University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
THE LOST CABIN.

THE snow began to fall, and Paquita
did not return.

Elk came down from the mountain towards
spring, and we could shoot them from the cabin
door. At this season of the year, as well as late
in the fall, they are found in herds of hundreds
together.

It seems odd to say that they should go up further
into the mountains as winter approaches, instead of
down into the foot-hills and plains below, as do the
deer, but it is true. There are warm springs—in
fact, all mountain springs are warmer in the winter
than in the summer—up the mountain, where vine-maple,
a kind of water-cress, and wild swamp berries
grow in the warm marshes or on the edges, and

here the elk subsist. When the maple and grasses
of one marsh are consumed, they break through the
snow in single file, led in turns by the bulls, to
another.

Hundreds in this way make but one great track,
much as if a great log had been drawn to and
fro through the snow. The cows come up last, to
protect the calves in the line of march from the
wolves.

It is a mistake to suppose that elk use their splendid
horns in battle. These are only used to receive
the enemy upon. A sort of cluster of bayonets in
rest. All offensive action is with the feet. An elk's
horns are so placed on his head, that when his nose
is lifted so as to enable him to move about or see
his enemy, they are thrown far back on his shoulders,
where they are quite useless. He strikes out with
his feet, and then throws his head on the ground to
receive his enemy. You have much to fear from
the feet of an elk at battle, but nothing from his
matchless antlers.

The black bears here also go up the mountain
when the winter approaches. They find some hollow
trunk, usually the trunk of a sturdy tree, and creep
into it close down to the ground. Here they lie till
snowed in and covered over, very fat, for months
and months, in a long and delightful sleep, and
never come out till the snow melts away, or they

have the ill-fortune to be smelled out by the Indian
dogs, and then called out by the hunters.

Whenever they find a black bear thus, they pound
on the tree and call to him to come out. They challenge
him in all kinds of bantering language, call
him a coward and a lazy fat old fellow, that would
run away from the squaws, and would sleep all
summer. They tell him it is spring-time now, and
he had better get up and come out and see the sun.
The most remarkable thing, however, is, that so soon
as the bear hears the pounding on the tree, he begins
to dig and endeavour to get out; so that the Indians
have but little to do, after he is discovered, but to sit
down and wait till he crawls out—blinking and
blinded by the light in his small black eyes—and
despatch him on the spot. Bears when taken in this
way are always plump and tender, and fat as possible;
a perfect mass of white savoury oil.

Klamat was a splendid hunter, and even without
the aid of the Indian dogs, managed to take several
bears this first winter, which, after all, was not so long
and dull as one would suppose. I sometimes think
we partook somewhat of the nature of the bear, in
our little snowy cabin among the firs that winter,
for before we hardly suspected it, the birds came
back, and spring was fairly upon us.

When the snow had disappeared, and our horses
grew sleek and fat and strong again, Klamat and I

rode far into the pines together and found a lake
where the wild geese built nests in the margin among
the tules.

The Prince and the Doctor went up the canon in
search of gold, for want of something better to do, and
by the time the summer set in, had found a deposit in
a quartz ledge, looking up towards the mountain.
Gold appeared to be not over abundant nor did it
seem to be much prized. No great plans, no excitement,
that usually attends a discovery. These two
men seemed to care more for it as a proof of their
theory about the origin and growth of gold than for
the gold itself.

They brought in and laid on a shelf in the corner
pieces of gold and quartz with as little concern as
if they had been geological specimens of slate or
granite. You cannot be greatly surprised at this,
however, when you remember how plentiful gold
was, how little it was worth there, and that at that
time it was thought to abound in every canon in the
country.

Paquita had not returned. We had come almost
not to mention her now at all. Often and often, all
through the spring and early summer, I saw the
Prince stand out as the sun went down, and shade
his brow with his hand, looking the way she had
gone. I think it was this that kept him here so
faithfully. He would not remain away a single

night, either to hunt for gold or game, lest she might
return, find him away, and need in some way his
assistance.

The Doctor sometimes took long journeys down
toward the valley to the south, and even fell in with
white men, as well as Indians, after two or three
days' ride in that direction, and thought of going
down that way out of the reach of the snow, and
building him a house for the winter. No one
objected to this; but when he was ready to go away,
the Prince compelled him to take all the gold they
had taken from the mine, even against his utmost
remonstrance.

“Take it,” said the Prince, “every ounce of it.
You may be called to use it. Here it is not worth
that much lead.” And he put the buckskin bag
into the Doctor's catenas, and resolutely buckled
them down.

Another incident worth mentioning is their agreement
to never reveal the existence of the mine.
Their reasons were of the noblest kind, sufficient,
above every selfish consideration.

“In the first place,” said they, “the gold is of
doubtful utility to the world at best. But if this
mine is made known, a flood of people will pour in
here; the game, the forests, all this wild, splendid
part of nature will disappear. The white man and
the red man will antagonize, the massacre of the

Klamat will be repeated; and for all this, what
will be the consideration? Nothing, whatever, but
gold, and we have quite enough of that,—and what
do we owe the world?”

Back of all this, it was extremely doubtful
whether the mine would yield anything better than
this little “pocket.”

For my own part, I would banish gold and silver,
as a commercial medium, from the face of the earth.
I would abolish the use of gold and silver altogether,
have paper currency, and but one currency
in all the world. I propose to take all the strong
men now in the mines down from the mountains,
and build ships and cities by the sea, and make a
permanent commonwealth.

These thousands of men can, at best, in a year's
time, only take out a few millions of gold. A ship
goes to sea and sinks with all these millions, and there
all that labour is lost to the world for ever. Had
these millions been in paper, only a few hours'
labour would have been lost. There are two hundred
thousand men, the best and bravest men in the world,
wasting the best years of their lives getting out this
gold. They are turning over the mountains, destroying
the forests, and filling up the rivers. They
make the land unfit even for savages. Take them
down from the mountains, throw one half their
strength and energy against the wild, rich sea-border

of the Pacific, and we would have, instead of
these broken mountains, muddied rivers, and ruined
forests, such an Eden as has not been seen by man
since the days of Adam.

At last Paquita came. The Prince went forth
to meet her with his arms held out, but she was
too bashful and beautiful to touch.

And why had she not returned before? It is a
sad story, but soon told.

When she reached the region of her father's camp,
she found the grass growing in the trails. She found
no sisters to receive her; no woman to bring her
water; not a human being in all the lodges. The
weeds grew rank, and the wolves had possession.

The white men in her absence had made another
successful campaign against her people. They had
become dispirited, and, never over-provident, finding
the country overrun, the game made wild and scarce,
and the fish failing to come up the muddied Sacramento,
they had neglected to prepare for winter, and
so had perished by whole villages.

These singular people perish so easily from contact
with the whites, that they seem to me like the
ripened fruit ready to fall at the first shaking.

She had found none of her tribe till she passed
away on to the Tula lakes, and then of all her family
found only two brothers. These, with some young
warriors, had now come with her on her return.

They dismounted and built a fire under the trees
and apart from us, and only slowly came to communicate,
to smoke, and show any hospitality at all.
Paquita was all kindness; but she had become
a woman now; the state of things was changed.
Then the eyes of her sober, savage brothers—
who could ill brook the presence of the white
man, much less look with favour on familiarities
—were upon her, and she became the quiet, silent
Indian woman, instead of the lively little maiden
who had frolicked on the hill-sides and wandered
through the woods the year before.

They remained camped here many days. Klamat
took the young chiefs up to the mine,—only a little
crevice picked out in the rotten quartz,—and they
looked at it long and curiously. Then they picked
up some little pieces of gold that lay there, looked at
them, put them in their mouths, spit them out, and
threw them down on the ground.

After that they came down to the cabin.

“You have saved our sister,” the eldest said,
among other things, “and we like you for that, and
owe you all that we can give; but you did not save
her from a bear or a flood,—you only saved her
from your own people, so that it is not so much.
But even if you did save one of us in the bravest way,
that is no reason why you shall help to destroy us
all. If you bring men and dig gold here, we must

all die. We know how that is. You may stay here,
dig gold, hunt, live here all your lives; but if you let
this be known, and bring men up here, we will shoot
them from behind the trees, steal their horses, and
destroy them every way we can.”

Paquita herself repeated this, interpreted what we
did not understand, and told us emphatically that
what her brothers said was true. Noble Indian
woman. She was right.

The Prince answered very kindly and earnestly.
He told them they were right. He told them that
no one should hear of the mine; and at the last, he
lifted up his hand to Mount Shasta, and before the
God of the white man and the red man, promised
that no white men should come there, with his consent,
while he remained.

Paquita returned soon after this with her people
to her village, and it was lonely enough to be sure.
The Prince grew restless; and at last, after we had
carried out some few specimens from the ledge, we
mounted our horses, and set out for the settlement
to procure supplies. We went by a circuitous way
to avoid suspicion.

The Indian boy, our strange manner of dress, and
the Prince's lavish use of money, soon excited remark
and observation. New rich mines were becoming
scarce, and there were hordes of men waiting eagerly
in every camp for some new thing to come to the

surface. We were closely watched, but did not
suspect it then.

One day the Prince met a child in an immigrant
camp, the first he had seen for a long time. He
stopped, took from his buckskin purse a rough nugget,
half quartz and half gold, gave it to the boy,
patted him on the head, and passed on. A very
foolish thing.

After obtaining our supplies, we set out to return.
The evening of the last day in the settlement we
camped under the trees by a creek, close by some
prospectors, who came into our camp after the blankets
were spread, and sat about the fire cursing their
hard luck; long-haired, dirty-habited, and ugly-looking
men they were. One was a sickly-looking
man, a singularly tall, pale man, who had but little
to say. There was some gold left. It was of no possible
use to us. The Prince took him to one side,
gave him the purse, and told him to take it and go
home. Another extremely silly thing. This man,
meaning no harm of course, could not keep the secret
of the few hundred dollars' worth of gold dust, and
soon the whole affair, wonderfully magnified too, was
blown all over the country.

When we found we were being followed, we led a
sorry race indeed, and went in all directions. Klamat
entered into the spirit of it, and played some strange
forest tricks on the poor prospectors.

We eluded them all at last, and reached the cabin.
But we had laid the foundation for many a mountain
venture. What extravagant tales were told! There
was a perfect army of us—half Indians, half white
men. Our horses were shod backward—an old story.
Then, again, our horses' feet were bound up in
gunny-bags, so as to leave no track. An impossible
thing, for a horse will not take a single step with his
feet in muffles.