Roughing It
“Here, that won’t do! He guessed two miles wider of the mark than I
did.”
The purser said, “Mr. Smith, you missed it further than any man on
board. We traveled two hundred and eight miles yesterday.”
“Well, sir,” said Smith, “that’s just where I’ve got you, for I guessed
two hundred and nine. If you’ll look at my figgers again you’ll find a 2
and two 0’s, which stands for 200, don’t it?—and after ’em you’ll find a
9 (2009), which stands for two hundred and nine. I reckon I’ll take that
money, if you please.”
The Gould & Curry claim comprised twelve hundred feet, and it all
belonged originally to the two men whose names it bears. Mr. Curry owned
two thirds of it—and he said that he sold it out for twenty-five hundred
dollars in cash, and an old plug horse that ate up his market value in
hay and barley in seventeen days by the watch. And he said that Gould
sold out for a pair of second-hand government blankets and a bottle of
whisky that killed nine men in three hours, and that an unoffending
stranger that smelt the cork was disabled for life. Four years afterward
the mine thus disposed of was worth in the San Francisco market seven
millions six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin.
In the early days a poverty-stricken Mexican who lived in a canyon
directly back of Virginia City, had a stream of water as large as a
man’s wrist trickling from the hill-side on his premises. The Ophir
Company segregated a hundred feet of their mine and traded it to him for
the stream of water. The hundred feet proved to be the richest part of
the entire mine; four years after the swap, its market value (including
its mill) was $1,500,000.
An individual who owned twenty feet in the Ophir mine before its great
riches were revealed to men, traded it for a horse, and a very sorry
looking brute he was, too. A year or so afterward, when Ophir stock went
up to $3,000 a foot, this man, who had not a cent, used to say he was
the most startling example of magnificence and misery the world had ever
seen—because he was able to ride a sixty-thousand-dollar horse—yet could
not scrape up cash enough to buy a saddle, and was obliged to borrow one
or ride bareback. He said if fortune were to give him another sixty-
thousand-dollar horse it would ruin him.
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A youth of nineteen, who was a telegraph operator in Virginia on a
salary of a hundred dollars a month, and who, when he could not make out
German names in the list of San Francisco steamer arrivals, used to
ingeniously select and supply substitutes for them out of an old Berlin
city directory, made himself rich by watching the mining telegrams that
passed through his hands and buying and selling stocks accordingly,
through a friend in San Francisco. Once when a private dispatch was sent
from Virginia announcing a rich strike in a prominent mine and advising
that the matter be kept secret till a large amount of the stock could be
secured, he bought forty “feet” of the stock at twenty dollars a foot,
and afterward sold half of it at eight hundred dollars a foot and the
rest at double that figure. Within three months he was worth $150,000,
and had resigned his telegraphic position.
Another telegraph operator who had been discharged by the company for
divulging the secrets of the office, agreed with a moneyed man in San
Francisco to furnish him the result of a great Virginia mining lawsuit
within an hour after its private reception by the parties to it in San
Francisco. For this he was to have a large percentage of the profits on
purchases and sales made on it by his fellow-conspirator. So he went,
disguised as a teamster, to a little wayside telegraph office in the
mountains, got acquainted with the operator, and sat in the office day
after day, smoking his pipe, complaining that his team was fagged out
and unable to travel—and meantime listening to the dispatches as they
passed clicking through the machine from Virginia. Finally the private
dispatch announcing the result of the lawsuit sped over the wires, and
as soon as he heard it he telegraphed his friend in San Francisco:
“Am tired waiting. Shall sell the team and go home.”
It was the signal agreed upon. The word “waiting” left out, would have
signified that the suit had gone the other way.
The mock teamster’s friend picked up a deal of the mining stock, at low
figures, before the news became public, and a fortune was the result.
For a long time after one of the great Virginia mines had been
incorporated, about fifty feet of the original location were still in
the hands of a man who had never signed the incorporation papers. The
stock became very valuable, and every effort was made to find this man,
but he had disappeared. Once it was heard that he was in New York, and
one or two speculators went east but failed to find him. Once the news
came that he was in the Bermudas, and straightway a speculator or two
hurried east and sailed for Bermuda—but he was not there. Finally he was
heard of in Mexico, and a friend of his, a bar-keeper on a salary,
scraped together a little money and sought him out, bought his “feet”
for a hundred dollars, returned and sold the property for $75,000.
But why go on? The traditions of Silverland are filled with instances
like these, and I would never get through enumerating them were I to
attempt do it. I only desired to give, the reader an idea of a
peculiarity of the “flush times” which I could not present so strikingly
in any other way, and which some mention of was necessary to a realizing
comprehension of the time and the country.
I was personally acquainted with the majority of the nabobs I have
referred to, and so, for old acquaintance sake, I have shifted their
occupations and experiences around in such a way as to keep the Pacific
public from recognizing these once notorious men. No longer notorious,
for the majority of them have drifted back into poverty and obscurity
again.
In Nevada there used to be current the story of an adventure of two of
her nabobs, which may or may not have occurred. I give it for what it is
worth:
Col. Jim had seen somewhat of the world, and knew more or less of its
ways; but Col. Jack was from the back settlements of the States, had led
a life of arduous toil, and had never seen a city. These two, blessed
with sudden wealth, projected a visit to New York,—Col. Jack to see the
sights, and Col. Jim to guard his unsophistication from misfortune. They
reached San Francisco in the night, and sailed in the morning. Arrived
in New York, Col. Jack said:
“I’ve heard tell of carriages all my life, and now I mean to have a ride
in one; I don’t care what it costs. Come along.”
They stepped out on the sidewalk, and Col. Jim called a stylish
barouche. But Col. Jack said:
“_No_, sir! None of your cheap-John turn-outs for me. I’m here to have a
good time, and money ain’t any object. I mean to have the nobbiest rig
that’s going. Now here comes the very trick. Stop that yaller one with
the pictures on it—don’t you fret—I’ll stand all the expenses myself.”
So Col. Jim stopped an empty omnibus, and they got in. Said Col. Jack:
“Ain’t it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not! Cushions, and windows, and
pictures, till you can’t rest. What would the boys say if they _could_
see us cutting a swell like this in New York? By George, I wish they
could see us.”
Then he put his head out of the window, and shouted to the driver:
“Say, Johnny, this suits _me_!—suits yours truly, you bet, you! I want
this shebang all day. I’m _on_ it, old man! Let ’em out! Make ’em go!
We’ll make it all right with _you_, sonny!”
The driver passed his hand through the strap-hole, and tapped for his
fare—it was before the gongs came into common use. Col. Jack took the
hand, and shook it cordially. He said:
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“You twig me, old pard! All right between gents. Smell of _that_, and
see how you like it!”
And he put a twenty-dollar gold piece in the driver’s hand. After a
moment the driver said he could not make change.
“Bother the change! Ride it out. Put it in your pocket.”
Then to Col. Jim, with a sounding slap on his thigh:
“_Ain’t_ it style, though? Hanged if I don’t hire this thing every day
for a week.”
The omnibus stopped, and a young lady got in. Col. Jack stared a moment,
then nudged Col. Jim with his elbow:
“Don’t say a word,” he whispered. “Let her ride, if she wants to.
Gracious, there’s room enough.”
The young lady got out her porte-monnaie, and handed her fare to Col.
Jack.
“What’s this for?” said he.
“Give it to the driver, please.”
“Take back your money, madam. We can’t allow it. You’re welcome to ride
here as long as you please, but this shebang’s chartered, and we can’t
let you pay a cent.”
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The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old lady with a basket
climbed in, and proffered her fare.
“Excuse me,” said Col. Jack. “You’re perfectly welcome here, madam, but
we can’t allow you to pay. Set right down there, mum, and don’t you be
the least uneasy. Make yourself just as free as if you was in your own
turn-out.”
Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat women, and a couple of
children, entered.
“Come right along, friends,” said Col. Jack; “don’t mind _us_. This is a
free blow-out.” Then he whispered to Col. Jim,
“New York ain’t no sociable place, I don’t reckon—it ain’t no _name_ for
it!”
He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver, and made everybody
cordially welcome. The situation dawned on the people, and they pocketed
their money, and delivered themselves up to covert enjoyment of the
episode. Half a dozen more passengers entered.
“Oh, there’s _plenty_ of room,” said Col. Jack. “Walk right in, and make
yourselves at home. A blow-out ain’t worth anything _as_ a blow-out,
unless a body has company.” Then in a whisper to Col. Jim: “But _ain’t_
these New Yorkers friendly? And ain’t they cool about it, too? Icebergs
ain’t anywhere. I reckon they’d tackle a hearse, if it was going their
way.”
More passengers got in; more yet, and still more. Both seats were
filled, and a file of men were standing up, holding on to the cleats
overhead. Parties with baskets and bundles were climbing up on the roof.
Half-suppressed laughter rippled up from all sides.
“Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don’t bang anything
that ever I saw, I’m an Injun!” whispered Col. Jack.
A Chinaman crowded his way in.
“I weaken!” said Col. Jack. “Hold on, driver! Keep your seats, ladies,
and gents. Just make yourselves free—everything’s paid for. Driver,
rustle these folks around as long as they’re a mind to go—friends of
ours, you know. Take them everywheres—and if you want more money, come
to the St. Nicholas, and we’ll make it all right. Pleasant journey to
you, ladies and gents—go it just as long as you please—it shan’t cost
you a cent!”
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The two comrades got out, and Col. Jack said:
“Jimmy, it’s the sociablest place _I_ ever saw. The Chinaman waltzed in
as comfortable as anybody. If we’d staid awhile, I reckon we’d had some
niggers. B’ George, we’ll have to barricade our doors to-night, or some
of these ducks will be trying to sleep with us.”
CHAPTER XLVII.
Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must observe
the style of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with
most ceremony. I cannot say which class we buried with most eclat in our
“flush times,” the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished
rough—possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of society
honored their illustrious dead about equally; and hence, no doubt the
philosopher I have quoted from would have needed to see two
representative funerals in Virginia before forming his estimate of the
people.