Gold

We removed what seemed to us tons of rock. About noon, just as we were thinking rather dispiritedly of knocking off work for a lunch–which in our early morning eagerness we had forgotten to bring–Johnny turned up a shovelful whose lower third consisted of the pulverized bluish clay. We promptly forgot both lunch and our own weariness.

“Hey!” shouted our friend, scrambling from his own claim. “Easy with the rocks! What are you conducting here? a volcano?” He peered down at us. “Pay dirt, hey? Well, take it easy; it won’t run away!”

Take it easy! As well ask us to quit entirely! We tore at the rubble, which aggravatingly and obstinately cascaded down upon us from the sides; we scraped eagerly for more of that blue clay; at last we had filled our three pans with a rather mixed lot of the dirt, and raced to the river. Johnny fell over a boulder and scattered his panful far and wide. His manner of scuttling back to the hole after more reminded me irresistibly of the way a contestant in a candle race hurries back to the starting point to get his candle relighted.

We panned that dirt clumsily and hastily enough; and undoubtedly lost much valuable sand overside; but we ended each with a string of colour. We crowded together comparing our “pans.” Then we went crazy. I suppose we had about a quarter of a dollar’s worth of gold between us, but that was not the point. The long journey with all its hardships and adventures, the toil, the uncertainty, the hopes, the disappointments and reactions had at last their visible tangible conclusion. The tiny flecks of gold were a symbol. We yapped aloud, we kicked up our heels, we shook hands, we finally joined hands and danced around and around.

From all sides the miners came running up, dropping their tools with a clatter. We were assailed by a chorus of eager cries.

“What is it, boys?” “A strike?” “Whereabouts is your claim?” “Is it ‘flour’ or ‘flake’?” “Let’s see!”

They crowded around in a dense mob, and those nearest jostled to get a glimpse of our pans. Suddenly sobered by this interest in our doings, we would have edged away could we have got hold of our implements.

“Wall, I’ll be durned!” snorted a tall state of Maine man in disgust. “This ain’t no strike! This is an insane asylum.”

The news slowly penetrated the crowd. A roar of laughter went up. Most of the men were hugely amused; but some few were so disgusted at having been fooled that they were almost inclined to take it as a personal affront that we had not made the expected “strike.”

“You’d think they was a bunch of confounded Keskydees,” growled one of them.

The miners slowly dispersed, returning to their own diggings. Somewhat red-faced, and very silent, we gathered up our pans and slunk back to the claim. Our neighbour stuck his head out of his hole. He alone had not joined the stampede in our direction.

“How do you like being popular heroes?” he grinned.

Johnny made as though to shy a rock at him, whereupon he ducked below ground.

However, our spirits soon recovered. We dumped the black sand into a little sack we had brought for the purpose. It made quite an appreciable bulge in that sack. We did not stop to realize that most of the bulge was sack and sand, and mighty little of it gold. It was something tangible and valuable; and we were filled with a tremendous desire to add to its bulk.

We worked with entire absorption, quite oblivious to all that was going on about us. It was only by accident that Yank looked up at last, so I do not know how long Don Gaspar had been there.

“Will you look at that!” cried Yank.

Don Gaspar, still in his embroidered boots, his crimson velvet breeches, his white linen, and his sombrero, but without the blue and silver jacket, was busily wielding a pickaxe a hundred feet or so away. His companion, or servant, was doing the heavier shovel work.

“Why, oh, why!” breathed Johnny at last, “do you suppose, if he must mine, he doesn’t buy himself a suit of dungarees or a flannel shirt?”

“I’ll bet it’s the first hard work he ever did in his life,” surmised Yank.

“And I’ll bet he won’t do that very long,” I guessed.

But Don Gaspar seemed to have more sticking power than we gave him credit for. We did not pay him much further attention, for we were busy with our own affairs; but every time we glanced in his direction he appeared to be still at it. Our sack of sand was growing heavier; as indeed were our limbs. As a matter of fact we had been at harder work than any of us had been accustomed to, for very long hours, beneath a scorching sun, without food, and under strong excitement. We did not know when to quit; but the sun at last decided it for us by dipping below the mountains to the west.

We left our picks and shovels in our pit; but carried back with us our pans, for in them we wished to dry out our sand. The horses were still at their picket ropes; and we noticed near the lower end of the meadow, but within the bushes, three more animals moving slowly. A slim column of smoke ascended from beyond the bushes. Evidently we had neighbours.

We were dog tired, and so far starved that we did not know we were hungry. My eyes felt as though they must look like holes burned in a blanket. We lit a fire, and near it placed our panful of sand. But we did not take time to cook ourselves a decent meal; we were much too excited for that. A half-made pot of coffee, some pork burned crisp, and some hard bread comprised our supper. Then Yank and I took a handful of the dried sand in the other two pans, and commenced cautiously to blow it away. Johnny hovered over us full of suggestions, and premonitions of calamity.

“Don’t blow too, hard, fellows,” he besought us; “you’ll blow away the gold! For heaven’s sake, go easy!”

We growled at him, and blew. I confess that my heart went fast with great anxiety, as though the stakes of my correct blowing were millions. However, as we later discovered, it is almost impossible to blow incorrectly.

There is something really a little awing about pure gold new-born from the soil. Gold is such a stable article, so strictly guarded, so carefully checked and counted, that the actual production of metal that has had no existence savours almost of the alchemical. We had somewhat less than an ounce, to be sure; but that amount in flake gold bulks considerably. We did not think of it in terms of its worth in dollars; we looked on it only as the Gold, and we stared at the substantial little heap of yellow particles with fascinated awe.

CHAPTER XVII

THE DIGGINGS

The following days were replicas of the first. We ate hurriedly at odd times; we worked feverishly; we sank into our tumbled blankets at night too tired to wiggle. But the buckskin sack of gold was swelling and rounding out most satisfactorily. By the end of the week it contained over a pound!

But the long hours, the excitement, and the inadequate food told on our nerves. We snapped at each other impatiently at times; and once or twice came near to open quarrelling. Johnny and I were constantly pecking at each other over the most trivial concerns.

One morning we were halfway to the bar when we remembered that we had neglected to picket out the horses. It was necessary for one of us to go back, and we were all reluctant to do so.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to lug ’way up that hill,” I growled to myself. “I tied them up yesterday, anyway.”

Johnny caught this.

“Well, it wasn’t your turn yesterday,” he pointed out, “and it is to-day. I’ve got nothing to do with what you chose to do yesterday.”

“Or any other day,” I muttered.

“What’s that?” cried Johnny truculently. “I couldn’t hear. Speak up!”

We were flushed, and eying each other malevolently.

“That’ll do!” said Yank, with an unexpected tone of authority. “Nobody will go back, and nobody will go ahead. We’ll just sit down on this log, yere, while we smoke one pipe apiece. I’ve got something to say.”

Johnny and I turned on him with a certain belligerency mingled with surprise. Yank had so habitually acted the part of taciturnity that his decided air of authority confused us. His slouch had straightened, his head was up, his mild eye sparkled. Suddenly I felt like a bad small boy; and I believe Johnny was the same. After a moment’s hesitation we sat down on the log.

“Now,” said Yank firmly, “it’s about time we took stock. We been here now five days; we ain’t had a decent meal of vittles in that time; we ain’t fixed up our camp a mite; we ain’t been to town to see the sights; we don’t even know the looks of the man that’s camped down below us. We’ve been too danged busy to be decent. Now we’re goin’ to call a halt. I should jedge we have a pound of gold, or tharabouts. How much is that worth, Johnny? You can figger in yore head.”

“Along about two hundred and fifty dollars,” said Johnny after a moment.

“Well, keep on figgerin’. How much does that come to apiece?”

“About eighty dollars, of course.”

“And dividin’ eighty by five?” persisted Yank.

“Sixteen.”

“Well,” drawled Yank, his steely blue eye softening to a twinkle, “sixteen dollars a day is fair wages, to be sure; but nothin’ to get wildly excited over.” He surveyed the two of us with some humour. “Hadn’t thought of it that way, had you?” he asked. “Nuther had I until last night. I was so dog tired I couldn’t sleep, and I got to figgerin’ a little on my own hook.”

“Why, I can do better than that in San Francisco–with half the work!” I cried.

“Maybe for a while,” said Yank, “but here we got a chance to make a big strike most any time; and in the meantime to make good wages. But we ain’t going to do it any quicker by killin’ ourselves. Now to-day is Sunday. I ain’t no religious man; but Sunday is a good day to quit. I propose we go back to camp peaceable, make a decent place to stay, cook ourselves up a squar’ meal, wash out our clothes, visit the next camp, take a look at town, and enjoy ourselves.”

Thus vanished the first and most wonderful romance of the gold. Reduced to wages it was somehow no longer so marvellous. The element of uncertainty was always there, to be sure; and an inexplicable fascination; but no longer had we any desire to dig up the whole place immediately. I suppose we moved nearly as much earth, but the fibres of our minds were relaxed, and we did it more easily and with less nervous wear and tear.

Also, as Yank suggested, we took pains to search out our fellow beings. The camper below us proved to be Don Gaspar, velvet breeches and all. He received us hospitably, and proffered perfumed cigarettos which we did not like, but which we smoked out of politeness. Our common ground of meeting was at first the natural one of the gold diggings. Don Gaspar and his man, whom he called Vasquez, had produced somewhat less flake gold than ourselves, but exhibited a half-ounce nugget and several smaller lumps. We could not make him out. Neither his appearance nor his personal equipment suggested necessity; and yet he laboured as hard as the rest of us. His gaudy costume was splashed and grimy with the red mud, although evidently he had made some attempt to brush it. The linen was, of course, hopeless. He showed us the blisters on his small aristocratic-looking hands.

“It is the hard work” he stated simply, “but one gets the gold.”

From that subject we passed on to horses. He confessed that he was uneasy as to the safety of his own magnificent animals; and succeeded in alarming us as to our own.

“Thos’ Indian,” he told us, “are always out to essteal; and the paisanos. It has been tole me that Andreas Amijo and his robbers are near. Some day we loose our horse!”

Our anxiety at this time was given an edge by the fact that the horses, having fed well, and becoming tired of the same place, were inclined to stray. It was impossible to keep them always on picket lines–the nature of the meadow would not permit it–and they soon learned to be very clever with their hobbles. Several mornings we put in an hour or so hunting them up and bringing them in before we could start work for the day. This wasted both time and temper. The result was that we drifted into partnership with Don Gaspar and Vasquez. I do not remember who proposed the arrangement; indeed, I am inclined to think it just came about naturally from our many discussions on the subject. Under the terms of it we appointed Vasquez to cook all the meals, take full care of the horses, chop the wood, draw the water, and keep camp generally. The rest of us worked in couples at the bar. We divided the gold into five equal parts.

Our production at this time ran from five to seven ounces a day, which was, of course, good wages, but would not make our fortunes. We soon fell into a rut, working cheerfully and interestedly, but without excitement. The nature of our produce kept our attention. We should long since have wearied of any other job requiring an equal amount of work, but there was a never-ending fascination in blowing away the débris from the virgin gold. And one day, not far from us, two Hollanders–“Dutch Charleys,” as the miners called that nationality–scooped from a depression in the bedrock mixed coarse gold thirty odd pounds in weight–over $5,000! That revived our interest, you may be sure.

Most of the miners seemed content to stick to panning. Their argument was that by this method they could accumulate a fair amount of dust, and ran just as good chances of a “strike” as the next fellow. Furthermore, they had no tools, no knowledge and no time to make cradles. Those implements had to be very accurately constructed.

We discussed this matter almost every evening. Yank was a great believer in improving the efficiency of our equipment.

“It’ll handle four or five times the dirt,” said he “and that means four or five times the dust.”

“There’s no lumber to be had anywhere,” I objected.

“I know where there’s three good stout boxes made of real lumber that we can get for forty dollars,” said Yank.

“You can’t cut that stuff up with an axe.”

“John Semple has a saw, a plane, and a hammer; he’s a carpenter.”

“You bet he is!” agreed Johnny. “I was talking to him last night. He won’t lend his tools; and he won’t hire them. He’ll come with them for fifty dollars a day.”

“All right,” said Yank, “let’s hire him. I’m pretty handy, and I’ll stay right in camp and help him. Vasquez can go dig instead of me. We can get ’em cut out and fitted in two days, anyway. We’ve got the money!”

I think none of us was very enthusiastic on this subject except Yank; but he finally carried the day. Vasquez, somewhat to his chagrin, I thought, resumed his shovel. Yank and John Semple tinkered away for the allotted two days, and triumphantly produced two cradles at a cost of a round one hundred and fifty dollars.

Although we had been somewhat doubtful as to the advisability of spending this sum, I am bound to state that Yank’s insistence was justified. It certainly made the work easier. We took turns shovelling the earth and pouring in the water, and “rocking the baby.” Our production jumped two or three ounces a day.

CHAPTER XVIII

BEGINNINGS OF GOVERNMENT

Our visit to the town we postponed from day to day because we were either too busy or too tired. We thought we could about figure out what that crude sort of village would be like. Then on Saturday evening our neighbour with the twinkling eye–whom we called McNally, without conviction, because he told us to–informed us that there would be a miners’ meeting next day, and that we would be expected to attend.

Accordingly we visited the town. The street was full of men idling slowly to and fro. All the larger structures were wide open, and from within could be heard the sounds of hurdy-gurdies, loud laughter and noisy talk. At one end of the street a group was organizing a horse race; and toward this Don Gaspar took his immediate departure. A smaller group surrounded two wrestlers. At one side a jumping match was going on.

Among the usual incongruities we saw some that amused us more than ordinarily. The Indians, for example, were rather numerous, and remarkable. One wore as his sole garment an old dress coat: another had tied a pair of trousers around his waist; a third had piled a half dozen hats atop, one over the other; and many had on two or more coats. They were, to a man, well drunken. Their squaws, fat and unattractive, squatted outside the single store of the place. We saw also a dozen or so white men dressed very plainly and shabbily, tall, lank, and spindly, rather weakly in general appearance, their faces sallow, their eyes rather childish but crafty and treacherous, their hair thin and straight. The points in common were pointed, nearly brimless hats, like small extinguishers, and that they were the only men to use suspenders. They were from Pike County in Missouri; and in our experience with them we found their appearance a close indication of their character. They were exceedingly skilful with both axe and rifle, were expert backwoodsmen, but without physical strength, very childish and ignorant, vindictive, narrow, and so extremely clannish and tenacious of their own opinions that they were always an exasperating element to be reckoned with, in any public matter. We saw also a compact little group of dark small men, with bright eyes and quick manners. They held close together and chattered like a lot of magpies. McNally, who had spotted us from afar, informed us that these were “keskydees,” and that they always did stick close together.

“What are ‘keskydees’?” I asked him.

“That’s what everybody calls them,” said McNally. “I suppose it’s because they always say it, ‘Keskydee, keskydee,’ like a lot of chickadees.”

“French!” cried Johnny, suddenly enlightened. “Q’estce qu’il dit.”

“Yes, that’s it,” agreed McNally; “keskydee. What does it mean, anyway?”

“What is he saying,” translated Johnny.

At this time there were a great many French in California; and for a number of years I could not quite understand why. Then I learned that most of them were prize winners in a series of lotteries, called the Lotteries of the Golden Ingot. The prizes were passages to California, and the lotteries were very popular. The French, or keskydees, as they were universally called, always went about in gangs, while the other nationalities were more inclined to amalgamate with the rest of the community. We saw, also, several “Dutch Charleys” who had struck it rich. They were moon-faced, bland, chuckle-headed looking men, generally with walrus moustaches, squat and heavy, with fatuous, placid smiles. I suppose they had no real idea of values, but knew only the difference between having money and not having money. These prosperous individuals carried two or even more watches at the ends of long home-made chains constructed of gold nuggets fastened together with lengths of copper wire. The chains were looped around their necks, about their shoulders and waists, and hung down in long festoons. We had three apparently, of these Dutch Charleys, all deadly rivals in magnificence. They paraded slowly up and down the street, quite satisfied with themselves, and casting malevolent glances at each other when they passed.

The two gambling places and saloons were hard at it. The low rooms were full of smoke, and crowded with slowly jostling men. In contrast to the deadly quiet of such places in San Francisco, these were full of noise and hubbub. The men moved restlessly, threw down their little bags of dust impatiently, and accepted victory or defeat with very audible comments. The gamblers, dressed in black, pale, sat steady-eyed and silent behind their layouts. I suppose the life must already have developed, if not a type, at least a uniform mental attitude that showed itself in outward expression. That was, first of all, an intent, quiet watchfulness; and, secondly, an iron resolution to meet whatever offered. The gambler must be prepared instantly to shoot; and at the same time he must realize fully that shooting is going to get him in trouble. For the sympathy of a mining camp was generally strongly against him when it came to a question of this sort. We treated ourselves to a drink at the bar, and went outside.

Already the drift of miners was toward the end of the street where a good sized crowd had gathered. We fell in. Under a large oak tree had been placed a barrel and several boxes from the store, and on these latter our friend John Semple, the carpenter, was mounting.

“John’s the alcalde,” McNally explained to us. “He’s the most level-headed man in these diggings.”

Most of the miners sat down on the ground in front, though some remained afoot. Semple rapped sharply on the barrel with the muzzle of his revolver.

“This is a miners’ meeting,” he stated briefly. “And we have several things to talk about. Most important thing, ’cordin’ to my notion, is this row about that big nugget. Seems these yere three men, whose names I disremember, is partners and is panning down there in the lower diggings, and while one of them is grubbing around with a shovel getting ready to fill the company pan, he sees this yere nugget in the shovel, and annexes it. Now he claims it’s his nugget, and the rest of ’em claim it belongs to all of them as partners. How about it?”

Two men sprang to their feet and began to talk.

“You set down!” Semple ordered them. “You ain’t got nothing to do with decidin’ this. We’ll let you know what to do. If the facts ain’t right, as I stated ’em, say so; but we don’t want no theories out of you. Set down! I say.”

They subsided, and a silence fell which no one seemed inclined to break.

“Well,” said Semple impatiently, “come on! Speak up! Whar’s all this assorted lot of theories I been hearing in the say-loons ever since that nugget was turned up?”

A man with the most extraordinarily ragged garments got to his feet and began to speak in a pleasant and cultivated voice.

“I have no solution to offer this company,” said he, “but I am, or was, a New York lawyer; and if my knowledge of partnerships will help any, this is the New York law.” He sketched briefly the New York rulings on partnerships, and sat down.

“Much obliged, I’m sure,” said Semple cordially. “We’re glad to know how they’ve figgered it out down thar. Only trouble, as far as I see, is that they ain’t usually findin’ many nuggets down that neck of the woods; so they ain’t precisely fitted the case. Anybody know anything nearer to home?”

“I panned in Shirttail Bar last two months,” blurted a hoarse and embarrassed individual, without rising, “and down thar they had a reg’lation that airy nugget that weighs over a half ounce that is found before the dirt is thrown in the cradle belongs to the man that finds it, and not to the company. Of course this here is a pan, and not a cradle.”

“That’s more like business. Anybody know if anywhar they do it the other way around?”

Apparently nobody did.

“Anybody got any idees as to why we shouldn’t follow Shirttail in this matter? Dog-gone you! Set down! You ain’t got nothin’ to say here.”

The man appealed to the crowd.

“Ain’t I got a right to be heard in my own case?” he demanded.

“This ain’t your case,” persisted John Semple stoutly; “it’s decidin’ what the policy of this camp is goin’ to be regardin’ nuggets. Your dog-gone case is mighty unimportant and you’re a prejudiced party. And if you don’t set down, I’ll come down there and argue with you! If none of you other fellows has anything to say, we’ll vote on it.”

We then and there decided, almost unanimously, to follow Shirttail.

“Now,” resumed Semple, after this matter had been disposed of, “there’s a bunch of these yere keskydees around throwin’ assorted duckfits all this morning; and as near as I can make out they say somebody’s jumped their claim or their camp, or something. Jim, supposin’ you and your tin star saunter down and eject these jumpers.”

A very tall, quiet, slow moving man arose, aimed his tobacco juice at a small tree, drawled out the words, “All right, Jedge,” and departed, trailed by a half dozen jabbering keskydees, to whom he paid not the slightest attention.

“Now,” said Semple, “we got a couple of Greasers yere caught stealin’. Buck Barry and Missouri Jones caught them at it, so there ain’t much use hearin’ witnesses as to the fact. Question is: what do we want to do with them?”

“What did they steal?” demanded a voice.