s attention. It was traveling uphill from the west. The company cut short their rest and headed down the steep trail to meet whoever it was that they thought must surely be going the wrong direction. They speculated ever more as the figure drew closer.
“It looks to be a miner, him and his mule.”
“If they’re coming up this high to get gold maybe we best stop here and start looking for gold right away real quick like before any more of them show up.”
“You’re right! If we wait too long there won’t be any gold left for us.”
The shabby looking man of 33 was leading his mule slowly up the steep trail. When the panting stranger was almost abreast of him Dan yelled for the company to break early for nooning. The guide had no idea of where best to lead the company to from this point on; the choices were far too many. His contract called for getting its members as far as Sutter’s Fort but that could be changed if a majority agreed to it.
No one grumbled about stopping early. All wanted to hear about the diggings from one with recent firsthand knowledge. Dan introduced himself to the tired and sweating miner as he came alongside and invited him to dinner.
“Dan’s the name. How’s about dinner with us?”
“Reckon so.” The stranger studied the company’s members for a moment.
“Didn’t quite catch your name.”
“Sometimes it might be best to keep that to yourself. Especially when everyone’s got gold fever.”
As the beans and flatbread cooked over the fire, Dan got to the point at hand.
“So, stranger, what brings you up this high? You’re a stone’s throw from where you’ll be on the east side of the Sierras. Is there gold up this high?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know and I sure as hell don’t care no more neither.” The miner gobbled down the beef jerky that had been offered to him as an appetizer.
“Well, then why you be up this high for?”
“If you got to know, I’m heading to the east slope of the Sierra. Down near the bottom of course. That’s where the rivers and creeks and streams like to deposit the gold.”
Some of the company froze, others moved in closer so as to hear his every word. All began to wonder if there had been a new gold strike somewhere near to where they had journeyed for the last two weeks. Dan broke the silence.
“Why? All the gold already gone down there that a way?” He pointed to the west.
“Nope. There’s still gold to be had if’n you can git a good enough claim to work on. That’s the main problem. There’s plumb too many miners back down the hill.”
“Uh, how many?”
“Tens of thousands I reckon. Maybe hundreds of thousands. Who knows? From what I been told the whole city of San Francisco went looking for gold. They also be coming from far away as China and Australia and them South American countries. Even met a couple dandified gents from England. They shore talk funny. They even showed up at the diggings still dressed in their fancy duds. Looked like the pictures I seen in a Charles Dickens’ book I read once.”
Uneasiness descended on the company. The faint-hearted began to wonder if they had risked life and limb only to arrive too late. A braver soul spoke.
“So where were you?”
“Oh, down Monterrey way originally. Sometimes I get to thinking I should’ve stayed on there. Lot more peaceful than the diggings. I was fishing for a living. I never saw so many different kinds of fish and other sea life a waiting to get caught. There even be lots of crabs and something they calls abalone. Tough as leather. You got to beat it with a hammer or rock to make it tender. But does it ever taste good!”
“You found gold there?”
“Nope. I was minding my own business helping unload the catch for the day when a sailing ship comes into the bay there. Some old sailor is hollering from the deck about gold getting discovered over at Sutter’s mill. You should’ve seen it. Men started running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. All of the ones from my boat hightailed it off the dock and took off for the American River. That left only the captain and me. When we got done unloading the catch he paid me extra cause he didn’t even have to pay the other varmints that took off before finishing up.”
“So you went to the American River too?”
“Nope. I like to mosey into things sort of slow like. My ma always used to say, ‘haste makes waste.’ So I gets me a map of California and takes it over to this feller that knows about rocks and such.”
“A geologist.”
“Yeah. That’s what he said he was. So’s I asks him what he thinks about gold being found. He says that if it’s in the American River then chances are that it’s in at least part of the other rivers coming down out of the Sierras. So I figger why go all the way up north to the American? So I head straight east to the San Joaquin River. Didn’t find too much gold there. So I go up to the Merced River and do a little bit better. Didn’t hit real pay dirt till I headed north even more to the Tuolumne, Stanislaus, and Calaveras, though. There’s real diggings in those rivers. Listen boys, the first rule of gold mining is you got to be in the right place at the right time. Otherwise you’re a day late and a dollar short. I know firsthand.”
“How much did you find?”
The miner laughed as his eyes glazed over. “At first you could pick it out with a knife. We were pulling in four, sometimes five ounces a day. The spring and summer of ’48 we was gitting $14 to $15 an ounce, too.”
A few of the listeners gasped or jerked their heads backwards; others stared toward the diggings that lay to the west. Back in New York many of them had made in a month what a single ounce could bring.
“Then by last fall the price dropped to $8 to $10 an ounce.” The miner moaned.
“Why’s that so?” Dan asked.
“Oh, them that thinks they understands such things claimed that when there’s a whole lot of something to be had the price for it goes way down. Sort of makes a kind of sense, I guess. They calls it supply and demand.”
“But what’s it going for now?”
“Did my last trading down there back in Jackson. They give me $14 for an ounce of my poke. Had to sell five ounces to provision myself proper for my trip. Still got a little left in case I need to get something from Rag Town on the other side of the hill.” He patted the leather pouch that was hidden in his pocket.
“Could we see the gold?” Rudolph begged. “Please?”
“Sure.”
The miner pulled out the pouch and sprinkled half of its contents onto his palm. Two small nuggets, 13 flakes, and a pile of fine dust glinted as the sun’s rays struck them. The entire company rushed forward, which left those in the back climbing on the backs of those in front.
“Settle back down, you rascals,” Dan ordered. “You’re acting like a bunch of piglets fighting for their mama’s milk. Make a line over here and you all kin file on by one at a time to drool over what took you 3,000 miles from your nice warm, dry homes and families back in Elmira.”
The men obeyed. As they lined up and then moved forward to examine the yellow metal that some of them had sold their souls for, the more curious asked questions, which the miner patiently answered.
“What’s worth more, the nuggets or dust or flakes?”
“They be worth the same if’n you be trading for something. But I hear tell that jewelers and collectors be giving more than the going rate per ounce for nuggets.”
“How hard is it to get a claim?”
“Getting’ harder every day ‘cause more miners is always showing up everywhere you go. They’re like fleas or ticks on a dog. The new miners are multiplying as fast as a bug does. And they be even bigger bloodsuckers than fleas or ticks.”
“How do you know if a claim is good enough to buy?”
“You don’t. Sometimes the greedy ones selling a claim salt it.”
“What’s that?”
> “That’s where they sprinkles dust around the claim to make it look rich when it’s already been played out and picked clean. Saw one varmint salt his claim by shooting gold dust out of his shotgun into it. Worked too. Sold it an hour later, he did, to a yahoo from back east.”
“But why didn’t you warn the buyer?”
The miner sighed. “If I had the miner might’ve bushwhacked me the first chance he got. Boys, miners ain’t civilized folks. Maybe they once was but once they got gold fever you best be watching your back.”
“How much gold did you find since you first got to the diggings?”
“Probably five, six pounds worth, I reckon. All went for food for Alice, and me though. Got to give her a treat like sugar or coffee once in a while to keep her from getting bad tempered.” He motioned at his mule, which stood grazing nearby on the scant vegetation.
“But why’d you spend it all on food?”
“So’s I wouldn’t starve, boy. Mining’s hard work. If you don’t eat you can’t work a claim. Boy, you fellers from back east shore be slow sometimes. That’s why I left from there and moved out west here in the first place. Did you all catch some kind of fever that cooked yer brains? Or was it the sun out in the desert that fried them up like an egg in a skillet on a hot wood stove?”
“But surely one ounce of gold would buy you at least a month’s worth of food, right?”
The miner rolled his eyes. “Maybe back where you come from. I saw one egg going for a dollar. Flour’s been running almost $40 a barrel. Salt pork is $200 a barrel. Sugar is $2 a pound, onions anywhere from two to four bits each; potatoes are around $30 a bushel. If you like to drink tea it’s about $4 a pound. That sure made those English gents mighty upset. They had their tea time every afternoon, rain or shine.”
The line stopped moving as those in it shouted out their objections.
“That’s not possible!”
“No one would pay that much!”
The miner shrugged. “Listen here. You get hungry enough and you’ll pay whatever they ask for food. I seen miners even eat their horses or mules when they couldn’t find enough gold.”
“How much do other kinds of supplies cost?”
“Oh, a new tent can run you $70, blankets are $11, pistols run anywhere from $50 to $75, and boots around $30.”
“But I only paid $12 for my pistol back home!” One man cried out as he pulled it from his holster and waved it above his head.
“Old Smithton will make a killing once he gets his moccasins to the diggings!” Another groused, who along with the others was unaware of Smithton’s recent disaster at The Canyon.
Dan sensed the dark mood now that the economic reality of what gold mining in the Sierra’s foothills entailed had been revealed. That reality bore no resemblance to anything that the newspapers back home had printed. After the line had passed by the miner, the company broke up
Fool's Gold Page 27