Gold

by White, Stewart Edward

  “No mining for me!” he stated emphatically. “I paddled around after the stuff for a while, till my hands swelled up like p’ison, and my back creaked like a frozen pine tree in the wind. Then I quit, and I stayed quit. I’m a hunter; and I’m makin’ a good livin’, because I ain’t very particular on how I live.”

  He and Yank smoked interminable pipes, and swapped yarns. Johnny and I liked nothing better than to keep quiet and listen to them. Bagsby had come out with Captain Sutter; and told of that doughty soldier’s early skirmishes with the Indians. His tales of the mountains, the plains, and the game and Indians were so much romance to us; and we both wished heartily that fate could have allowed us a chance at such adventures.

  “But why don’t you fellows branch out?” Bagsby always ended. “What do you want to stick here for like a lot of groundhogs? There’s rivers back in the hills a heap better than this one, and nobody thar. You’d have the place plumb to yoreselves. Git in where the mountains is really mountainous.”

  Then he would detail at length and slowly his account of the great mountains, deep cañons, the shadows of forests, ridges high up above the world, and gorges far within the bowels of the earth through which dashed white torrents. We gathered and pieced together ideas of great ice and snow mountains, and sun-warmed bars below them, and bears and deer, and a high clear air breathing through a vast, beautiful and solitary wilderness. The picture itself was enough to set bounding the pulses of any young man, with a drop of adventure in his veins. But also Bagsby was convinced that there we should find richer diggings than any yet discovered.

  “It stands to reason,” he argued, “that the farther up you git, the more gold there is. All this loose stuff yere is just what washed down from the main supply. If you boys reely wants rich diggings, then you want to push up into the Porcupine River country.”

  But with this glowing and vivid impression we gathered another: that of a trackless wilderness, fearful abysses down which to find a way, labyrinthine defiles, great forests. None of us knew how to cope with these things. Yank, the best woodsman of us all, had had no experience in mountains. None of us knew anything of Indian warfare. None of us had the least idea that we could find Porcupine River, even if we were to be given accurate directions on how to get there.

  Nevertheless the idea with us had been growing. Some of the bolder spirits among our acquaintances used to talk it over with us at odd times–McNally, Buck Barry, and his partner, Missouri Jones. We did not discuss it as a plan, hardly as a possibility, merely as a pleasant theme. We found, and advanced any amount of objections–the uncertainty of finding any gold at all, the expense of such a journey, the danger from Indians, the fact that we could find other proved diggings much nearer, and a half hundred others. The moment one of us had advanced one of these objections he was at once himself the most eager to demolish it. Thus we gradually worked ourselves toward enthusiasm.

  “If Sam Bagsby would join us, it might be worth trying,” we came to at last.

  But Sam Bagsby scouted any such idea.

  “I ain’t that kind of a tom-fool,” said he. “If I want to paddle my hands blue I’d do it yere. I couldn’t make more’n a living anyway. I tell you I ain’t got no use for yore pra’rie dog grubbing!”

  Then McNally had an inspiration.

  “Will you go, Sam, if we pay you for going?” he asked.

  “Sure,” replied the trapper at once. “I’m a labouring man, I’ll go anywhar I’m paid to go.”

  It came out that Bagsby’s ideas of proper compensation were his supplies, fifteen dollars a week in gold, and a drink of whiskey twice a day! In all this gold country he was the only man I met who genuinely despised money. I really think we were hurried to our decision by this unexpected reasonableness on his part. At any rate we decided definitely to go.

  *

  CHAPTER XXI

  WE LEAVE THE DIGGINGS

  There were nine of us–Bagsby, Yank, Johnny Fairfax, myself, Don Gaspar, Vasquez, McNally, Buck Barry, and Missouri Jones. We possessed, in all, just nine horses. Yank, Vasquez, Bagsby, and Jones drove eight of them out again to Sutter’s Fort for provisions–Don Gaspar’s beautiful chestnut refused to be a pack-horse on any terms. We took the opportunity of sending our accumulations of gold dust to Talbot for safekeeping. I do not know just how much my companions forwarded. Of course I could compute their shares; but had no means of telling just what deductions to allow for the delights of Hangman’s Gulch. For Talbot I laid aside as his share of our entire product of four hundred and eighty-six ounces a total of one hundred and ten ounces. This included the half of my own share, as agreed. Roughly speaking, the value of a partnership third, after Don Gaspar’s portion had been deducted, was a trifle over a thousand dollars for six weeks’ work. There seemed to us also an excellent chance to realize something on the two cradles. I went about among the miners, and without trouble got bids for a hundred dollars each. Johnny was by no means satisfied with this. He insisted that late in the afternoon we drag the formidable engines up the trail to the town, where he deposited them in the middle of the street. There he proceeded to auction them; attracting the crowd by the simple expedient of firing his Colt’s revolver. The bidding was sluggish at first, but Johnny’s facetious oratory warmed it. The first cradle was knocked down at one hundred and sixty dollars. The second was about to go for approximately the same amount, when Johnny held up his hand.

  “Gentlemen,” said he impressively, “I do not think you quite realize that for what you are bidding. This is no ordinary cradle, like the other. This is the very identical warranted genuine cradle into which that enormous lump of gold, weighing three and three-quarter ounces–the finest nugget ever unearthed at Hangman’s Gulch–was about to be shovelled by that largest and most enormous lump of a lad, the gentleman at my right, when seized upon and claimed as private property in accordance with the laws of these diggings. This is the very identical historical cradle! Now, how much am I bid!”

  The crowd laughed–but it bid! We got two hundred and forty dollars for it.

  Our purveyors returned the second day after. They reported prices very high at Sutter’s Fort, and a great congestion of people there; both of those ascending the river from San Francisco, and of overlanders. Prices had consequently gone up. Indeed, so high were all provisions that our hard-headed partners had contented themselves with buying only some coffee, dried beef, and flour. They had purchased also a further supply of powder and balls, and a rifle apiece for such of us as already had none. The weapons were very expensive; and we found that our savings had been much eaten into. We collected our effects, packed them, as many of them as we were able, and sunk to sleep in a pleasing tingle of excitement.

  Bagsby got us up long before daylight. The air was chilly, in contrast to the terrific heats to be expected later in the day, so we hastened to finish our packing, and at dawn were off.

  Bagsby struck immediately away from the main road toward the north. The country we traversed was one of wide, woody bottoms separated by rocky hills. The trapper proved to be an excellent guide. Seemingly by a sort of instinct he was able to judge where a way would prove practicable for our animals down into or up out of the numerous cañons and ravines. It was borne in on me very forcibly how much hampered we should have been by our inexperience had we tried it alone. The country mounted gradually. From some of the higher points we could see out over the lowlands lost in a brown heat-haze. Deer were numerous, and a species of hare, and the helmeted quail. The sun was very hot; but the air was curiously streaked with coolness and with a fierce dry heat as though from an opened furnace door. All the grass was brown and crisp. Darker and more abrupt mountains showed themselves in the distance, with an occasional peak of white and glittering snow.

  Until about three o’clock we journeyed through a complete solitude. Then we came upon some men digging in a dry wash. They had piled up a great heap of dirt from a hole. We stopped and talked to them; and discovered that they were w
orking what they called “dry diggings.” The pay dirt they excavated from wherever they found it piled it in a convenient place, and there left it until the rains should permit its washing. They claimed their dirt would prove to be very rich; but I thought myself that they were labouring in great faith. Also we learned what Bagsby had known right along, but which he had not bothered to tell us; that we were now about to cross the main Overland Trail.

  We stopped that night near the road, and at a wayside inn or road house of logs kept by a most interesting man. He served us an excellent meal, including real eggs, and afterward joined us around the fire. He was an Italian, short, strongly built, with close curly hair, a rollicking, good-natured face, and with tiny gold rings in his ears. Johnny and he did most of the talking, while we listened. No part of the civilized world seemed to have been unvisited by this pair. Johnny mentioned Paris, our host added an intimate detail as to some little street; London appeared to be known to them from one end to the other; Berlin, Edinburgh, St. Petersburg even; and a host of other little fellows whose names I never knew before and cannot remember now. They swapped reminiscences of the streets; the restaurants, and the waiters and proprietors thereof; the alleys and by-ways, the parks and little places. I knew, in a general way, that Johnny had done the grand tour; but the Italian with his gold earrings and his strong, brown, good-humoured peasant face puzzled me completely. How came he to be so travelled? so intimately travelled? He was no sailor; that I soon determined.

  The two of them became thoroughly interested; but after a time the native courtesy of the Italian asserted itself. He evidently thought we might feel left out of it; though I think the others were, like myself, quite fascinated.

  “You lika music?” he smiled at us engagingly. “I getta my Italian fiddle? No?”

  He arose at our eager assent, pushed aside a blanket that screened off one end of the log cabin, and produced his “Italian fiddle”–a hand-organ!

  At once the solution of the wide wandering among the many cities, the intimate knowledge of streets and of public places burst upon my comprehension. I could see our host looking upward, his strong white teeth flashing in an ingratiating fascinating smile, his right arm revolving with the crank of his organ, his little brown monkey with the red coat and the anxious face clambering─

  Next morning we crossed the Overland Trail, and plunged into a new country of pines, of high hills, of deep cañons, and bold, rocky ridges. The open spaces we had left behind, and the great heats. Water flowed in almost every ravine, and along its courses grew green grass and wild flowers. Every little while we would come upon openings in the forest, clear meadows spangled with blossoms; or occasionally we would skirt high bald knobs of rock around which was stiff brush. For some miles we could journey at ease through clear woods, then would encounter a gash in the earth into which, at some expense of trial, we would have to find a way. At first every stream bed was dotted with the red shirts of miners. They became fewer as we advanced, until finally the last pair had been left behind. We camped that night at the edge of one of the meadows, beneath pine trees. The air turned very chilly. We built ourselves a fire of dried branches from the trees. In the meadow the horses cropped eagerly at the lush green feed, their bells tinkling pleasantly.

  Nothing more remote could be imagined. Nevertheless Bagsby, Don Gaspar, and Vasquez were not satisfied. They consulted at length and apart; then Bagsby announced that sentries must stand watches. We grumbled at this, but Bagsby was firm, and as we had agreed to obey his commands we did so now. Don Gaspar explained to us later that the Mexican thieves would trail a party like ours for days, awaiting the chance to make off with the horses. Bagsby also chose the sentinels, selecting himself, Yank, Vasquez, and Missouri Jones. Once wrapped in my warm blanket I found myself selfishly glad that my experience had not been considered worth trusting.

  The third day we occupied in surmounting a tremendous ridge of mountains. We climbed for hours, working our way up by zigzag and long slants through the pines, the rocky outcrops, the ledges, and the stiff brush that made up the slope. It was hard work; and it seemed to have no end. We arrived at last on a knife-edge summit. Here the trees were fewer. We looked abroad over the country we had traversed, and that which lay before us–a succession of dark, dim, undulating ridges with cañons and valleys between, slanting from the great ranges at the right to brown rolling hills and the heat-covered, half-guessed plains. Immediately below us, very far down, was a toy-like valley, with low hills, and flat places, and groves of elfin trees, and a twisting bottle green river with white rapids.

  “Thar’s the Porcupine,” Bagsby told us briefly.

  We took a look, then plunged into the tangles and difficulties of the descent. Just at sundown, our knees bending under us, we came off that terrific slant to a grateful wide flat, grown with scattered oaks, and covered with fine brown grass. A little spring stream wandered through the meadow toward the river on the other side of the valley.

  We camped right there, dumping the packs from the horses almost anyhow. After a hearty meal, we rolled ourselves immediately into our blankets and fell into a grateful sleep to the tune of the distant river murmuring over the shingle.

  *

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE STRIKE

  We awoke next morning to a bright day. The helmeted quail were calling; the bees were just beginning a sun-warmed hum among the bushes; a languorous warmth hung in the air, and a Sunday stillness. It was as though we awakened to a new world, untrodden by men; which was, indeed, a good deal the case.

  While we ate breakfast we discussed our plans. The first necessity, of course, was to find out about gold. To that end we agreed to separate for the day, prospecting far and wide. Bagsby kept camp, and an eye on the horses. He displayed little interest in the gold proposition; but insisted strongly that we should carry both our rifles and revolvers.

  It would be difficult to describe the thrill of anticipation with which I set off up the valley. The place was so new, so untouched, so absolutely unknown. The high ridges on either side frowned down austerely on the little meadows that smiled back quite unabashed. As I crossed the brown dry meadow toward the river a covey of quail whirred away before me, lit, and paced off at a great rate. Two big grouse roared from a thicket.

  The river was a beautiful, clear stream, with green wavery water whirling darkly in pools, or breaking white among the stones. As my shadow fell upon it, I caught a glimpse of a big trout scurrying into the darkness beneath a boulder. Picking my way among the loose stones I selected a likely place on the bar and struck home my pick.

  I have since repeated the sensations of that day–on a smaller scale of course–in whipping untried trout waters; same early excitement and enthusiasm, same eager sustained persistence in face of failure, same incredulous slowing down, same ultimate discouragement, disbelief and disgust. All that day I shovelled and panned. The early morning freshness soon dissipated. Between the high mountain walls the heat reflected. All the quail stood beneath the shade of bushes, their beaks half open as though panting. The birds that had sung so sweetly in the early morning had somewhere sought repose. I could occasionally catch glimpses of our horses dozing under trees. Even the chirping insects were still. As far as I could make out I was the only living thing foolish enough to stay abroad and awake in that suffocating heat. The sweat dripped from me in streams; my eyes ached from the glare of the sun on the rocks and the bleached grasses. Toward the close of the afternoon I confessed sneakingly to myself that I was just a little glad I had found no gold and that I hoped the others had been equally unfortunate. The thought of working day after day in that furnace heat was too much for me.

  My hopes were fulfilled. All came in that night tired, hot, dirty, and discouraged. Not one of the eight of us had raised a sign of colour.

  “Well,” said Bagsby philosophically, “that’s all right. We’ve just got to go higher. To-morrow we’ll move upstream.”

  Accordingly next day we turne
d at right angles to our former route and followed up the bed of the cañon ten or twelve miles toward the distant main ranges. It was, in general, rather hard scrabbling for the horses, though we footmen did well enough. Sometimes we crossed wide flats, resembling the one we had just left; again, where the cañon narrowed, we had actually to stumble in the rocks of the stream bed. Twice we forded, and twice we had to make great climbs up and down again in order to get by points that came boldly down to the river. It was curious to see the nature of the country change. The pines on the mountains to our right and left seemed to push down nearer to our level; the grass turned green; the stream narrowed and became swifter; the sky seemed to turn bluer; and from the ranges breathed a cool, refreshing wind.

  About four o’clock we camped. The flat was green; little clumps of cedar pushed out across it; the oaks had given place to cottonwoods; we had now to make acquaintance with new birds. But what particularly interested us was the fact that at this point the high cañon walls at either side broke into rounder hills that opened out widely, and that from among them descended many ravines, barrancas, and dry washes.

  The following morning we went prospecting again. My instructions were for the dry washes in the sides of the hills. Accordingly I scrambled up among the boulders in the nearest V-shaped ravine. I had hardly to look at all. Behind a large boulder lay a little cuplike depression of stones in which evidently had stood a recently evaporated pool of water, and which, in consequence, was free from the usual dusty rubble. In the interstices between the stones my eye caught a dull glitter. I fell on my knees, dug about with the point of my bowie knife, and so unearthed small nuggets aggregating probably a half ounce in weight.

  Although mightily tempted to stay for more, I minded our agreement to report promptly the first discovery, and started back to camp. Why I did not come a header in that fearful, boulder-strewn wash I cannot tell you. Certainly I took no care of my going, but leaped recklessly from rock to rock like a goat. When I reached the flat, I ran, whooping like an Indian. From the river I could see Johnny and Buck Barry running, too, and had sense enough to laugh as it occurred to me they must think us attacked by Indians. Far down the stream I could just make out figures I knew to be Yank and McNally. They too seemed to be coming to camp, though I could not imagine that my shouts had carried so far.