40. CHAPTER XL.
I NOW come to a curious episode—the most curious, I think,
that had yet accented my slothful, valueless, heedless career. Out
of a hillside toward the upper end of the town, projected a wall of
reddish looking quartz-croppings, the exposed comb of a
silver-bearing ledge that extended deep down into the earth, of
course. It was owned by a company entitled the "Wide West."
There was a shaft sixty or seventy feet deep on the under side of
the croppings, and everybody was acquainted with the rock that
came from it—and tolerably rich rock it was, too, but nothing
extraordinary. I will remark here, that although to the
inexperienced stranger all the quartz of a particular "district" looks
about alike, an old resident of the camp can take a glance at a
mixed pile of rock, separate the fragments and tell you which mine
each came from, as easily as a confectioner can separate and
classify the various kinds and qualities of candy in a mixed heap of
the article.
All at once the town was thrown into a state of extraordinary
excitement. In mining parlance the Wide West had "struck it
rich!" Everybody went to see the new developments, and for some
days there was such a crowd of people about the Wide West shaft
that a stranger would have supposed there was a mass meeting in
session there. No other topic was discussed but the rich strike, and
nobody thought or dreamed about anything else. Every man
brought away a specimen, ground it up in a hand mortar, washed it
out in his horn spoon, and glared speechless upon the marvelous
result. It
was not hard rock, but black, decomposed stuff which could be
crumbled in the hand like a baked potato, and when spread out on
a paper exhibited a thick sprinkling of gold and particles of
"native" silver. Higbie brought a handful to the cabin, and when
he had washed it out his amazement was beyond description.
Wide West stock soared skywards. It was said that repeated offers
had been made for it at a thousand dollars a foot, and promptly
refused. We have all had the "blues"—the mere sky-blues—but
mine were indigo, now—because I did not own in the Wide West.
The world seemed hollow to me, and existence a grief. I lost my
appetite, and ceased to take an interest in anything. Still I had to
stay, and listen to other people's rejoicings, because I had no
money to get out of the camp with.
The Wide West company put a stop to the carrying away of
"specimens," and well they might, for every handful of the ore was
worth a sun of some consequence. To show the exceeding value
of the ore, I will remark that a sixteen-hundred-pounds parcel of it
was sold, just as it lay, at the mouth of the shaft,
at one dollar a pound; and
the man who bought it "packed" it on mules a hundred and
fifty or two hundred miles, over the mountains, to San Francisco,
satisfied that it would yield at a rate that would richly compensate
him for his trouble. The Wide West people also commanded their
foreman to refuse any but their own operatives permission to enter
the mine at any time or for any purpose. I kept up my "blue"
meditations and Higbie kept up a deal of thinking, too, but of a
different sort. He puzzled over the "rock," examined it with a
glass, inspected it in different lights and from different points of
view, and after each experiment delivered himself, in soliloquy, of
one and the same unvarying opinion in the same unvarying
formula:
"It is not Wide West rock!"
He said once or twice that he meant to have a look into the
Wide West shaft if he got shot for it. I was wretched, and did not
care whether he got a look into it or not. He failed that day, and
tried again at night; failed again; got up at
dawn and tried, and failed again. Then he lay in ambush in the
sage brush hour after hour, waiting for the two or three hands to
adjourn to the shade of a boulder for dinner; made a start once, but
was premature—one of the men came back for something; tried it
again, but when almost at the mouth of the shaft, another of the
men rose up from behind the boulder as if to reconnoitre, and he
dropped on the ground and lay quiet; presently he crawled on his
hands and knees to the mouth of the shaft, gave a quick glance
around, then seized the rope and slid down the shaft.
He disappeared in the gloom of a "side drift" just as a head
appeared in the mouth of the shaft and somebody shouted
"Hello!"—which he did not answer. He was not disturbed any
more. An hour later he entered the cabin, hot, red, and ready to
burst with smothered excitement, and exclaimed in a stage
whisper:
"I knew it! We are rich! IT'S A BLIND LEAD!"
I thought the very earth reeled under me.
Doubt—conviction—doubt again—exultation—hope, amazement,
belief, unbelief—every emotion imaginable swept in wild
procession through my heart and brain, and I could not speak a
word. After a moment or two of this mental fury, I shook myself
to rights, and said:
"Say it again!"
"It's blind lead!"
"Cal., let's—let's burn the house—or kill somebody! Let's get
out where there's room to hurrah! But what is the use? It is a
hundred times too good to be true."
"It's a blind lead, for a million!—hanging wall—foot wall—clay
casings—everything complete!" He swung his hat and gave three
cheers, and I cast doubt to the winds and chimed in with a will.
For I was worth a million dollars, and did not care "whether school
kept or not!"
But perhaps I ought to explain. A "blind lead" is a lead or
ledge that does not "crop out" above the surface. A miner does not
know where to look for such leads, but they are often stumbled
upon by accident in the course of driving a tunnel or sinking a
shaft. Higbie knew the Wide West rock perfectly well, and the
more he had examined the new developments the more he was
satisfied that the ore could not have come from the Wide West
vein. And so had it occurred to him alone, of all the camp, that
there was a blind lead down in the shaft, and that even the Wide
West people themselves did not suspect it. He was right. When he
went down the shaft, he found that the blind lead held its
independent way through the Wide West vein, cutting it
diagonally, and that it was enclosed in its own well-defined
casing-rocks and clay. Hence it was public
property. Both leads being perfectly well defined, it was easy for
any miner to see which one belonged to the Wide West and which
did not.
We thought it well to have a strong friend, and therefore we
brought the foreman of the Wide West to our cabin that night and
revealed the great surprise to him. Higbie said:
"We are going to take possession of this blind lead, record it
and establish ownership, and then forbid the Wide West company
to take out any more of the rock. You cannot help your company
in this matter—nobody can help them. I will go into the shaft with
you and prove to your entire satisfaction that
it is a blind lead.
Now we propose to take you in with us, and claim
the blind lead in our three names. What do you say?"
What could a man say who had an opportunity to simply
stretch forth his hand and take possession of a fortune without risk
of any kind and without wronging any one or attaching the least
taint of dishonor to his name? He could only say, "Agreed."
The notice was put up that night, and duly spread upon the
recorder's books before ten o'clock. We claimed two hundred feet
each—six hundred feet in all—the smallest and compactest
organization in the district, and the easiest to manage.
No one can be so thoughtless as to suppose that we slept, that
night. Higbie and I went to bed at midnight, but it was only to lie
broad awake and think, dream, scheme. The floorless,
tumble-down cabin was a palace, the ragged gray blankets silk, the
furniture rosewood and mahogany. Each new splendor that burst
out of my visions of the future whirled me bodily over in bed or
jerked me to a sitting posture just as if an electric battery had been
applied to me. We shot fragments of conversation back and forth
at each other. Once Higbie said:
"When are you going home—to the States?"
"To-morrow!"—with an evolution or two, ending with a sitting
position. "Well—no—but next month, at furthest."
"We'll go in the same steamer."
"Agreed."
A pause.
"Steamer of the 10th?"
"Yes. No, the 1st."
"All right."
Another pause.
"Where are you going to live?" said Higbie.
"San Francisco."
"That's me!"
Pause.
"Too high—too much climbing"—from Higbie.
"What is?"
"I was thinking of Russian Hill—building a house up
there."
"Too much climbing? Shan't you keep a carriage?"
"Of course. I forgot that."
Pause.
"Cal., what kind of a house are you going to build?"
"I was thinking about that. Three-story and an attic."
"But what kind?"
"Well, I don't hardly know. Brick, I suppose."
"Brick—bosh."
"Why? What is your idea?"
"Brown stone front—French plate glass—billiard-room off the
dining-room—statuary and paintings—shrubbery and two-acre grass
plat—greenhouse—iron dog on the front stoop—gray horses—landau,
and a coachman with a bug on his hat!"
"By George!"
A long pause.
"Cal., when are you going to Europe?"
"Well—I hadn't thought of that. When are you?"
"In the Spring."
"Going to be gone all summer?"
"All summer! I shall remain there three years."
"No—but are you in earnest?"
"Indeed I am."
"I will go along too."
"Why of course you will."
"What part of Europe shall you go to?"
"All parts. France, England, Germany—Spain, Italy,
Switzerland, Syria, Greece, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, Egypt—all
over—everywhere."
"I'm agreed."
"All right."
"Won't it be a swell trip!"
"We'll spend forty or fifty thousand dollars trying to make it
one, anyway."
Another long pause.
"Higbie, we owe the butcher six dollars, and he has been
threatening to stop our—"
"Hang the butcher!"
"Amen."
And so it went on. By three o'clock we found it was no use,
and so we got up and played cribbage and smoked pipes till
sunrise. It was my week to cook. I always hated cooking—now, I
abhorred it.
The news was all over town. The former excitement was
great—this one was greater still. I walked the streets serene
and happy. Higbie said the foreman had been offered two hundred
thousand dollars for his third of the mine. I said I would like to
see myself selling for any such price. My ideas were lofty. My
figure was a million. Still, I honestly believe that if I had been
offered it, it would have had no other effect than to make me hold
off for more.
I found abundant enjoyment in being rich. A man offered me
a three-hundred-dollar horse, and wanted to take my simple,
unendorsed note for it. That brought the most realizing sense I had
yet had that I was actually rich, beyond shadow of doubt. It was
followed by numerous other evidences of a similar nature—among
which I may mention the fact of the butcher leaving us a double
supply of meat and saying nothing about money.
By the laws of the district, the "locators" or claimants of a
ledge were obliged to do a fair and reasonable amount of work on
their new property within ten days after the date of the location, or
the property was forfeited, and anybody could go and seize it that
chose. So we determined to go to work the next day. About the
middle of the afternoon, as I was coming out of the post office, I
met a Mr. Gardiner, who told me that Capt. John Nye was lying
dangerously ill at his place (the "Nine-Mile Ranch"), and that he
and his wife were not able to give him nearly as much care and
attention as his case demanded. I said if he would wait for me a
moment, I would go down and help in the sick room. I ran to the
cabin to tell Higbie. He was not there, but I left a note on the table
for him, and a few minutes later I left town in Gardiner's
wagon.