61. CHAPTER LXI.
ONE of my comrades there—another of those victims of
eighteen years of unrequited toil and blighted hopes—was one of
the gentlest spirits that ever bore its patient cross in a weary exile:
grave and simple Dick Baker, pocket-miner of Dead-House
Gulch.—He was forty-six, gray as a rat, earnest, thoughtful,
slenderly educated, slouchily dressed and clay-soiled, but his heart
was finer metal than any gold his shovel ever brought to light—than
any, indeed, that ever was mined or minted.
Whenever he was out of luck and a little down-hearted, he
would fall to mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used to
own (for where women and children are not, men of kindly
impulses take up with pets, for they must love something). And he
always spoke of the strange sagacity of that cat with the air of a
man who believed in his secret heart that there was something
human about it—may be even supernatural.
I heard him talking about this animal once. He said:
"Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of Tom
Quartz, which you'd a took an interest in I reckon—most any body
would. I had him here eight year—and he was the remarkablest cat
I ever see. He was a
large gray one of the Tom specie, an' he had
more hard, natchral sense than 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.
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.
"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.
[_]
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.