46. CHAPTER XLVI.
THERE were nabobs in those days—in the "flush times," I
mean. Every rich strike in the mines created one or two. I call to
mind several of these. They were careless, easy-going fellows, as
a general thing, and the community at large was as much benefited
by their riches as they were themselves—possibly more, in some
cases.
Two cousins, teamsters, did some hauling for a man and had to
take a small segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu of $300
cash. They gave an outsider a third to open the mine, and they
went on teaming. But not long. Ten months afterward the mine
was out of debt and paying each owner $8,000 to $10,000 a
month—say $100,000 a year.
One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of wore
$6,000 worth of diamonds in his bosom, and swore he was
unhappy because he could not spend his money as fast as he made
it.
Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that ofter reached
$16,000 a month; and he used to love to tell how he had worked in
the very mine that yielded it, for five dollars a day, when he first
came to the country.
The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another of
these pets of fortune—lifted from actual poverty to affluence
almost in a single night—who was able to offer $100,000 for a
position of high official distinction, shortly afterward, and did
offer it—but failed to get it, his politics not being as sound as his
bank account.
Then there was John Smith. He was a good, honest,
kind-hearted soul, born and reared in the lower ranks of life, and
miraculously ignorant. He drove a team, and owned a small
ranch—a ranch that paid him a comfortable living, for although it
yielded but little hay, what little it did yield was worth from $250
to $300 in gold per ton in the market. Presently Smith traded a
few acres of the ranch for a small undeveloped silver mine in Gold
Hill. He opened the mine and built a little unpretending ten-stamp
mill. Eighteen months afterward he retired from the hay business,
for his mining income had reached a most comfortable figure.
Some people said it was $30,000 a month, and others said it was
$60,000. Smith was very rich at any rate.
And then he went to Europe and traveled. And when he came
back he was never tired of telling about the fine hogs he had seen
in England, and the gorgeous sheep he had seen in Spain, and the
fine cattle he had noticed in the vicinity of Rome. He was full of
wonders of the old world, and advised everybody to travel. He
said a man never imagined what surprising things there were in the
world till he had traveled.
One day, on board ship, the passengers made up a pool of
$500, which was to be the property of the man who should come
nearest to guessing the run of the vessel for the next twenty-four
hours. Next day, toward noon, the figures were all in the purser's
hands in sealed envelopes. Smith was serene and happy, for he
had been
bribing the engineer. But another party won the prize! Smith
said:
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.
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:
"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."
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!"
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."