Roughing It
much valuable religious matter in them along with the other statistics)
those “instructions” commanded that pen-knives, envelopes, pens and
writing-paper be furnished the members of the legislature. So the
Secretary made the purchase and the distribution. The knives cost three
dollars apiece. There was one too many, and the Secretary gave it to the
Clerk of the House of Representatives. The United States said the Clerk
of the House was not a “member” of the legislature, and took that three
dollars out of the Secretary’s salary, as usual.
White men charged three or four dollars a “load” for sawing up stove-
wood. The Secretary was sagacious enough to know that the United States
would never pay any such price as that; so he got an Indian to saw up a
load of office wood at one dollar and a half. He made out the usual
voucher, but signed no name to it—simply appended a note explaining that
an Indian had done the work, and had done it in a very capable and
satisfactory way, but could not sign the voucher owing to lack of
ability in the necessary direction. The Secretary had to pay that dollar
and a half. He thought the United States would admire both his economy
and his honesty in getting the work done at half price and not putting a
pretended Indian’s signature to the voucher, but the United States did
not see it in that light.
The United States was too much accustomed to employing dollar-and-a-half
thieves in all manner of official capacities to regard his explanation
of the voucher as having any foundation in fact.
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But the next time the Indian sawed wood for us I taught him to make a
cross at the bottom of the voucher—it looked like a cross that had been
drunk a year—and then I “witnessed” it and it went through all right.
The United States never said a word. I was sorry I had not made the
voucher for a thousand loads of wood instead of one.
The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles
artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very
capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or
two.
That was a fine collection of sovereigns, that first Nevada legislature.
They levied taxes to the amount of thirty or forty thousand dollars and
ordered expenditures to the extent of about a million. Yet they had
their little periodical explosions of economy like all other bodies of
the kind. A member proposed to save three dollars a day to the nation by
dispensing with the Chaplain. And yet that short-sighted man needed the
Chaplain more than any other member, perhaps, for he generally sat with
his feet on his desk, eating raw turnips, during the morning prayer.
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The legislature sat sixty days, and passed private tollroad franchises
all the time. When they adjourned it was estimated that every citizen
owned about three franchises, and it was believed that unless Congress
gave the Territory another degree of longitude there would not be room
enough to accommodate the toll-roads. The ends of them were hanging over
the boundary line everywhere like a fringe.
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The fact is, the freighting business had grown to such important
proportions that there was nearly as much excitement over suddenly
acquired toll-road fortunes as over the wonderful silver mines.
CHAPTER XXVI.
By and by I was smitten with the silver fever. “Prospecting parties”
were leaving for the mountains every day, and discovering and taking
possession of rich silver-bearing lodes and ledges of quartz. Plainly
this was the road to fortune. The great “Gould and Curry” mine was held
at three or four hundred dollars a foot when we arrived; but in two
months it had sprung up to eight hundred. The “Ophir” had been worth
only a mere trifle, a year gone by, and now it was selling at nearly
_four thousand dollars a foot_! Not a mine could be named that had not
experienced an astonishing advance in value within a short time.
Everybody was talking about these marvels. Go where you would, you heard
nothing else, from morning till far into the night. Tom So-and-So had
sold out of the “Amanda Smith” for $40,000—hadn’t a cent when he “took
up” the ledge six months ago. John Jones had sold half his interest in
the “Bald Eagle and Mary Ann” for $65,000, gold coin, and gone to the
States for his family. The widow Brewster had “struck it rich” in the
“Golden Fleece” and sold ten feet for $18,000—hadn’t money enough to buy
a crape bonnet when Sing-Sing Tommy killed her husband at Baldy
Johnson’s wake last spring. The “Last Chance” had found a “clay casing”
and knew they were “right on the ledge”—consequence, “feet” that went
begging yesterday were worth a brick house apiece to-day, and seedy
owners who could not get trusted for a drink at any bar in the country
yesterday were roaring drunk on champagne to-day and had hosts of warm
personal friends in a town where they had forgotten how to bow or shake
hands from long-continued want of practice. Johnny Morgan, a common
loafer, had gone to sleep in the gutter and waked up worth a hundred
thousand dollars, in consequence of the decision in the “Lady Franklin
and Rough and Ready” lawsuit. And so on—day in and day out the talk
pelted our ears and the excitement waxed hotter and hotter around us.
I would have been more or less than human if I had not gone mad like the
rest. Cart-loads of solid silver bricks, as large as pigs of lead, were
arriving from the mills every day, and such sights as that gave
substance to the wild talk about me. I succumbed and grew as frenzied as
the craziest.
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Every few days news would come of the discovery of a bran-new mining
region; immediately the papers would teem with accounts of its richness,
and away the surplus population would scamper to take possession. By the
time I was fairly inoculated with the disease, “Esmeralda” had just had
a run and “Humboldt” was beginning to shriek for attention. “Humboldt!
Humboldt!” was the new cry, and straightway Humboldt, the newest of the
new, the richest of the rich, the most marvellous of the marvellous
discoveries in silver-land was occupying two columns of the public
prints to “Esmeralda’s” one. I was just on the point of starting to
Esmeralda, but turned with the tide and got ready for Humboldt. That the
reader may see what moved me, and what would as surely have moved him
had he been there, I insert here one of the newspaper letters of the
day. It and several other letters from the same calm hand were the main
means of converting me. I shall not garble the extract, but put it in
just as it appeared in the _Daily Territorial Enterprise_:
But what about our mines? I shall be candid with you. I shall express an
honest opinion, based upon a thorough examination. Humboldt county is
the richest mineral region upon God’s footstool. Each mountain range is
gorged with the precious ores. Humboldt is the true Golconda.
The other day an assay of mere croppings yielded exceeding four thousand
dollars to the ton. A week or two ago an assay of just such surface
developments made returns of seven thousand dollars to the ton. Our
mountains are full of rambling prospectors. Each day and almost every
hour reveals new and more startling evidences of the profuse and
intensified wealth of our favored county. The metal is not silver alone.
There are distinct ledges of auriferous ore. A late discovery plainly
evinces cinnabar. The coarser metals are in gross abundance. Lately
evidences of bituminous coal have been detected. My theory has ever been
that coal is a ligneous formation. I told Col. Whitman, in times past,
that the neighborhood of Dayton (Nevada) betrayed no present or previous
manifestations of a ligneous foundation, and that hence I had no
confidence in his lauded coal mines. I repeated the same doctrine to the
exultant coal discoverers of Humboldt. I talked with my friend Captain
Burch on the subject. My pyrhanism vanished upon his statement that in
the very region referred to he had seen petrified trees of the length of
two hundred feet. Then is the fact established that huge forests once
cast their grim shadows over this remote section. I am firm in the coal
faith. Have no fears of the mineral resources of Humboldt county. They
are immense—incalculable.
Let me state one or two things which will help the reader to better
comprehend certain items in the above. At this time, our near neighbor,
Gold Hill, was the most successful silver mining locality in Nevada. It
was from there that more than half the daily shipments of silver bricks
came. “Very rich” (and scarce) Gold Hill ore yielded from $100 to $400
to the ton; but the usual yield was only $20 to $40 per ton—that is to
say, each hundred pounds of ore yielded from one dollar to two dollars.
But the reader will perceive by the above extract, that in Humboldt from
one fourth to nearly half the mass was silver! That is to say, every one
hundred pounds of the ore had from two hundred dollars up to about three
hundred and fifty in it. Some days later this same correspondent wrote:
I have spoken of the vast and almost fabulous wealth of this region—it
is incredible. The intestines of our mountains are gorged with precious
ore to plethora. I have said that nature has so shaped our mountains as
to furnish most excellent facilities for the working of our mines. I
have also told you that the country about here is pregnant with the
finest mill sites in the world. But what is the mining history of
Humboldt? The Sheba mine is in the hands of energetic San Francisco
capitalists. It would seem that the ore is combined with metals that
render it difficult of reduction with our imperfect mountain machinery.
The proprietors have combined the capital and labor hinted at in my
exordium. They are toiling and probing. Their tunnel has reached the
length of one hundred feet. From primal assays alone, coupled with the
development of the mine and public confidence in the continuance of
effort, the stock had reared itself to eight hundred dollars market
value. I do not know that one ton of the ore has been converted into
current metal. I do know that there are many lodes in this section that
surpass the Sheba in primal assay value. Listen a moment to the
calculations of the Sheba operators. They purpose transporting the ore
concentrated to Europe. The conveyance from Star City (its locality) to
Virginia City will cost seventy dollars per ton; from Virginia to San
Francisco, forty dollars per ton; from thence to Liverpool, its
destination, ten dollars per ton. Their idea is that its conglomerate
metals will reimburse them their cost of original extraction, the price
of transportation, and the expense of reduction, and that then a ton of
the raw ore will net them twelve hundred dollars. The estimate may be
extravagant. Cut it in twain, and the product is enormous, far
transcending any previous developments of our racy Territory.
A very common calculation is that many of our mines will yield five
hundred dollars to the ton. Such fecundity throws the Gould & Curry, the
Ophir and the Mexican, of your neighborhood, in the darkest shadow. I
have given you the estimate of the value of a single developed mine. Its
richness is indexed by its market valuation. The people of Humboldt
county are feet crazy. As I write, our towns are near deserted. They
look as languid as a consumptive girl. What has become of our sinewy and
athletic fellow-citizens? They are coursing through ravines and over
mountain tops. Their tracks are visible in every direction. Occasionally
a horseman will dash among us. His steed betrays hard usage. He alights
before his adobe dwelling, hastily exchanges courtesies with his
townsmen, hurries to an assay office and from thence to the District