Roughing It
any man in this camp—’n’ a _power_ of dignity—he wouldn’t let the
Gov’ner of Californy be familiar with him. He never ketched a rat in his
life—’peared to be above it. He never cared for nothing but mining. He
knowed more about mining, that cat did, than any man _I_ ever, ever see.
You couldn’t tell _him_ noth’n ’bout placer diggin’s—’n’ as for pocket
mining, why he was just born for it.
“He would dig out after me an’ Jim when we went over the hills
prospect’n’, and he would trot along behind us for as much as five mile,
if we went so fur. An’ he had the best judgment about mining ground—why
you never see anything like it. When we went to work, he’d scatter a
glance around, ’n’ if he didn’t think much of the indications, he would
give a look as much as to say, ‘Well, I’ll have to get you to excuse
_me_,’ ’n’ without another word he’d hyste his nose into the air ’n’
shove for home. But if the ground suited him, he would lay low ’n’ keep
dark till the first pan was washed, ’n’ then he would sidle up ’n’ take
a look, an’ if there was about six or seven grains of gold _he_ was
satisfied—he didn’t want no better prospect ’n’ that—’n’ then he would
lay down on our coats and snore like a steamboat till we’d struck the
pocket, an’ then get up ’n’ superintend. He was nearly lightnin’ on
superintending.
“Well, bye an’ bye, up comes this yer quartz excitement. Every body was
into it—every body was pick’n’ ’n’ blast’n’ instead of shovelin’ dirt on
the hill side—every body was put’n’ down a shaft instead of scrapin’ the
surface. Noth’n’ would do Jim, but _we_ must tackle the ledges, too, ’n’
so we did. We commenced put’n’ down a shaft, ’n’ Tom Quartz he begin to
wonder what in the Dickens it was all about. He hadn’t ever seen any
mining like that before, ’n’ he was all upset, as you may say—he
couldn’t come to a right understanding of it no way—it was too many for
_him_. He was down on it, too, you bet you—he was down on it
powerful—’n’ always appeared to consider it the cussedest foolishness
out. But that cat, you know, was _always_ agin new fangled
arrangements—somehow he never could abide’em. _You_ know how it is with
old habits. But by an’ by Tom Quartz begin to git sort of reconciled a
little, though he never _could_ altogether understand that eternal
sinkin’ of a shaft an’ never pannin’ out any thing. At last he got to
comin’ down in the shaft, hisself, to try to cipher it out. An’ when
he’d git the blues, ’n’ feel kind o’scruffy, ’n’ aggravated ’n’
disgusted—knowin’ as he did, that the bills was runnin’ up all the time
an’ we warn’t makin’ a cent—he would curl up on a gunny sack in the
corner an’ go to sleep. Well, one day when the shaft was down about
eight foot, the rock got so hard that we had to put in a blast—the first
blast’n’ we’d ever done since Tom Quartz was born. An’ then we lit the
fuse ’n’ clumb out ’n’ got off ’bout fifty yards—’n’ forgot ’n’ left Tom
Quartz sound asleep on the gunny sack.
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“In ’bout a minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the hole, ’n’
then everything let go with an awful crash, ’n’ about four million ton
of rocks ’n’ dirt ’n’ smoke ’n; splinters shot up ’bout a mile an’ a
half into the air, an’ by George, right in the dead centre of it was old
Tom Quartz a goin’ end over end, an’ a snortin’ an’ a sneez’n’, an’ a
clawin’ an’ a reachin’ for things like all possessed. But it warn’t no
use, you know, it warn’t no use. An’ that was the last we see of _him_
for about two minutes ’n’ a half, an’ then all of a sudden it begin to
rain rocks and rubbage, an’ directly he come down ker-whop about ten
foot off f’m where we stood Well, I reckon he was p’raps the orneriest
lookin’ beast you ever see. One ear was sot back on his neck, ’n’ his
tail was stove up, ’n’ his eye-winkers was swinged off, ’n’ he was all
blacked up with powder an’ smoke, an’ all sloppy with mud ’n’ slush f’m
one end to the other.
“Well sir, it warn’t no use to try to apologize—we couldn’t say a word.
He took a sort of a disgusted look at hisself, ’n’ then he looked at
us—an’ it was just exactly the same as if he had said—’Gents, may be
_you_ think it’s smart to take advantage of a cat that ’ain’t had no
experience of quartz minin’, but _I_ think _different_’—an’ then he
turned on his heel ’n’ marched off home without ever saying another
word.
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“That was jest his style. An’ may be you won’t believe it, but after
that you never see a cat so prejudiced agin quartz mining as what he
was. An’ by an’ bye when he _did_ get to goin’ down in the shaft agin,
you’d ’a been astonished at his sagacity. The minute we’d tetch off a
blast ’n’ the fuse’d begin to sizzle, he’d give a look as much as to
say: ’Well, I’ll have to git you to excuse _me_,’ an’ it was surpris’n’
the way he’d shin out of that hole ’n’ go f’r a tree. Sagacity? It ain’t
no name for it. ’Twas _inspiration_!”
I said, “Well, Mr. Baker, his prejudice against quartz-mining _was_
remarkable, considering how he came by it. Couldn’t you ever cure him of
it?”
“_Cure him!_ No! When Tom Quartz was sot once, he was _always_ sot—and
you might a blowed him up as much as three million times ’n’ you’d never
a broken him of his cussed prejudice agin quartz mining.”
The affection and the pride that lit up Baker’s face when he delivered
this tribute to the firmness of his humble friend of other days, will
always be a vivid memory with me.
At the end of two months we had never “struck” a pocket. We had panned
up and down the hillsides till they looked plowed like a field; we could
have put in a crop of grain, then, but there would have been no way to
get it to market. We got many good “prospects,” but when the gold gave
out in the pan and we dug down, hoping and longing, we found only
emptiness—the pocket that should have been there was as barren as our
own.—At last we shouldered our pans and shovels and struck out over the
hills to try new localities. We prospected around Angel’s Camp, in
Calaveras county, during three weeks, but had no success. Then we
wandered on foot among the mountains, sleeping under the trees at night,
for the weather was mild, but still we remained as centless as the last
rose of summer. That is a poor joke, but it is in pathetic harmony with
the circumstances, since we were so poor ourselves. In accordance with
the custom of the country, our door had always stood open and our board
welcome to tramping miners—they drifted along nearly every day, dumped
their paust shovels by the threshold and took “pot luck” with us—and now
on our own tramp we never found cold hospitality.
Our wanderings were wide and in many directions; and now I could give
the reader a vivid description of the Big Trees and the marvels of the
Yo Semite—but what has this reader done to me that I should persecute
him? I will deliver him into the hands of less conscientious tourists
and take his blessing. Let me be charitable, though I fail in all
virtues else.
Note: Some of the phrases in the above are mining technicalities,
purely, and may be a little obscure to the general reader. In “placer
diggings” the gold is scattered all through the surface dirt; in
“pocket” diggings it is concentrated in one little spot; in “quartz” the
gold is in a solid, continuous vein of rock, enclosed between distinct
walls of some other kind of stone—and this is the most laborious and
expensive of all the different kinds of mining. “Prospecting” is hunting
for a “placer”; “indications” are signs of its presence; “panning out”
refers to the washing process by which the grains of gold are separated
from the dirt; a “prospect” is what one finds in the first panful of
dirt—and its value determines whether it is a good or a bad prospect,
and whether it is worth while to tarry there or seek further.
CHAPTER LXII.
After a three months’ absence, I found myself in San Francisco again,
without a cent. When my credit was about exhausted, (for I had become
too mean and lazy, now, to work on a morning paper, and there were no
vacancies on the evening journals,) I was created San Francisco
correspondent of the _Enterprise_, and at the end of five months I was
out of debt, but my interest in my work was gone; for my correspondence
being a daily one, without rest or respite, I got unspeakably tired of
it. I wanted another change. The vagabond instinct was strong upon me.
Fortune favored and I got a new berth and a delightful one. It was to go
down to the Sandwich Islands and write some letters for the Sacramento
_Union_, an excellent journal and liberal with employees.
We sailed in the propeller _Ajax_, in the middle of winter. The almanac
called it winter, distinctly enough, but the weather was a compromise
between spring and summer. Six days out of port, it became summer
altogether. We had some thirty passengers; among them a cheerful soul by
the name of Williams, and three sea-worn old whaleship captains going
down to join their vessels. These latter played euchre in the smoking
room day and night, drank astonishing quantities of raw whisky without
being in the least affected by it, and were the happiest people I think
I ever saw. And then there was “the old Admiral—” a retired whaleman. He
was a roaring, terrific combination of wind and lightning and thunder,
and earnest, whole-souled profanity. But nevertheless he was tender-
hearted as a girl. He was a raving, deafening, devastating typhoon,
laying waste the cowering seas but with an unvexed refuge in the centre
where all comers were safe and at rest. Nobody could know the “Admiral”
without liking him; and in a sudden and dire emergency I think no friend
of his would know which to choose—to be cursed by him or prayed for by a
less efficient person.
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His Title of “Admiral” was more strictly “official” than any ever worn
by a naval officer before or since, perhaps—for it was the voluntary
offering of a whole nation, and came direct from the _people_ themselves
without any intermediate red tape—the people of the Sandwich Islands. It
was a title that came to him freighted with affection, and honor, and
appreciation of his unpretending merit. And in testimony of the
genuineness of the title it was publicly ordained that an exclusive flag
should be devised for him and used solely to welcome his coming and wave
him God-speed in his going. From that time forth, whenever his ship was
signaled in the offing, or he catted his anchor and stood out to sea,
that ensign streamed from the royal halliards on the parliament house
and the nation lifted their hats to it with spontaneous accord.
Yet he had never fired a gun or fought a battle in his life. When I knew
him on board the _Ajax_, he was seventy-two years old and had plowed the
salt water sixty-one of them. For sixteen years he had gone in and out
of the harbor of Honolulu in command of a whaleship, and for sixteen
more had been captain of a San Francisco and Sandwich Island passenger
packet and had never had an accident or lost a vessel. The simple
natives knew him for a friend who never failed them, and regarded him as
children regard a father. It was a dangerous thing to oppress them when
the roaring Admiral was around.
Two years before I knew the Admiral, he had retired from the sea on a
competence, and had sworn a colossal nine-jointed oath that he would
“never go within _smelling_ distance of the salt water again as long as
he lived.” And he had conscientiously kept it. That is to say, _he_
considered he had kept it, and it would have been more than dangerous to
suggest to him, even in the gentlest way, that making eleven long sea
voyages, as a passenger, during the two years that had transpired since
he “retired,” was only keeping the general spirit of it and not the
strict letter.