35. CHAPTER XXXV.
WHEN we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback, we had an
addition to the company in the person of Capt. John Nye, the
Governor's brother. He had a good memory, and a tongue hung in
the middle. This is a combination which gives immortality to
conversation. Capt. John never suffered the talk to flag or falter
once during the hundred and twenty miles of the journey. In
addition to his conversational powers, he had one or two other
endowments of a marked character. One was a singular
"handiness" about doing anything and everything, from laying out
a railroad or organizing a political party, down to sewing on
buttons, shoeing a horse, or setting a broken leg, or a hen. Another
was a spirit of accommodation that prompted him to take the
needs, difficulties and perplexities of anybody and everybody upon
his own shoulders at any and all times, and dispose of them with
admirable facility and alacrity—hence he always managed to find
vacant beds in crowded inns, and plenty to eat in the emptiest
larders. And finally, wherever he met a man, woman or child, in
camp, inn or desert, he either knew such parties personally or had
been acquainted with a relative of the same. Such another
traveling comrade was never seen before. I cannot forbear giving
a specimen of the way in which he overcame difficulties. On the
second day out, we arrived, very tired and hungry, at a poor little
inn in the desert, and were told that the house was full, no
provisions on hand, and neither hay nor barley to spare for the
horses—must move on. The rest of us wanted to hurry on while it
was yet light, but Capt. John insisted on stopping awhile. We
dismounted and entered. There was no welcome for us on any
face. Capt. John began his blandishments, and within twenty
minutes he had accomplished the following things, viz.: found old
acquaintances in three teamsters; discovered that he used to go to
school with the landlord's mother; recognized his wife as a lady
whose life he had saved once in California, by stopping her
runaway horse; mended a child's broken toy and won the favor of
its mother, a guest of the inn; helped the hostler bleed a horse, and
prescribed for another horse that had the "heaves"; treated the
entire party three times at the landlord's bar; produced a later paper
than anybody had seen for a week and sat himself down to read the
news to a deeply interested audience. The result, summed up, was
as follows: The hostler found plenty of feed for our horses; we had
a trout supper, an exceedingly sociable time after it, good beds to
sleep in, and a surprising breakfast in the morning—and when we
left, we left lamented by all! Capt. John had some bad traits, but
he had some uncommonly valuable ones to offset them with.
Esmeralda was in many respects another Humboldt, but in a
little more forward state. The claims we had been paying
assessments on were entirely worthless, and we threw them away.
The principal one cropped out of the top of a knoll that was
fourteen feet high, and the inspired Board of
Directors were running a tunnel under that knoll to strike the
ledge. The tunnel would have to be seventy feet long, and would
then strike the ledge at the same dept that
a
shaft twelve feet
deep would have reached! The Board were living on
the "assessments." [N.B.—This hint comes too late for the
enlightenment of New York silver miners; they have already
learned all about this neat trick by experience.] The Board had no
desire to strike the ledge, knowing that it was as barren of silver as
a curbstone. This reminiscence calls to mind Jim Townsend's
tunnel. He had paid assessments on a mine called the "Daley" till
he was well-nigh penniless. Finally an assessment was levied to
run a tunnel two hundred and fifty feet on the Daley, and
Townsend went up on the hill to look into matters.
He found the Daley cropping out of the apex of an exceedingly
sharp-pointed peak, and a couple of men up there "facing" the
proposed tunnel. Townsend made a calculation. Then he said to
the men:
"So you have taken a contract to run a tunnel into this hill two
hundred and fifty feet to strike this ledge?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, do you know that you have got one of the most
expensive and arduous undertakings before you that was ever
conceived by man?"
"Why no—how is that?"
"Because this hill is only twenty-five feet through from side to
side; and so you have got to build two hundred and twenty-five
feet of your tunnel on trestle-work!"
The ways of silver mining Boards are exceedingly dark and
sinuous.
We took up various claims, and
commenced shafts and
tunnels on them, but never finished any of them. We
had to do a certain amount of work on each to "hold" it, else other
parties could seize our property after the expiration of ten days.
We were always hunting up new claims and doing a little work on
them and then waiting for a buyer—who never came. We never
found any ore that would yield more than fifty dollars a ton; and as
the mills charged fifty dollars a ton for
working ore and extracting
the silver, our pocket-money melted steadily
away and none returned to take its place. We lived in a little cabin
and cooked for ourselves; and altogether it was a hard life, though
a hopeful one—for we never ceased to expect fortune and a
customer to burst upon us some day.
At last, when flour reached a dollar a pound, and money could
not be borrowed on the best security at less
than eight per cent a month (I
being without the security, too), I abandoned mining and went
to milling. That is to say, I went to work as a common laborer in a
quartz mill, at ten dollars a week and board.