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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Comstock Club, by Charles Carroll Goodwin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Comstock Club
+
+Author: Charles Carroll Goodwin
+
+Release Date: May 16, 2011 [EBook #36123]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMSTOCK CLUB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Justin Gillbank, Mary Meehan and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE COMSTOCK CLUB.
+
+                         BY C. C. GOODWIN
+
+                  EDITOR SALT LAKE DAILY TRIBUNE.
+
+
+    Neither radiant angels nor magnified monsters, but just plain,
+    true men.
+
+
+    1891.
+    TRIBUNE JOB PRINTING COMPANY,
+    SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH.
+
+    _Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by_
+    THE LEONARD PUBLISHING COMPANY,
+    _in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C._
+
+
+    TO THE
+    MINERS OF THE PACIFIC COAST,
+    THIS BOOK,
+    WHICH WAS WRITTEN WHILE WORKING FOR AND AMONG THEM,
+    IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
+    BY
+    THE AUTHOR.
+
+    _Salt Lake City, Utah, December 15, 1891._
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+I. THE OLD FLUSH DAYS
+
+II. THE CLUB
+
+III. MIRAGES
+
+IV. THE ARGONAUTS
+
+V. THE CALL OF THE BIRDS
+
+VI. THE PERFUME AND THE LIGHT
+
+VII. MAN AS A WORKER
+
+VIII. ROUGH ROYALTY
+
+IX. MORE ROYALTY
+
+X. SPECIMEN LIARS
+
+XI. THE CLUB GROWS POETICAL
+
+XII. AN UNBIASED JUDGE
+
+XIII. SISTER CELESTE
+
+XIV. TROUBLE WITH THE EXPENSE ACCOUNT
+
+XV. HUMOR OF THE WEST
+
+XVI. TROUBLE IN THE CLUB
+
+XVII. UP IN THE SHEAVES
+
+XVIII. THE TERRIBLE DEPTHS
+
+XIX. THE DAWN OF ELYSIUM
+
+XX. THREE POSTSCRIPTS
+
+
+
+
+THE COMSTOCK CLUB.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"The pioneer! Who shall fitly tell the story of his life and work?
+
+"The soldier leads an assault; it lasts but a few minutes; he knows that
+whether he lives or dies, immortality will be his reward. What wonder
+that there are brave soldiers!
+
+"But when this soldier of peace assaults the wilderness, no bugles sound
+the charge; the forest, the desert, the wild beast, the savage, the
+malaria, the fatigue, are the foes that lurk to ambush him, and if,
+against the unequal odds, he falls, no volleys are fired above him; the
+pitiless world merely sponges his name from its slate.
+
+"Thus he blazes the trails, thus he fells the trees, thus he plants his
+rude stakes, thus he faces the hardships, and whatever fate awaits him,
+his self-contained soul keeps its finger on his lips, and no
+lamentations are heard.
+
+"He smooths the rugged fields, he turns the streams, and the only cheer
+that is his is when he sees the grain ripen, and the flowers bloom where
+before was only the frown of the wilderness. When over the trail that he
+has blazed, enlightenment comes joyously, with unsoiled sandals, and
+homes and temples spring up on the soil that was first broken by him,
+his youth is gone, hope has been chastened into silence within him; he
+realizes that he is but a back number.
+
+"Not one in a thousand realizes the texture of the manhood that has been
+exhausting itself within him; few comprehend his nature or have any
+conception of his work.
+
+"But he is content. The shadows of the wilderness have been chased away;
+the savage beast and savage man have retired before him; nature has
+brought her flowers to strew the steps of his old age; in his soul he
+feels that somewhere the record of his work and of his high thoughts has
+been kept; and so he smiles upon the younger generation and is content.
+
+"May that contentment be his to the end."
+
+It was an anniversary night in Pioneer Hall, in Virginia City, Nevada,
+one July night in 1878, and the foregoing were the closing words of a
+little impromptu speech that Alex Strong had delivered.
+
+A strange, many-sided man was Alex Strong. He was an Argonaut. When the
+first tide set in toward the Golden Coast, he, but a lad, with little
+save a pony and a gun, joined a train that had crossed the Missouri and
+was headed westward.
+
+The people in the company looked upon him as a mere boy, but, later,
+when real hardships were encountered and sickness came, the boy became
+the life of the company. When women and children drooped under the
+burdens and the fear of the wilderness, it was his voice that cheered
+them on; his gun secured the tender bit of antelope or grouse to tempt
+their failing appetites; his songs drove away the silence of the desert.
+He was for the company a lark at morn, a nightingale at night.
+
+Arriving in California, he sought the hills. When his claim would not
+pay he indicted scornful songs to show his "defiance of luck." Some of
+these were published in the mountain papers, and then a few people knew
+that somewhere in miner's garb a genius was hiding. Amid the hills, in
+his cabin, he was an incessant reader, and with his books, his friction
+against men and in the study of nature's mighty alphabet, as left upon
+her mountains, with the going by of the years he rounded into a
+cultured, alert, sometimes pathetic and sometimes boisterous man, but
+always a shrewd, all-around man of affairs.
+
+When we greet him he had been for several years a brilliant journalist.
+
+He had jumped up to make a little speech in Pioneer Hall, and the last
+words of his speech are given above.
+
+When he had finished another pioneer, Colonel Savage, was called upon.
+He was always prepared to make a speech. He delighted, moreover, in
+taking the opposite side to Strong. So springing to his feet, he cried
+out:
+
+"Too serious are the words of my friend. What of hardships, when youth,
+the beautiful, walks by one's side! What of danger when one feels a
+young heart throbbing in his breast!
+
+"Who talks of loneliness while as yet no fetter has been welded upon
+hope, while yet the unexplored and unpeopled portions of God's world
+beckon the brave to come to woo and to possess them!
+
+"The pioneers were not unhappy. The air is still filled with the echoes
+of the songs that they sung; their bright sayings have gone into the
+traditions; the impression which they made upon the world is a monument
+which will tell of their achievements, record their sturdy virtues and
+exalt their glorified names."
+
+As the Colonel ceased and some one else was called upon to talk, Strong
+motioned to Savage and both noiselessly sought some vacant seats in the
+rear of the hall.
+
+Colonel Savage was another genius. He was a young lawyer in New York
+when the first news of gold discoveries in California was carried to
+that city. He, with a hundred others, chartered a bark that was lying
+idle in the harbor, had her fitted up and loaded, and in her made a
+seven months' voyage around the Cape to San Francisco. He was the most
+versatile of the Argonauts. Every mood of poor human nature found a
+response in him. At a funeral he shamed the mourners by the sadness of
+his face; at a festival he added a sparkle to the wines; he could
+convulse a saloon with a story; he could read a burial service with a
+pathos that stirred every heart, and so his life ran on until when we
+find him he had been several years a leading member of a brighter bar
+than ever before was seen in a town of the size of Virginia City.
+
+He was a tall, handsome man, his face was classical, and all his
+bearing, even when all unbent, was that of a high-born, self-contained
+and self-respecting man.
+
+Strong, on the other hand, was of shorter statue; his face was the
+perfect picture of mirthfulness; there was a wonderful magnetism in his
+smile and hand-clasp; but when in repose a close look at his face
+revealed, below the mirthfulness, that calm which is the close attendant
+upon conscious power.
+
+As they reached their seats Alex spoke:
+
+"You were awfully good to-night, Colonel."
+
+"Of course; I always am. But what has awakened your appreciation
+to-night?"
+
+"I thought my speech was horrible."
+
+"For once it would require a brave man to doubt your judgment," said the
+Colonel, sententiously.
+
+"I was sure of it until I heard you speak; then I recovered my
+self-respect, believing that, by comparison, my speech would ring in the
+memories of the listeners, like a psalm."
+
+"You mean Sam, the town-crier and bootblack. His brain is a little weak,
+but his lungs are superb."
+
+"I believe you are jealous of his voice, Colonel. But sit down: I want
+to tell you about the most unregenerate soul on earth."
+
+"Proceed, Alex, only do not forget that under the merciful statutes of
+the State of Nevada no man is obliged to make statements which will
+criminate himself."
+
+"What a comfort that knowledge must be to you."
+
+"It often is. My heart is full of sympathy for the unfortunate, and more
+than once have I seen eyes grow bright when I have given that
+information to a client."
+
+"The study of that branch of law must have had a peculiar fascination to
+you."
+
+"Indeed, it did, Alex. At every point where the law draws the shield of
+its mercy around the accused, in thought it seemed made for one or
+another of my friends, and, mentally, I found myself defending one after
+the other of them."
+
+"Did you, at the same time, keep in thought the fact that in an
+emergency the law permits a man to plead his own cause?"
+
+"Never, on my honor. In those days my life was circumspect, even as it
+now is, and my associates--not as now--were so genteel that there was no
+danger of any suspicion attaching to me, because of the people I was
+daily seen with."
+
+"That was good for you, but what sort of reputations did your associates
+have?" asked Alex.
+
+"They went on from glory to glory. One became a conductor on a railroad,
+and in four years, at a salary of one hundred dollars per month, retired
+rich. One became a bank cashier, and three years later, through the
+advice of his physicians, settled in the soft climate of Venice, with
+which country we have no extradition treaty. Another one is a broker
+here in this city, and I am told, is doing so well that he hopes next
+year to be superintendent of a mine."
+
+"Why have you not succeeded better, Colonel, financially?"
+
+"I am too honest. Every day I stop law suits which I ought to permit to
+go on. Every day I do work for nothing which I ought to charge for. I
+tell you, Alex, I would sooner be right than be President."
+
+"I cannot, just now, recall any one who knows you, Colonel, who does not
+feel the same way about you."
+
+"That is because the most of my friends are dull, men, like yourself.
+But how prospers that newspaper?"
+
+"It is the same old, steady grind," replied Alex, thoughtfully. "I saw a
+blind horse working in a whim yesterday. As he went round and round,
+there seemed on his face a look of anxiety to find out how much longer
+that road of his was, and I said to him, compassionately: 'Old Spavin,
+you know something of what it is to work on a daily paper.' I went to
+the shaft and watched the buckets as they came up, and there was only
+one bucket of ore to ten buckets of waste. Then I went back to the horse
+and said to him: 'You do not know the fact, you blissfully ignorant old
+brute, but your work is mightily like ours, one bucket of ore to ten of
+waste.'"
+
+"How would you like to have me write an editorial for your paper?"
+
+"I should be most grateful," was the reply.
+
+"On what theme?"
+
+"Oh, you might make your own selection."
+
+"How would you like an editorial on----scoundrels?"
+
+"It would, with your experience, be truthfully written, doubtless, but
+Colonel, it is only now and then in good taste for a man to supply the
+daily journals with his own autobiography."
+
+"How modest you are. You did not forget that, despite the impersonality
+of journalism, you would have the credit of the article."
+
+"No, I was afraid of that credit, and I am poor enough now, Colonel; but
+really, that credit does not count. If, for five days in the week, I
+make newspapers, which my judgment tells me are passably good, it
+appears to me the only use that is made of them is for servant girls to
+kindle fires with, and do up their bangs in: but if, on the sixth day,
+my heart is heavy and my brain thick, and the paper next morning is
+poor, it seems to me that everybody in the camp looks curiously at me,
+as if to ascertain for a certainty, whether or no, I am in the early
+stages of brain softening."
+
+"A reasonable suspicion, I fancy, Alex; but what do you think of your
+brother editors of this coast as men and writers?"
+
+"Most of them are good fellows, and bright writers. If you knew under
+what conditions some of them work, you would take off your hat every
+time you met them."
+
+"To save my hat?" queried the Colonel. "But whom do you consider the
+foremost editor of the coast?"
+
+"There is no such person. Men with single thoughts and purposes, are, as
+a rule, the men who make marks in this world. For instance, just now,
+the single purpose of James G. Fair, is to make money through mining.
+Hence, he is a great miner, and he, now and then, I am told, manages to
+save a few dollars in the business. The dream of C. P. Huntington is to
+make money through railroads, so he builds roads, that he may collect
+more fares and freights, and he collects more fares and freights so that
+he may build more roads, and I believe, all in all, that he is the
+ablest, if not the coldest and most pitiless, railroad man in the world.
+The ruling thought of Andy Barlow is to be a fighter, and he can draw
+and shoot in the space of a lightning's flash. The dream of George
+Washington, he having no children, was to create and adopt a nation
+which should at once be strong and free, and the result is, his grave is
+a shrine. But, as the eight notes of the scale, in their combinations,
+fill the world with music--or with discords, so the work of an editor
+covers all the subjects on which men have ever thought, or ever will
+think, and the best that any one editor can do is to handle a few
+subjects well. Among our coast editors there is one with more marked
+characteristics, more flashes of genius, in certain directions, more
+contradictions and more pluck than any other one possesses.
+
+"That one is Henry Mighels, of Carson. I mention him because I have been
+thinking of him all day, and because I fear that his work is finished.
+The last we heard of him, was, that he was disputing with the surgeons
+in San Francisco, they telling him that he was fatally ill, and he,
+offering to wager two to one that they were badly mistaken."
+
+"Poor Henry," mused the Colonel; "he is a plucky man. I heard one of our
+rich men once try to get him to write something, or not to write
+something, I have forgotten which, and when Mighels declined to consent,
+the millionaire told him he was too poor to be so exceedingly
+independent. Here Mighels, in a low voice, which sounded to me like the
+purr of a tiger, said: 'You are quite mistaken, you do not know how rich
+I am. I have that little printing office at Carson; paper enough to last
+me for a week or ten days. I have a wife and three babies,' and then
+suddenly raising his voice, to the dangerous note, and bringing his fist
+down on the table before him with a crash, he shouted, '_and they are
+all mine_!'
+
+"The rich man looked at him, and, smiling, said: 'Don't talk like a
+fool, Mighels.' The old humor was all back in Mighels' face in an
+instant, as he replied, 'Was I talking like a fool, old man? What a
+sublime faculty I have of exactly gauging my conversation to the mental
+grasp of my listener!' But, Alex, do you not think there is a great deal
+of humbug about the much vaunted power of the press?"
+
+"There's gratitude for you. You ask _me_ such a question as that."
+
+"And why not?" inquired the Colonel.
+
+"You won a great suit last week, did you not--the case of Jones vs.
+Smith?"
+
+"Yes. It was wonderful; let me tell you about it."
+
+"No; spare me," cried Alex. "But how much did you receive for winning
+that case?"
+
+"I received a cool ten thousand dollars."
+
+"And you still ask about the influence of the press?"
+
+"Yes. Why should I not?"
+
+"Sure enough, why should you not? If you will stop and think you will
+know that three months ago you could not have secured a jury in the
+State that would have given you that verdict. There was a principle on
+trial that public opinion was pronounced against in a most marked
+manner. The press took up the discussion and fought it out. At length it
+carried public opinion with it. That thing has been done over and over
+right here. At the right time, your case, which hung upon that very
+point, was called. You think you managed it well. It was simply a
+walkover for you. The men with the Fabers had done the work for you. The
+jury unconsciously had made up their minds before they heard the
+complaint in the case read. The best thoughts in your argument you had
+unconsciously stolen from the newspapers, and the judge, looking as wise
+as an Arctic owl, unconsciously wrung half an editorial into his charge.
+You received ten thousand dollars, and to the end of his days your
+client will tell (heaven forgive his stupidity) what a lawyer you are,
+but ask him his opinion of newspaper men and he will shrug his
+shoulders, scowl, and with a donkey's air of wisdom, answer: 'Oh, they
+are necessary evils. We want the local news and the dispatches, and we
+have to endure them.'
+
+"I am glad you robbed him, Colonel. I wish you could rob them all. If a
+child is born to one of them we have to tell of it, and mention
+delicately how noble the father is and how lovely the mother is. If one
+of them dies we have to jeopardize our immortal souls trying to make out
+a character for him. They want us every day; we hold up their business
+and their reputations, beginning at the cradle, ending only at the
+grave."
+
+"What kind of character would you give me, were I to die?"
+
+"Try it, Colonel! Try it! And if 'over the divide' it should be possible
+for you to look back and read the daily papers, when your shade gets
+hold of my notice, I promise you it shall be glad that you are dead."
+
+"But what about that unregenerate soul that you were going to tell me
+of--has some broker sold out some widow's stocks?"
+
+"No: worse than that."
+
+"Has some one burglarized some hospital or orphan asylum?" suggested the
+Colonel.
+
+"Oh, no. Old Angus Jacobs, you know, is rich. Among strangers he parades
+his thin veneering of reading, and poses as though all his vaults were
+stuffed with reserves of knowledge. Well, while East last spring, he ran
+upon a distinguished publisher there, with whom he agreed that he would,
+on his return, write and send for publication an article on the West.
+
+"He came and begged me to write it, confessing that he had deceived the
+publisher, and asserting that, he must keep up the deception, or the
+integrity of the West would be injured in the estimation of that
+publisher.
+
+"I went to work, wrote an article, became enthused as I wrote, wrote it
+over, spent as much as three solid days upon it, and when it was
+finished I looked upon my work, and lo, it was good.
+
+"Then, at my own expense, I had it carefully copied and gave the copy to
+old Angus. He sent it East. To-day he received a dozen copies and a
+letter of profuse praise and thanks from the publisher.
+
+"I saw the old thief give one of the copies to a literary man from San
+Francisco, telling him, cheerfully, as he did, that he dashed the
+article off hastily, that most of the language was crude and awkward,
+but it might entertain him a little on the train going to San
+Francisco."
+
+"I never heard of anything meaner or more depraved than that,"
+indignantly remarked the Colonel, "except when I read the funeral
+service over an old Dutchman's child once, in Downieville. Speaking of
+it afterward, the old Hessian said:
+
+"'Dot Colonel's reading vos fine, but he dond vos haf dot prober look uf
+regret vot he ought to haf had'--but here comes the Professor."
+
+Professor Stoneman joined the pair, and when the greetings were over the
+Professor said:
+
+"I am just in from Eastern Nevada: went to Eureka to examine a mine
+owned by a jolly miner named Moore. It is a good one, too--a contact
+vein between lime and quartzite. The fellow worked, running a tunnel,
+all winter, and now he has struck, and cross-cut, his vein. It is fully
+seven feet thick, and rich. I asked him how he felt when at last he cut
+the vein.
+
+"'How did I feel, Professor,' he said, 'how did I feel? Why, General
+Jackson's overcoat would not have made a paper collar for me.'
+
+"There are a great many queer characters out that way. Moore is not a
+very well educated man. In Eureka I was telling about the mine--that
+Moore ought to make a fortune out of it--when a man standing by, a
+stranger to me, stretched up both his arms and cried: 'A fortune! Look
+at it, now! Moore is so unspeakably ignorant that he could not spell out
+the name of the Savior if it were written on White Pine Mountain in
+letters bigger than the Coast Range. But he strikes it rich! His kind
+always do.' Then he added, bitterly: 'If I could find a chimpanzee, I
+would draw up articles of copartnership with him in fifteen minutes.'
+
+"And then a quiet fellow, who was present, said: 'Jim, maybe the
+chimpanzee, after taking a good look at you, would not stand it.'
+
+"I was sitting in a barroom there one day, and a man was talking about
+the Salmon River mines, and insisting that they were more full of
+promise than anything in Nevada, when another man in the crowd earnestly
+said:
+
+"'If my brother were to write me that it was a good country, and advise
+me to come up there, I would not believe him.'
+
+"Quick as lightning, still another man responded: 'If we all knew your
+brother as well as you do, maybe none of us would believe him.'
+
+"That is the way they spend their time out there. But I secured some
+lovely specimens: specimens of ore, rare shells, some of the finest
+specimens of mirabilite of lead that I ever saw. It is a most
+interesting region. But I don't agree entirely with Clarence King on the
+geology of the district. You see King's theory is--"
+
+"Oh, hold on, Professor," said the Colonel, "it does not lack an hour of
+midnight. You have not time, positively. Heigh ho. Here is Wright. How
+is the mine, Wright?"
+
+"About two hundred tons lighter than it was this morning, I reckon,"
+replied Wright.
+
+"But tell us about the mine, Wright," said Alex, impatiently. "How is
+the temperature?"
+
+"How is your health?" responded Wright, jocularly. "If you do not expect
+to live long, you might come down and take some preparatory lessons;
+that is, if you anticipate joining the majority of newspaper men."
+
+"No, no; you are mistaken," said Alex. "You mean the Colonel. He is a
+lawyer, you know."
+
+"It is the Professor that needs the practice," chimed in the Colonel.
+"Just imagine him 'down below,' explaining to the gentleman in green how
+similar the formation is to a hot drift that he once found in the
+Comstock."
+
+"I will tell you a hotter place than any drift in the Comstock," said
+the Professor. "Put all the money that you have into stocks, having a
+dead pointer from a friend who is posted, buy on a margin, and then have
+the stocks begin to go down; that will start the perspiration on you."
+
+"We have all been in that drift," said Alex.
+
+"Indeed, we have," responded Wright.
+
+"I have lived in that climate for twelve years. One or two winters it
+kept me so warm that I did not need an overcoat or watch, so I loaned
+them to----'mine uncle,'" remarked the Colonel.
+
+"But, do you know any points on stocks, Wright?"
+
+"No, not certainly, Alex. I heard some rumors last night and ordered 100
+Norcross this morning. Some of the boys think it will jump up three or
+four dollars in the next ten days."
+
+"I took in a block of Utah yesterday. They are getting down pretty deep,
+and there is lots of unexplored ground in that mine," said the Colonel,
+quietly.
+
+The Professor, looking serious, said: "I have all my money the other
+way, in Justice and Silver Hill. They are not deep enough in the north
+end yet."
+
+Alex got up from his chair. "You are all mistaken," said he, "Overman is
+the best buy, but it is growing late and I must go to work. What shift
+are you on, Wright?"
+
+"I go on at seven in the morning. By the way, you should come up of an
+evening to our Club. We would be glad to see all three of you."
+
+"And pray, what do you mean by your Club?" asked the Colonel.
+
+"Why," said Wright, "I thought you knew. Three or four of us miners met
+up here one night last month. Joe Miller was in the party, and as we
+were drinking beer and talking about stocks, Miller proposed that we
+should hire a vacant house on the divide--the old Beckley House--and
+give up the boarding and lodging houses. We talked it all over, how
+shameful we had been going on, how we were spending all our money, how,
+if we had the house, we could save fifty or sixty dollars a month, and
+eat what we pleased, do what we pleased, and have a place in which to
+pass our leisure time without going to the saloons; so we picked up
+three or four more men, and, on last pay-day, moved in--seven of us in
+all--each man bringing his own chair, blankets and food. The latter, of
+course, was all put into common stock, and Miller had fixed everything
+else. Since then we have been getting along jolly.'"
+
+"But who makes up your company?" inquired Alex.
+
+"Oh, you know the whole outfit," answered Wright. "There is Miller, as I
+told you; there are, besides, Tom Carlin, old man Brewster, Herbert
+Ashley, Sammy Harding, Barney Corrigan and myself."
+
+"It is a good crowd; but you are not all working in the same mine, are
+you?" said the Professor, inquiringly.
+
+"Oh, no. Brewster is running a power-drill in the Bullion. He is a
+mechanic, you know, and not a real miner. Miller and Harding are in the
+Curry, Barney is in the Norcross, Carlin and Ashley are in the Imperial,
+and I in the Savage. But we all happen to be on the same shift, so, for
+this month at least, we have our evenings together."
+
+"It must be splendid," enthusiastically remarked the Colonel.
+
+"How do you spend your evenings?" asked Alex.
+
+"We talk on all subjects except politics. That subject, we agreed at the
+start, should not be discussed. We read and compare notes on stocks."
+
+"How do you manage about your cooking?" queried the Professor.
+
+"We have a Chinaman, who is a daisy. He is cook, housekeeper,
+chambermaid, and would be companion and musician if we could stand it.
+You must come up and see us."
+
+"I will come to-morrow evening," Alex replied, eagerly.
+
+"So will I," said the Colonel, with a positiveness that was noticeable.
+
+"And so will I," shouted the Professor.
+
+Just then the eleven o'clock whistles sounded up and down the lead.
+"That is our signal for retiring," said Wright, "and so good night."
+
+"Let us go out and take a night cap, first," said the Colonel.
+
+"Well, if I must," said Wright. "Though the rule of our Club is only a
+little for medicine."
+
+The night caps were ordered and swallowed. Then the men separated, the
+Colonel, Professor and Wright going home, the journalist to his work.
+
+Professor Stoneman was a character. Tall and spare, with such an outline
+as Abraham Lincoln had. He was fifty years of age, with grave and serene
+face when in repose, and with the mien of one of the faculty of a
+university. Still he had that nature which caused him when a boy to run
+away from his Indiana home to the Mexican war, and he fought through all
+that long day at Buena Vista, a lad of eighteen years. Of course he was
+with the first to reach California. He had tried mining and many other
+things, but the deeper side of his nature was to pursue the
+sciences--the lighter to mingle with good fellows. He would tell a story
+one moment and the next would combat a scientific theory with the most
+learned of the Eastern scientists, and carry away from the controversy
+the full respect of his opponent. There was a great fund of merriment
+within him, and his generosity not only kept his bank account a minus
+number, but moreover, kept his heart aching that he had no more to give.
+When by himself he was an incessant student, and beside knowing all that
+the books taught, he had his own ideas of their correctness, especially
+those that deal with the formation of ore deposits. He was a learned
+writer, a gifted lecturer and an expert of mines, and, over all, the
+most genial of men.
+
+Adrian Wright was of another stamp altogether. He was tall and strong,
+with large feet and hands, a massive man in all respects, and forty-five
+years of age.
+
+He had a cool and brave gray eye, a firm, strong mouth, very light brown
+hair and carried always with him a something which first impressed those
+who saw him with his power, while a second look gave the thought that
+beside the power which was visible, he had unmeasured reserves of
+concealed force which he could call upon on demand.
+
+He went an uncultured lad to California. He was at first a placer miner.
+Obtaining a good deal of money he became a mountain trader and the owner
+of a ditch, which supplied some hydraulic grounds. He was brusque in his
+address, said "whar" and "thar," but his head was large and firmly
+poised; his heart was warm as a child's, and he was loved for his clear,
+good sense and for the sterling manhood which was apparent in all his
+ways. Though uncultured in the schools, he had read a great deal, and,
+mixing much with men, his judgment had matured, until in his mountain
+hamlet his word had become an authority.
+
+His friends persuaded him to become a candidate for the State
+Legislature. After he had consented to run he spent a good deal of money
+in the campaign. He was elected and went to Sacramento. There he was
+persuaded to buy largely of Comstock stocks. He bought on a margin. When
+it came time to put up more money he could not without borrowing. He
+would not do that through fear that he could not pay. He lost the
+stocks. He went home in the spring to find that his clerks had given
+large credits to miners; the hydraulic mines ceased to pay, which
+rendered his ditch property valueless, and a few days later his store
+burned down. When his debts were paid he had but a few hundred dollars
+left. He said nothing about his reverses, but went to Virginia City and
+for several years had been working in the mines.
+
+As already said, a miners' mess had been formed. Seven miners on the
+Comstock might be picked out who would pretty nearly represent the whole
+world.
+
+This band had been drawn together partly because of certain traits that
+they possessed in common, though they were each distinctly different
+from all the others.
+
+We have read of Wright. Of the others, James Brewster, was the eldest of
+the company. He was fifty years of age, and from Massachusetts. He was
+not tall, but was large and powerful.
+
+There were streaks of gray in his hair, but his eyes were clear, and
+black as midnight. He had a bold nose and invincible mouth; the
+expression of his whole face was that of a resolute, self-contained, but
+kindly nature. All his movements were quick and positive.
+
+He was educated, and though of retiring ways, when he talked everybody
+near him listened. He was not a miner, but a mechanical engineer, and
+his work was the running of power drills in the mine. He never talked
+much of his own affairs, but it was understood that misfortune in
+business had caused him to seek the West somewhat late in life. The
+truth was he had never been rich. He possessed a moderately prosperous
+business until a long illness came to his wife, and when the depression
+which followed the reaction from the war and the contraction of the
+currency fell upon the North, he found he had little left, and so sought
+a new field.
+
+He was the Nestor of the Club and was exceedingly loved by his
+companions.
+
+Miller, who first proposed the Club, was a New Yorker by birth, a man
+forty-five years of age, medium height, keen gray eyes, a clear-cut,
+sharp face, slight of build, but all nerve and muscle, and lithe as a
+panther. He had been for a quarter of a century on the west coast, and
+knew it well from British Columbia to Mexico, and from the Rocky
+Mountains to the Pacific.
+
+He was given a good education in his youth; he had mingled with all
+sorts of men and been engaged in all kinds of business. There was a
+perpetual flash to his eyes, and a restlessness upon him which made him
+uneasy if restrained at all. He had the reputation of being inclined to
+take desperate chances sometimes, but was honorable, thoroughly, and
+generous to a fault.
+
+He had studied men closely, and of Nature's great book he was a constant
+reader. He knew the voices of the forests and of the streams; he had a
+theory that the world was but a huge animal; that if we were but wise
+enough to understand, we should hear from Nature's own voices the story
+of the world and hear revealed all her profound secrets.
+
+He possessed a magnetism which drew friends to him everywhere. His hair
+was still unstreaked with gray, but his face was care-worn, like that of
+one who had been dissipated or who had suffered many disappointments.
+
+Carlin was twenty-eight years of age, long of limb, angular, gruff, but
+hearty; quick, sharp and shrewd, but free-handed and generally in the
+best of humors. He was an Illinois man, and a good type of the men of
+the Old West.
+
+His eyes were brown, his hair chestnut; erect, he was six feet in
+height, but seated, there seemed to be no place for his hands and hardly
+room enough for his feet. He was well-educated, and had been but three
+and a half years on the Comstock.
+
+All the Californians in the Club insisted, of course, that there was no
+other place but that, but this Carlin always vehemently denied, for he
+came from the State of Lincoln and Douglas, and the State, moreover,
+that had Chicago in one corner of it, and he did not believe there was
+another such State in all the Republic.
+
+Ashley was from Pennsylvania; a young man of twenty-five, above medium
+height, compact as a tiger in his make-up, and weighing, perhaps, one
+hundred and eighty pounds. His eyes were gray, his hair brown, his face
+almost classic in its outlines; his feet and hands were particularly
+small and finely formed, and there was a jollity and heartiness about
+his laugh which was contagious. He had an excellent education, and had
+seen a good deal of business in his early manhood.
+
+Corrigan was a thorough Irishman, generous, warm-hearted, witty,
+sociable, brave to recklessness, curly-haired, with laughing, blue eyes;
+the most open and frank of faces that was ever smiling, powerfully built
+and ready at a moment's notice to fight anyone or give anyone his purse.
+
+Everybody knew and liked him, and he liked everybody that, as he
+expressed it, was worth the liking.
+
+He had come to America a lad of ten. He lived for twelve years in New
+York City, attended the schools, and was in his last year in the High
+School when, for some wild freak, he had been expelled. He worked two
+years in a Lake Superior copper mine, then went to California and worked
+there until lured to Nevada by the silver mines, and had been on the
+Comstock five years when the Club was formed.
+
+Harding was the boy of the company, only twenty-two years of age, a
+native California lad. But he was hardly a type of his State.
+
+His eyes were that shade of gray which looks black in the night; his
+hair was auburn. He had a splendid form, though not quite filled out;
+his head was a sovereign one.
+
+But he was reticent almost to seriousness, and it was in this respect
+that he did not seem quite like a California boy. There was a reason for
+it. He was the son of an Argonaut who had been reckless in business and
+most indulgent to his boy. He had a big farm near Los Angeles, and
+shares in mines all over the coast. The boy had grown up half on the
+farm and half in the city. He was an adept in his studies; he was just
+as much an adept when it came to riding a wild horse.
+
+He had gained a good education and was just entering the senior class in
+college when his father suddenly died. He mourned for him exceedingly,
+and when his affairs were investigated it was found there was a mortgage
+on the old home.
+
+He believed there was a future for the land. So he made an arrangement
+to meet the interest on the mortgage annually, then went to San
+Francisco, obtained an order for employment on a Comstock
+superintendent, went at once to Virginia City and took up his regular
+labor as a miner. He had been thus employed for a year when the Club was
+formed.
+
+This was the company that had formed a mess. Miller had worked up the
+scheme.
+
+It had been left to Miller to prepare the house--to buy the necessary
+materials for beginning housekeeping, like procuring the dishes, knives
+and forks and spoons, and benches or cheap chairs, for the dining room,
+and it was agreed to begin on the next pay day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+About four o'clock in the afternoon of the day appointed for commencing
+housekeeping, our miners gathered at this new home. The provisions,
+bedding and chairs had been sent in advance, in care of Miller, who had
+remained above ground that day, in order to have things in apple-pie
+shape. The chairs were typical of the men. Brewster's was a common,
+old-fashioned, flag-bottomed affair, worth about three dollars. Carlin
+and Wright each had comfortable armchairs; Ashley and Harding had neat
+office chairs, while Miller and Corrigan each had heavy upholstered
+armchairs, which cost sixty dollars each.
+
+When all laughed at Brewster's chair, he merely answered that it would
+do, and when Miller and Corrigan were asked what on earth they had
+purchased such out-of-place furniture for, to put in a miner's cabin,
+Miller answered: "I got trusted and didn't want to make a bill for
+nothing," and Corrigan said: "To tell the truth, I was not over-much
+posted on this furniture business, I did not want to invest in too chape
+an article, so I ordered the best in the thavin' establishment, because
+you know a good article is always chape, no matter what the cost may
+be."
+
+The next thing in order was to compare the bills for provisions.
+Brewster drew his bill from his pocket and read as follows: Twenty
+pounds bacon, $7.50; forty pounds potatoes, $1.60; ten pounds coffee,
+$3.75; one sack flour, $4.00; cream tartar and salaratus, $1.00; ten
+pounds sugar, $2.75; pepper, salt and mustard, $1.50; ten pounds prunes,
+$2.50; one bottle XXX for medicine, $2.00; total, $32.60.
+
+The bill was receipted. The bills of Wright and Harding each comprised
+about the same list, and amounted to about the same sum. They, too, were
+receipted. The funny features were that each one had purchased nearly
+similar articles, and the last item on each of the bills was a charge of
+$2.00 for medicine. It had been agreed that no liquor should be bought
+except for medicine.
+
+The bills of Carlin and Ashley were not different in variety, but each
+had purchased in larger quantities, so that those bills footed up about
+$45 each. On each of the bills, too, was an item of $4.75 for demijohn
+and "half gallon of whisky for medicine." All were receipted.
+
+Corrigan's bill amounted to $73, including one-half gallon of whisky and
+one bottle of brandy "for medicine," and his too was receipted.
+
+Miller read last. His bill had a little more variety, and amounted to
+$97.16. The last item was: "To demijohn and one gallon whisky for
+medicine, $8.00." On this bill was a credit for $30.00.
+
+A general laugh followed the reading of these bills. The variety
+expected was hardly realized, as Corrigan remarked: "The bills lacked
+somewhat in versatility, but there was no doubt about there being plenty
+of food of the kind and no end to the medicine."
+
+When the laugh had subsided, Brewster said: "Miller estimated that our
+provisions would not cost to exceed $15.00 per month apiece. I tried to
+be reasonable and bought about enough for two months, but here we have a
+ship load. Why did you buy out a store, Miller?"
+
+"I had to make a bill and I did not want the grocery man to think we
+were paupers," retorted Miller.
+
+"How much were the repairs on the house, Miller?" asked Carlin.
+
+"There's the beggar's bill. It's a dead swindle, and I told him so. He
+ought to have been a plumber. He had by the Eternal. He has no more
+conscience than a police judge. Here's the scoundrel's bill," said
+Miller, excitedly, as he proceeded to read the following:
+
+"'To repairing roof, $17.50; twenty battens, $4.00; to putting on
+battens, $3.00; hanging one door, $3.50; six lights glass, $3.00;
+setting same, $3.00; lumber, $4.80; putting up bunks, $27.50; total,
+$66.30.'
+
+"The man is no better than a thief; if he is, I'm a sinner."
+
+"You bought some dishes, did you not, Miller?" inquired Ashley. "How
+much did they amount to?"
+
+"There's another scalper," answered Miller, warmly. "I told him we
+wanted a few dishes, knives, forks, etc.--just enough for seven men to
+cabin with--and here is the bill. It foots up $63.37. A bill for wood
+also amounts to $15.00; two extra chairs, $6.00."
+
+Brewster, who had been making a memorandum, spoke up and said: "If I
+have made no error the account stands as follows:
+
+    Provisions                                  $357 56
+    Crockery, knives, forks, etc.                 53 37
+    Wood                                          19 00
+    Repairs                                       66 50
+    One month's rent                              50 00
+    One month's water                              7 00
+    Chairs                                         6 00
+                                                -------
+    Making a total of                           $559 43
+
+Or, in round numbers, eighty dollars per capita for us all. I settled my
+account at the store, amounting to $32.60, which leaves $47.40 as my
+proportion of the balance. Here is the money."
+
+This was like Brewster. Some of the others settled and a part begged-off
+until next pay-day.
+
+The next question was about the cooking. After a brief debate it was
+determined that all would join in getting up the first supper. So one
+rushed to a convenient butcher shop and soon returned with a basket full
+of porter house steaks, sweetbreads and lamb chops; another prepared the
+potatoes and put them in the oven; another attended to the fire; another
+to setting the table. Brewster was delegated to make the coffee. To
+Corrigan was ascribed the task of cooking the meats, while Miller
+volunteered to make some biscuits that would "touch their hearts."
+
+He mixed the ingredients in the usual way and thoroughly kneaded the
+dough. He then, with the big portion of a whisky bottle for a
+rolling-pin, rolled the dough out about a fourth of an inch thick. He
+then touched it gently all over with half melted butter; rolled the thin
+sheet into a large roll; then with the bottle reduced this again to the
+required thickness for biscuits, and, with a tumbler, cut them out. His
+biscuit trick he had learned from an old Hungarian, who, for a couple of
+seasons, had been his mining partner. It is an art which many a fine
+lady would be glad to know. The result is a biscuit which melts like
+cream in the mouth--like a fair woman's smile on a hungry eye. Corrigan
+had his sweetbreads frying, and when the biscuits were put in the oven,
+the steak and chops were put on to broil. The steak had been salted and
+peppered--miner's fashion--and over it slices of bacon, cut thin as
+wafers, had been laid. The bacon, under the heat, shriveled up and
+rolled off into the fire, but not until the flavor had been given to the
+steak. One of the miners had opened a couple of cans of preserved
+pine-apples; the coffee was hot, the meats and the biscuits were ready,
+and so the simple supper was served. Harding had placed the chairs;
+Brewster's was at the head of the table.
+
+Corrigan waited until all the others had taken their seats at the table;
+then, with a glass in his hand and a demijohn thrown over his right
+elbow, he stepped forward and said:
+
+"To didicate the house, and also as a medicine, I prescribe for aitch
+patient forty drops."
+
+Each took his medicine resignedly, and as the last one returned the
+glass, Corrigan added: "It appears to me I am not faling ony too well
+meself," and either as a remedy or preventive, he took some of the
+medicine.
+
+The supper was ravenously swallowed by the men, who for months had eaten
+nothing but miners' boarding-house fare. With one voice they declared
+that it was the first real meal they had eaten for weeks, and over their
+coffee they drank long life to housekeeping and confusion to
+boarding-houses.
+
+When the supper was over and the things put away, the pipes were
+lighted. By this time the shadow of Mount Davidson around them had
+melted into the gloom of the night, and for the first time in months
+these men settled themselves down to spend an evening at home. It was a
+new experience.
+
+"It is just splendid," cried Wright. "No beer, no billiards, no painted
+nymphs, no chance for a row. We have been sorry fools for months--for
+years, for that matter--or we would have opened business at this stand
+long ago."
+
+"We have, indeed," said Ashley. "To-night we make a new departure. What
+shall we call our mess?"
+
+Many names were suggested, but finally "The Comstock Club" was proposed
+and nominated by acclamation.
+
+[Illustration: THE COMSTOCK CLUB.]
+
+It was agreed, too, that no other members, except honorary members,
+should be admitted, and no politics talked. Then the conversation became
+general, and later, confidential; and each member of the Club uncovered
+a little his heart and his hopes.
+
+Miller meant, so soon as he "made a little stake," to go down to San
+Francisco and assault the stock sharps right in their Pine and
+California street dens. He believed he had discovered the rule which
+could reduce stock speculation to an exact science, and he was anxious
+for the opportunity which a little capital would afford, "to show those
+sharpers at the Bay a trick or two, which they had never yet 'dropped
+on.'" He added, patronizingly: "I will loan you all so much money, by
+and by, that each of you will have enough to start a bank."
+
+"I shtarted a bank alridy, all be mesilf, night before last," said
+Corrigan.
+
+"What kind of a bank was it, Barney?" asked Harding.
+
+"One of King Pharo's. I put a twenty-dollar pace upon the Quane; that
+shtarted the bank. The chap on the other side of the table commenced to
+pay out the pictures, and the Quane----"
+
+"Well, what of the Queen, Barney?" asked Carlin.
+
+"She fill down be the side of the sardane box, and the chap raked in me
+double agle."
+
+"How do you like that style of banking, Barney?" asked Ashley.
+
+"Oh! Its mighty plisant and enthertainin', of course; the business sames
+to be thransacted with a grate dale of promptness and dispatch; the only
+drawback seems to be that the rates of ixchange are purty high."
+
+Tom Carlin knew of a great farm, a store, a flour mill, and a hazel-eyed
+girl back in Illinois. He coveted them all, but was determined to
+possess the girl anyway.
+
+After a little persuasion, he showed her picture to the Club. They all
+praised it warmly, and Corrigan declared she was a daisy. In a neat hand
+on the bottom of the picture was written: "With love, Susie Richards."
+Carlin always referred to her as "Susie Dick."
+
+Harding, upon being rallied, explained that his father came with the
+Argonauts to the West; that he was brilliant, but over-generous; that he
+had lived fast and with his purse open to every one, and had died while
+yet in his prime, leaving an encumbered estate, which must be cleared of
+its indebtedness, that no stain might rest upon the name of Harding.
+There was a gleam in the dark eyes, and a ring to the voice of the boy
+as he spoke, that kindled the admiration of the Club, and when he ceased
+speaking, Miller reached out and shook his hand, saying: "You should
+have the money, my boy!"
+
+Back in Massachusetts, Brewster had met with a whole train of
+misfortunes; his property had become involved; his wife had died--his
+voice lowered and grew husky when mentioning this--he had two little
+girls, Mable and Mildred. He had kept his children at school and paid
+their way despite the iron fortune that had hedged him about, and he was
+working to shield them from all the sorrows possible, without the aid of
+the Saint who had gone to heaven. The Club was silent for a moment, when
+the strong man added, solemnly, and as if to himself: "Who knows that
+she does not help us still?"
+
+In his youth, Brewster acquired the trade of an engineer. At this time,
+as we learned before, he was running a power drill in the Bullion. He
+was a great reader and was thorough on many subjects.
+
+Wright had his eyes on a stock range in California, where the land was
+cheap, the pasturage fine, the water abundant, and where, with the land
+and a few head of stock for a beginning, a man would in a few years be
+too rich to count his money. He had been accustomed to stock, when a
+boy, in Missouri, and was sure that there was more fun in chasing a wild
+steer with a good mustang, than finding the biggest silver mine in
+America.
+
+Ashley had gained some new ideas since coming West. He believed he knew
+a cheap farm back in Pennsylvania, that, with thorough cultivation,
+would yield bountifully. There were coal and iron mines there also,
+which he could open in a way to make old fogies in that country open
+their eyes. He knew, too, of a district there, where a man, if he
+behaved himself, might be elected to Congress. It was plain, from his
+talk, that he had some ambitious plans maturing in his mind.
+
+Corrigan had an old mother in New York. He was going to have a few acres
+of land after awhile in California, where grapes and apricots would
+grow, and chickens and pigs would thrive and be happy. He was going to
+fix the place to his own notion, then was going to send for his mother,
+and when she came, every day thereafter he was going to look into the
+happiest old lady's eyes between the seas.
+
+So they talked, and did not note how swiftly the night was speeding,
+until the deep whistle of the Norcross hoisting engine sounded for the
+eleven o'clock shift, and in an instant was followed by all the whistles
+up and down the great lode.
+
+Then the good nights were said, and in ten minutes the lights were
+extinguished and the mantles of night and silence were wrapped around
+the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+An early breakfast was prepared by the whole Club, as the supper of the
+previous evening had been. The miners had to be at the mines, where they
+worked, promptly at 7 o'clock, to take the places of the men who had
+worked since eleven o'clock the previous night.
+
+While at breakfast the door of the house was softly opened and a
+Chinaman showed his face. He explained that he was a "belly good cook,"
+and would like to work for ten dollars a week.
+
+Carlin was nearest the door, and in a bantering tone opened a
+conversation with the Mongolian.
+
+"What is your name, John?"
+
+"Yap Sing."
+
+"Are you a good cook, sure, Yap?"
+
+"Oh, yes, me belly good cook; me cookie bleef-steak, chickie, turkie,
+goosie; me makie bled, pie, ebbything; me belly good cook."
+
+"Have you any cousins, Yap?"
+
+"No cuzzie; no likie cuzzie."
+
+"Do you get drunk, Yap?"
+
+"No gettie glunk; no likie blandy."
+
+"Do you smoke opium?"
+
+"No likie smokie opium. You sabe, one man smokie opium, letee while he
+all same one fool; all same one d----d monkey."
+
+"Suppose we were to hire you, Yap, how long would it take you to steal
+everything in the ranch?"
+
+"Me no stealie; me no likie stealie."
+
+"Now, Yap, suppose we hire you and we all go off to the mines and leave
+you here, and some one comes and wants to buy bacon and beans and flour
+and sugar, what would you do?"
+
+"Me no sellie."
+
+"Suppose some one comes and wants to steal things, what then?"
+
+"Me cuttie his ears off; me cuttie his d----d throat."
+
+At this Brewster interposed and said: "I believe it would be a good idea
+to engage this Chinaman. We are away and the place is unprotected all
+day; besides, after a man has worked all day down in the hot levels of
+the Comstock, he does not feel like cooking his own dinner. Let us give
+John a trial."
+
+It was agreed to. Yap Sing was duly installed. He was instructed to have
+supper promptly at six o'clock; orders were given him on the markets for
+fresh meat, vegetables, etc. From the remnants of the breakfast the
+dinner buckets were filled and the men went away to their work.
+
+Yap Sing proved to be an artist in his way. When the members of the Club
+met again at their home, a splendid, hot supper was waiting for them.
+They ate, as hungry miners do, congratulating themselves that, as it
+were from the sky, an angel of a heathen had dropped down upon them.
+
+After supper, when the pipes were lighted, the conversation of the
+previous evening was resumed.
+
+The second night brought out something of the history of each. They had
+nearly all lived in California; some had wandered the Golden Coast all
+over; all had roughed it, and all had an experience to relate. These
+evening visits soon became very enjoyable to the members of the Club,
+and the friendship of the members for each other increased as they the
+more thoroughly, knew the inner lives of each other.
+
+On this night, Wright was the last to speak of himself. When he had
+concluded, Ashley said to him: "Wright, you have had some lively
+experiences. What is the most impressive scene that you ever witnessed?"
+
+"I hardly know." Wright replied. "I think maybe a mirage that was
+painted for me, one day, out on the desert, this side of the sink of the
+Humbolt, when I was crossing the plains, shook me up about as much as
+anything that ever overtook me, except the chills and fever, which I
+used to have when a boy, back in Missouri. For only a picture it was
+right worrisome."
+
+The Club wanted to hear about it, and so Wright proceeded as follows:
+
+"We had been having rough times for a good while; thar had been sickness
+in the train; some of the best animals had been poisoned with alkali;
+thar had been some Injun scares--it was in '57--and we all had been
+broken, more or less, of our rest, I in particular, was a good deal
+jolted up; was nervous and full of starts and shivers. I suspect thar
+was a little fever on me. We halted one morning on the desert, to rest
+the stock, and make some coffee. It was about eight o'clock. We had been
+traveling since sundown the night before, crossing the great desert, and
+hoped to reach Truckee River that afternoon.
+
+"While resting, a mighty desire took possession of me to see the river,
+and to feel that the desert was crossed.
+
+"I had a saddle mule that was still in good condition. I had petted him
+since he was three days old, had broken him, and he and myself were the
+best of friends. His mother was a thoroughbred Kentucky mare; from her
+he had inherited his courage and staying qualities, while he had also
+just enough of his father's stubbornness to be useful, for it held his
+heart up to the work when things got rough.
+
+"I looked over the train; it was all right; I was not needed; would not
+be any more that day.
+
+"The mule was brought up in the Osage hills, and I had named him Osage,
+which after awhile became contracted to Sage. I went to him and looked
+him over. He was quietly munching a bacon sack. I took a couple of
+quarts of wheaten flour, mixed it into a soft paste, with water from one
+of the kegs which had been brought along, and gave it to him. He drank
+it as a hungry boy drinks porridge, and licked the dish clean. The
+journey had impressed upon him the absolute need of exercising the
+closest economy.
+
+"When he had finished his rather light breakfast, I whispered to him
+that if he would stand in with me, I would show him, before night, the
+prettiest stream of water--snow water--in the world. I think he
+understood me perfectly. Telling the people of the train that I would go
+ahead and look out a camping place, I took my shotgun, put a couple of
+biscuits in my pocket, and mounted Sage. He struck out at once on his
+long swinging walk.
+
+"It was an August morning and had been hot ever since the sun rose. That
+is a feature out thar on the desert in the summer. The nights get cold,
+but so soon as the sun comes up, it is like going down into the
+Comstock. In fifteen minutes everything is steaming. Old Ben Allen, down
+on the borders of the Cherokee Nation, never of a morning, warmed up his
+niggers any livelier than the sun does the desert.
+
+"I rode for a couple of hours. As I said, I was weak and nervous. In the
+sand, Sage's feet hardly made any sound, and the glare and the silence
+of the desert were around and upon me. If you never experienced it you
+don't know what the silence of the desert means. Take a day when the
+winds are laid; when in all directions, as far as your vision extends,
+thar is not a moving thing; when all that you can see is the brazen sky
+overhead, and the scarred breast of the earth, as if smitten and
+transfixed by Thor's thunderbolts, lying prone and desolate like the
+face of a dead world, before you; and withal not one sound: absolute
+stillness; and strong nerves after awhile become strained. On me, that
+forenoon, my surroundings became almost intolerable. I had been on foot
+driving team all night; I had eaten nothing since midnight, and then had
+only forced down a small slice of bread and a cup of horrible black
+coffee, and was really not more than half myself. One moment I was
+chilly; the next was perspiring, and sometimes it seemed as though I
+should suffocate. With my nerves strung up as they were, I guess it
+would not have required much to give me a panic.
+
+"Just then, out against the sun to the southward, and apparently a mile
+away, I saw something. Talk about being impressed! that was my time. I
+was sure I saw five hundred Indian warriors, all mounted. They were
+wheeling in black squadrons on the desert, wheeling and forming, as I
+thought. Horses and men were all black, and now and then as they wheeled
+or swung to and fro, I marked what I was sure was the gleam of steel.
+They evidently had seen me: I expected every moment to hear their yell
+and wondered that I did not feel the tremble of the earth beneath their
+horses' feet; I was too nearly paralyzed to try to escape. I slipped or
+fell, I don't know which, from my mule, and lay panting like a tired
+hound upon the sand. But I could not keep my eyes from the terrible
+sight before me. Still those tawny warriors kept wheeling and forming,
+and as I believed, menacing me.
+
+"At length I grew a little calmer, and remember that I explained to
+myself that the reason I did not hear the thunder of their horses' feet,
+was because of the sand, and from the fact that the ponies could not be
+shod. But I wondered more and more where an Indian tribe could get so
+many black horses.
+
+"Once, when they seemed particularly furious, and just on the point of
+charging down upon me; I remember that I said to myself: 'If they eat me
+they will have to broil me in the sun, for thar is no fuel here.' All
+the time too, I was pitying Sage, and my own voice frightened me as I
+unconsciously said: 'Poor Sage, it is a hard fate to be faithful and
+suffer as you have and then fall into the hands of savages.'
+
+"When a little more under my own control, I cautiously rose to my feet
+and looked at the mule. It was no use. On top of the fatigue of coming
+quite two thousand miles, he had, on that morning, been constantly
+traveling for fourteen hours, with only two rests of thirty minutes
+each. He never could get away from those fresh ponies. I looked back in
+the direction of the train; it was nowhar in sight and must have been
+back probably five miles.
+
+"In this strait I looked up again toward my savages. At that very moment
+the charge commenced; the whole array was bearing down upon me. I took
+my gun from the horn of the saddle and sat down on the ground. I
+felt--but no matter how I felt; I only know that at that moment I would
+have given my note for a large sum to have been back in Missouri.
+
+"On they swept, and I watched them coming. But somehow they began to
+grow smaller and smaller, and in an instant more the squadron vanished.
+Where the moment before an armed band, terrible with life and bristling
+with fury, had shone upon my eyes, now all that there was to be seen was
+a flock of perhaps twenty ravens, flying with short flights, and hopping
+and lighting around some little thing, which lay above the level of the
+desert. I mounted Sage and rode out to the spot, some four hundred yards
+away.
+
+"I found another road, and strung along it, were the carcasses of a good
+many cattle that had died in emigrant trains. The ravens were hopping
+about these carcasses and flying from one to another. I had heard of the
+mirage of the desert, when a boy in school, and suddenly 'I dropped
+upon' the whole business. By some mighty refraction of the beams of
+light, these miserable scavengers of the desert had been magnified into
+formidable, mounted warriors, and the glint of steel that I had seen,
+was but the shimmer of sunbeams upon their black wings.
+
+"Again I headed Sage for the river. In a little while he commenced to
+stretch out his nose; soon, of his own accord, he quickened his pace to
+a trot, a little later he took up his long lope and never relaxed his
+speed until he drove his nose into the delicious water of the Truckee. I
+dismounted and joined him. Right there we each took the biggest and
+longest drink of our lives; then I gave Sage one of my biscuits and ate
+the other myself, and we both felt immensely refreshed. I stripped the
+saddle and bridle from the mule and let him go. The river bank was green
+with grass and Sage was happy.
+
+"Throwing myself upon the ground, and laying my head upon the saddle, I
+composed myself for a sleep.
+
+"I was greatly in need of sleep, but the moment I closed my eyes, here
+came my black cavalry charging down upon me again, and I sprang up with
+a cry. Of all impressive scenes, that was my biggest one sure. I see it
+in my dreams still, at times, and I never, from this mountain side, look
+down to where the sand clouds are piling up their dunes over toward the
+Sink of the Carson, that I do not instinctively take one furtive glance
+in search of my savages."
+
+"I had a livelier mirage than that once," said Miller with a laugh. "I
+was prospecting for quartz in the foothills of Rogue River Valley,
+Oregon, and looking up, I thought I saw four or five deer, lying under a
+tree, on a hill side, about three hundred yards away. I raised the sight
+on my gun, took as good aim as I could on horseback, and blazed away.
+
+"In a second, four of those Rogue River Indians sprang from the ground
+and made for me. I had a good horse, but they ran me six miles before
+they gave up the chase. No more mirages like that for me, if you
+please."
+
+"I had a worse one than either of yees," chimed in Corrigan. "It was in
+that tough winter of '69. I had been placer mining up by Pine Grove, in
+California, all summer. I had a fair surface claim, and by wurking half
+the time, I paid me way and had a few dollars besides. The other half of
+the time I was wurking upon a dape cut, through bid rock, to get a fall
+in which I could place heavy sluices, and calculated that with the
+spring I could put in a pipe, and hydraulic more ground in one sason
+than I could wurk in the ould way in tin. One day, late in the autumn, I
+went up to La Porte to buy supplies, and on the night that I made that
+camp it began to snow. When once it got shtarted, it just continued to
+snow, as it can up in those mountains, and niver "lit up" for four hours
+at a time for thray wakes. It began to look as though the glacial period
+had returned to the wurld.
+
+"When I wint into town, I put up at Mrs. O'Kelly's boardin' and lodgin'
+house. Mrs. O'Kelly was a big woman, weighin' full two hundred pounds,
+and she was a business woman. She didn't pretind to be remainin' in La
+Porte jist for her hilth.
+
+"But there was a beautiful girl waitin' on the table in Mrs. O'Kelly's
+home. Her name was Maggie Murphy, and she was as thrim and purty a girl
+as you would wish to mate. She had bright, cheery ways, and whin she
+wint up to a table and sung out 'Soup'? all the crockery in the dinin'
+room would dance for joy.
+
+"Of an avenin' I used, after a few days, to visit a bit with Maggie.
+Some one had told about the camp that I had a great mine, and was all
+solid, and I was willin' to have the delusion kipt up, anyway until the
+storm saised. Maggie, I have a suspicion, had hurd the same story, for
+she was exceedingly gracious loike to me. One avenin,' as I was sayin'
+'good night'--we were growin' mighty familiar loike thin--I said
+'Maggie,' says I, 'the last woman I iver kissed was my ould mother, may
+I not kiss you, for I love you, darlint?' 'Indade you shall not,' says
+she, but in spite of that, somethin' in her eyes made me bould loike,
+and I saised upon and hild her--but she did not hould so very hard--and
+I kissed her upon chake and lips and eyes, and me arms were around her,
+and her heart was throbbin' warm against mine, and me soul was in the
+siventh heaven.
+
+"After awhile we quieted down a bit, and with me arms shtill around her,
+I asked, didn't she think Corrigan was a purtier name nor Murphy, and as
+I could not change my name fur her sake, wouldn't she change hers fur
+moine?
+
+"Thin with the tears shinin' loike shtars in her beautiful eyes, she
+raised up her arms, let thim shtale round me neck, and layin' her chake
+against me breast, which was throbbin' loike a stone bruise, said, said
+she, 'Yis, Barney, darlint.'
+
+"I had niver thought Barney was a very beautiful name before, but jist
+then it shtruck upon me ear swater thin marriage bells."
+
+Here Miller interrupted with, "You felt pretty proud just then, did you
+not, Barney?"
+
+"The Koohinoor would not hiv made a collar button fur me."
+
+"Don't interrupt him, Miller," interposed Carlin; "let Barney tell us the
+rest of the story."
+
+"There was a sofay near by. I drew Maggie to it, sat down and hild her
+to me side. She was pale, and we were both sort of trembly loike.
+
+"We did not talk much at first, but after awile Maggie said, suddent,
+said she: 'What a liar you are, Barney!'
+
+"And I said 'for why?' And she said 'to say you had niver kissed a woman
+since you had lift your ould mother. You have had plinty of practice.'
+
+"'And how do you know,' says I, and thin--but no matter, we had to begin
+all over again.
+
+"After awhile I wint away to bid, and talk about your mirages; all that
+night there was a convoy of angels around me, and the batein' of their
+wings was swater than the echoes that float in whin soft music comes
+from afar over still wathers.
+
+"One of the angels had just folded her wings and taken the form of
+Maggie, and was jist bend in' over me, whisperin' beautiful loike, whin,
+oh murther, I was wakened with a cry of: 'Are ye there now, ye
+blackguard?' I opened me eyes, and there stood Mrs. O'Kelly, with a
+broomstick over her head, and somethin' in her eye that looked moighty
+like a cloudburst.
+
+"'Ye thavin' villin,' said she, 'pertendin' to be a rich miner, and
+atin' up a poor woman all the time.' Thin she broke down intoirely and
+comminced wailin.
+
+"'Oh, Mr. Corrigan,' she howled through her sobs, 'How could yees come
+here and impose upon a unsuspectin' widdie; you know how hard I wurk;
+that I am up from early mornin' until the middle of the night, cookin'
+and shwapin' and makin' beds, and slavin' loike a black nigger, and----'
+by this time she recovered her timper and complated the sintence with:
+'If yees don't pay me at once I'll--I'll, I'll--'
+
+"I found breath enough after awhile to tell her to hould on. My
+pantaloons were on a chair within aisy rache; I snatched thim up, sayin'
+as I did so: 'How much is your bill, Mrs. O'Kelly?'
+
+"'Thray wakes at iliven dollars is thray and thirty dollars, and one
+extra day is a dollar and five bits, or altogither, thirty-four dollars
+and five bits.'
+
+"I shtill had siveral twinty-dollar paces; I plunged me hand into the
+pocket of me pants, saized them all, thin let them drop upon aich other,
+all but two, and holdin' these out, said sharply, and still with the
+grand air of a millionaire: 'The change, if you plase, Mrs. O'Kelly.'
+
+"She took the money, gazed upon it a moment with a dazed and surprised
+look; thin suddenly her face was wrathed in smiles, and as softly as a
+woman with her voice (it sounded loike a muffled threshing machine)
+could, said: 'Take back your money. Mr. Corrigan, and remain as long as
+you plase. I was only jist after playin' a bit of a trick upon yees.
+What do yees think I care for a few beggarly dollars?'
+
+"But I could not see it; I remained firm. Again I said: 'The change, if
+you plase, Mrs. O'Kelly, and as soon too as convanient.'
+
+"She brought me the change, sayin': 'I'll have your brikfast smokin' hot
+for yees, in five minutes, Mr. Corrigan.'
+
+"I put on me clothes and looked out. The storm had worn itself out at
+last. I wint down stairs to the dinin' room door, and beckoned to
+Maggie. She came to me, and there ware the rale love-light in her
+beautiful eyes. I can see her now. She was straight as a pump rod; her
+head sat upon her nick like a picture; the nick itsilf was white loike
+snow--but niver mind.
+
+"'Come out in the hall a bit.' I whispered, and she come. I clasped her
+hand for a moment and said: 'It's goin' home I am, Maggie; I am goin' to
+fix me house a little: it will take me forty days to make me
+arrangements. If I come thin, will you take me name and go back with
+me?'
+
+"'I will,' says she.
+
+"This is the sivinteenth of the month, Maggie; the sivinteenth of next
+month will be thirty days, and tin more will make it the twinty-sivinth.
+If I come thin, will yees go?' I asked.
+
+"'I will, Barney, Dear,' was the answer.
+
+"'Have yees thought it over, and will yees be satisfied, darlint?' I
+asked.
+
+"'I have, Barney; I shall be satisfied, and I will be a good wife to
+yees, darlint,' was the answer.
+
+[Illustration: MAGGIE.]
+
+"Thin I hild out me arms and she sprang into thim. There was an embrace
+and a kiss and thin--
+
+"'Goodbye, Maggie!'
+
+"'Good bye, Barney!' and I wint away.
+
+"I wint to a ristaurant and got a cup of coffee, and was jist startin'
+fer home, whin a frind come up and said: 'Barney,' said he; 'there's a
+man here you ought to go and punch the nose off of.'
+
+"'What fur,' says I.
+
+"'He's a slanderin' of yer,' says he.
+
+"'Who is the man and what is he sayin?' says I.
+
+"'It's Mike Dougherty, the blacksmith,' says he; and he is a sayin' as
+how your claim is no account, and that you are a bummer.'
+
+"Me heart was too light to think of quarrelin'; on me lips the honey of
+Maggie's kiss was still warm, and what did I care what ony man said. I
+merely laughed, and said: 'Maybe he is right,' and wint upon me way."
+
+With this Corrigan ceased speaking. After a moment or two of silence,
+Carlin said:
+
+"Well, Barney, how was it in six weeks?"
+
+"I had another mirage thin," said Barney. "I wint up to town; called at
+Mrs. O'Kelly's; she mit me, smilin' like, and said: 'Walk in, Mr.
+Corrigan!' I said: 'If you please, Mrs. O'Kelly, can I see Miss Murphy?'
+There was a vicious twinkle in her eye, as she answered, pointin' to a
+nate house upon the hillside, as she spoke.
+
+"'You will find her there, but her name is changed now. She was married
+on Thursday wake, to Mr. Mike Dougherty, the blacksmith. A foine man,
+and man of property, is Mr. Dougherty.'
+
+"Talk about shtrong impressions! For a moment I felt as though I was
+fallin' down a shaft. I----but don't mention it."
+
+Barney was still for a moment, and then said, in a voice almost husky:
+"As I came into town that day, all the great pines were noddin,'
+shmilin' and stretchin' out their mighty arms, as much as to say: 'We
+congratulate you, Mr. Corrigan.' As I turned away from Mrs. O'Kelly's,
+it samed to me that ivery one of thim had drawn in its branches and
+stood as the hoodlum does whin he pints his thumb to his nose and
+wriggles his fingers."
+
+Just then the Potosi whistle rung out on the still night again, the
+others answered the call, and the Club, at the signal, retired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+As the pipes were lighted next evening, Carlin said to Barney:
+"Corrigan, does the ghost of your La Porte mirage haunt you as Wright's
+does him?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," answered Corrigan sharply. "It hurt for awhile, I
+confess it, but a year and a half after Maggie was married, I passed her
+house one avenin' in the gloaming, and in a voice which I knew well,
+though all the swateness had been distilled out of it, this missage came
+out upon the air: 'Mike, if yees have got the brat to slape, yees had
+better lay him down and come out to your tay. I should loike to get
+these supper things put away sometime to-night.' Be dad, there was no
+mirage about that, no ravens about that, Wright; it was the charge of
+the rale Injun!'"
+
+"Speaking of babies," said Miller nonchalantly, "do you know that about
+the most touching scene I ever witnessed was over a baby? It was in
+Downieville. California, way back in '51 or '2. You know at that time
+babies were not very numerous in the Sierras. There were plenty of men
+there who had not seen a good woman, or a baby, for two years or more.
+You may not believe it, but you shut the presence of women and children
+all out of men's lives, for months at a time, and they contract a
+disease, which I call 'heart hunger,' and because of that I suspect that
+more whiskey has been drunk in this country, and more killings have
+grown out of trifling quarrels, than through all other causes combined.
+Without the eyes of women, good women, that he respects, upon a man, in
+a little while the wild beast, which is latent in all men's hearts,
+begins to assert itself. Because of this, men who were born to be good
+and true, have, to kill the unrest within their souls, taken to drink;
+the drink has led naturally up to a quarrel; they have got away with
+their first fight; the fools around them have praised them for their
+'sand'; there has been no look of sorrow and reproach in any honest
+woman's eyes to bring them back to their senses; and after such a
+beginning, look for them in a year, and, in nine cases out of ten, you
+will find that they are lost men.
+
+"But I commenced to tell you about the Downieville baby. It had been
+decided that we would have a Fourth of July celebration. There was no
+trouble about getting it up. We had a hundred men in camp, either one of
+whom could make as pretty a speech as you ever heard; everybody had
+plenty of money, and there was no trouble about fixing things to have a
+lively time. True, there was no chance for a triumphal car, with a
+Goddess of Liberty, and a young lady to represent each State. There was
+a good reason for it. There were not thirty young ladies within three
+hundred miles of us.
+
+"But we had a big live eagle to represent Sovereignty, and a grizzly
+bear as a symbol of Power, which we hauled in the procession; we had
+some mounted men, including some Mexican packers on mule back; a vast
+variety of flags, and many citizens on foot in the procession. Of course
+we had a marshal and his staff, a president of the day, an orator, poet,
+reader and chaplain, and last, but not least, a brass band of a few
+months' training. There were flags enough for a grand army, and every
+anvil in town was kept red hot firing salutes.
+
+"After the parade, the more sedate portion of the people repaired to the
+theatre, to hear the Declaration, poem, and oration. The prayer,
+Declaration and poem had been disposed of, and the president of the day
+was just about to introduce the orator, when a solitary baby but a few
+months old, set up a most energetic yell, and continued it for two or
+three minutes, the frightened mother not daring in that crowd to supply
+the soothing the youngster was evidently demanding. To cause a
+diversion, I suppose, the leader of the brass band nodded to the others,
+and they commenced to play the 'Star Spangled Banner.' The band had not
+had very much more practice than the baby, but the players were doing
+the best they could, when a tremendous, big-whiskered miner sprang upon
+a back seat, and waving his hat wildly, in a voice like a thunder-roll,
+shouted: 'Stop that----d band and give the baby a chance!'
+
+"Nothing like what followed during the next ten minutes had ever been
+seen on this earth, since the confusion of tongues transpired among the
+builders of Babel's Tower. Men shouted and yelled like mad men,
+strangers shook each other by the hand and screamed 'hurrah,' and in the
+crowd I saw a dozen men crying like children.
+
+"For a moment every heart was softened by the memories that baby's cries
+awakened.
+
+"The next time you feel provoked because the children shout and shy
+rocks as they return from school, you may all remember that could the
+world be carried on without children, it would not require more than two
+generations to transform men into wild beasts."
+
+When Miller ceased speaking, Ashley remarked: "Miller, yon talk very
+wisely on the subject of babies, why have you none of your own?"
+
+Miller waited a moment before answering, and then in an absent-minded
+manner said:
+
+"Did you never hear a gilt-edged expert talk familiarly about a mine, as
+though he knew all about it, when he did not really know a streak of ore
+from east country porphyry?"
+
+At this the others all laughed, and Miller joined in the merriment
+heartily, but nevertheless, something in the thoughts which the question
+awakened, had its effect upon him, for he was moody and preoccupied for
+several minutes. Meanwhile, a spell seemed to be upon the whole Club,
+except Brewster, who was reading a pamphlet on "The Creation of Mineral
+Veins," and Carlin, who was absorbed in a daily paper.
+
+"Whoever stops to think," proceeded Miller, speaking as much to himself
+as to the others, "upon what sorrows the foundations of new States are
+laid, how many hearts are broken, how many strong lives are worn out in
+the pitiless struggle?
+
+"Where are the men who were the Argonauts of the golden days? The most
+of them are gone. Every hill side is marked with their graves. They were
+a strong, brave, generous race. They laid the wand of their power on the
+barbarism which met them; it melted away at their touch; they blazed the
+trails and smoothed the paths, that, unsoiled, the delicate sandals of
+civilization might draw near; they rifled the hills and ravines of their
+stores of gold, and poured it into the Nation's lap, until every
+sluggish artery of business was set bounding; they built temples to
+Religion, to Learning, to Justice and to Industry; as they moved on,
+cities sprung up in their wake; following them came the enchantments of
+home and the songs of children; but for them, what was their portion?
+They were to work, to struggle, to be misjudged in the land whence they
+came; to learn to receive any blows which outrageous fortune might hurl
+at them, without plaint; to watch while States grew into place around
+them, and while the frown on the face of the desert relaxed into a smile
+at their toil, that toil was simply to be accepted as a matter of course
+by the world, and in the severe and self-satisfied civilization of older
+States, only pity was to be felt for their ignorance, and only horror
+for their rough ways. They were to be path-finders, the sappers and
+miners to storm the strong-holds of barbarism; through summer's heat,
+and winter's cold, to continue their march, until the final night should
+come, and then to sink to a dreamless bivouac under the stars. What
+wonder if some became over-wearied! if others grew reckless?"
+
+He had risen and was walking the floor, to and fro, like a caged lion,
+as he talked. Going now to the kitchen door, he cried: "Yap, bring some
+hot water, some sugar, a nutmeg and some limes, if you have them."
+
+The heathen obeyed, and Miller made seven big, hot whiskey punches. Then
+lifting his glass he offered this toast:
+
+"Here's to the Old Boys; to those who worked and suffered and died, but
+never complained!"
+
+All rose and drank in silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+At the next meeting, when the pipes were all lighted, Ashley, turning to
+Miller, said:
+
+"You took too gloomy a view of things last night. What you said, or
+rather something in your tone, has haunted me ever since. But you were
+wrong. The Argonauts will not be forgotten.
+
+"The names of the kings who compelled the building of the pyramids are
+mostly matters of conjecture now, but no man who ever gazed upon those
+piles of stone that have borne unscarred the desert storms that have
+been breaking upon and around them through the centuries, has failed to
+think of the tremendous energy of the race that reared those monuments
+above the sand; reared them so that the abrasion of the ages avails not
+against them.
+
+"One loves to dream of how that race must have looked, there under that
+sky, while yet the world was young, and while the energy and beauty of
+youth was upon it. There was no steam power to assist, no power drills,
+there were only rude, untempered tools. The plain wedge, and the lever
+in its more effective form, were about all that was known of mechanics;
+still from the quarries of Syene, far up the Nile, those blocks were
+wrested, hewed, transported, lifted up and laid in place, and with such
+mathematical precision was the work performed, that the ebb and flow of
+the centuries have no effect upon the work. While this material work was
+going on, in the same realm wise men were putting into a language the
+alphabet of the sky, tracing out the procession of the stars and solving
+the mystery of the seasons. When we think of Ancient Egypt, it is not of
+her kings, but what was wrought out there by brain and hand.
+
+"To-day I was at work on the twenty-four hundred-foot level of the mine.
+Around me power drills were working, cars were rattling, cages were
+running; three hundred men were stoping, timbering and rolling cars to
+and from the chutes and ore-breasts, and in the spectral light I thought
+it was a scene for a painter. But while so thinking, for some reason,
+there came to me the thought of the one hundred times three hundred men,
+who, for a generation, worked on a single pyramid; worked without pay
+days, without so much as a kind word, and on poorer fare than one gets
+at a fourth-rate miners' boarding house; and, as I reflected over that,
+our little work here seemed small indeed.
+
+"So, in estimating Greece, we do not pick out a few men or women to
+remember, but we think of the race that made Thermopylæ and Marathon
+possibilities, of the men who followed Xenophon, of the women who closed
+their hearts and left their deformed offspring to perish in the woods
+that Greece should rear no woman who could not bear soldiers, no man who
+could not bear arms; of the race so finely strung that poetry was born
+of it; that sculpture and eloquence were so perfected in, that to copy
+is impossible; that was so susceptible to beauty that it turned justice
+aside, and yet that was so valiant that it mastered the world.
+
+"So of Rome! It is not that the great Julius lived that we call it 'The
+Imperial Nation.' We stand in awe of it still, not because out of its
+millions a few superb figures shine. Rather, we think of the valor that
+from a little nucleus widened until it subdued the world; of the ten
+thousand fields on which Romans fought and conquered. We think how they
+marshaled their armies, and taught the nations how to lay out camps; how
+they built roads and aqueducts, that their land might be defended and
+the Imperial City sustained; how they carved out an architecture of
+their own which the world still clings to in its most stately edifices;
+how, from barbarism, they progressed, until they framed a code which is
+still respected; how, in literature and the arts, they excelled, and
+how, for a thousand years, they were the concernment of the world.
+
+"So of England. Which merits the greater glory, King John or the stern,
+half barbarous barons who, with an instinct generations in advance of
+their age, circled around their sullen king and compelled him to give to
+them 'the great charter?' Through the thousand years that have succeeded
+that act, how many individual names can we rescue from the hosts that on
+that little isle have lived and died? Not many. But the grand career of
+the nation is in the mind forever. How, through struggle after struggle,
+the advance has been made; struggles that, though full of errors, knew
+no faltering or despair, until at last, for the world, she became the
+center and the bulwark of civilization; until in material strength she
+had no equal; until the sheen of her sails gave light to all the seas,
+and under her flag signal stations were upreared the world around. We do
+not remember many men, but there is ever in the mind the thought of
+English valor and persistence, and the clear judgment which backed the
+valor by land and sea.
+
+"But we need not go abroad; our own land has examples enough. Not many
+can call over the names of those who came in the 'Mayflower,' or those
+who made up the colonies up and down the Atlantic coast. But the
+spectacle of the 'Mayflower' band kneeling, on their arrival, in the
+snow and singing a triumphal song, is a picture the tints of which will
+deepen in splendor with the ages. We need not call over the names of our
+statesmen and warriors; they give but a slight impression of our race.
+But when we think how, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, the woods
+were made to give place to gardens, fruitful fields and smiling homes;
+when we think that the majority of those families had each of them less
+to start with than any one of us gets for a month's labor, and yet how
+they subdued the land, pressed back the savage, reared and educated and
+created a literature for their children, until over all the vast expanse
+there was peace, prosperity, enlightenment and joy, then it is that we
+begin to grow proud.
+
+"If the Argonauts of the Golden Coast can show that they have wrought as
+well, they will not be forgotten. Those who succeed them will know that
+they were preceded by a race that was strong and brave and true, and
+their memory in the West will be embalmed with the memory of those in
+the East who, starting under the spray that is tossed from the white
+surf of the eastern sea, with no capital but pluck, hewed out and
+embellished the Republic.
+
+"Of course, there have been sorrows; of course, hearts have broken; but
+there has been much of triumph also. It is something to have a home in
+this Far West; there is something in the hills, the trees, the free air
+and action of this region which brings to men thoughts that they would
+never have had in other lands. It is not bad sometimes for men to leave
+their books and turn to Nature for instruction. Here of all the world
+some of the brightest pages of Nature's book are spread open for the
+reader. And many a man that others pity because they think his heart
+must be heavy, does not ask that pity; does not feel its need. Those
+hearts have gathered to themselves delights, which, if not, perhaps, of
+the highest order, still are very sweet. Let me give an instance.
+
+"Last year I went to look at a mine down in Tuolumne county, California.
+I was the guest of a miner who had lived in the same cabin for more than
+twenty years. He was his own cook and housekeeper and seldom had any
+company except his books--a fine collection--his daily papers, his gun
+and some domestic animals. He had a little orchard and garden. Around
+his garden tame rabbits played with his dogs. In explanation, he said:
+'They were all babies at the same time and have grown up together.'
+While walking with him in his garden, he asked me if I had ever seen a
+mountain quail on her nest. At the same moment he parted the limbs of a
+shrub, and there, within six inches of his hand, sat a bird, her bright
+eyes looking up in perfect confidence into his.
+
+"The place was in the high foothills; there was a space in front of his
+cabin. From that point the hills, in steadily increasing waves, swelled
+into the great ridges of the higher Sierras, and far away to the east
+the blue crest of Mount Bodie stood out clear against the sky.
+
+"It was not strange to me that he loved the place. When within doors he
+talked upon every subject with a peculiar terse shrewdness all his own.
+He had had many bouts with the world; he knew men thoroughly; he had in
+a measure withdrawn himself from them, and found a serener comfort in
+his pets, his hills and trees. He had acquired that faculty which men
+often do when a great deal alone in the mountains. He did not reason his
+way up through the proof of a proposition, but with a clear sagacity
+reached the truth at a bound, and left the reasoning for others. He had
+his theory of how fissures were originally formed and filled; he had his
+opinion of ancient and modern authors; he understood politics well, and
+gave brief and true reasons for his belief. In short, he was a
+self-appointed ambassador to the court of the hills, to represent all
+the world.
+
+"My admiration for him increased the longer I remained with him, for he
+knew much of interest to me; but he spoke always in a tone as though he
+was revealing only a little of what he knew. I suspect that was the real
+state of the case. There was a charm, too, about his manner. Though I
+knew that he had suffered many disappointments, if not sorrows, there
+was no bitterness. Whatever he did or said, was with a gentle grace of
+his own. He was free, alike, from either harshness, egotism or
+diffidence. Something of the great calm of the hills around him had
+entered into his soul.
+
+"But the greatest surprise was reserved for me to the last. I had to get
+up at three o'clock in the morning and walk over a dim trail two or
+three miles to a little village, in order to take the stage which passed
+the village at five o'clock. When I was ready, my friend said: 'There
+are so many trails through the hills you might take the wrong one in the
+uncertain light. I will pilot you.'
+
+"When we set out it was yet dark. There was an absolute hush upon the
+world. Up through the branches of the great pines, God's lanterns were
+swinging as though but just trimmed and lighted, and under the august
+roof where they swung, they shone with rays more pure than vestal lamps.
+But at length up the east some shafts of light were shot, and soon the
+miracle of the dawn began to unfold. It was a June morning and entirely
+cloudless. Soon the warm rays of approaching day began to bend over the
+hills from the east; the foliage which had been black began to grow
+green; the scarlet of the hills shone out where the light touched it;
+the sentinel fires above began to grow dim. A little later the hills
+began to grow resonant with the manifold voices which they held, and
+which commenced to awaken to hail the approaching day.
+
+"Then my sententious companion, as though kindled by the same
+influences, opened his lips. He seemed to have forgotten that I was
+near; he was answering the greetings of his friends in the woods. I can
+only give the faintest idea of what he said, and I grieve over it, for
+it was sweeter than music. His words ran something like this:
+
+"'Chirp, chirp; O, my martin, (the swallow's grandmother); as usual you
+are up first, to say good morning, the first to hail the beautiful
+coming day. Ah, there you are, whistling, my lovely quail, you charming
+cockaded glory; and now, my mocking bird, you brown splendor with a flat
+nose, where do you get all your voices? Heigh, O! you are up, Mr. Jacob
+(woodpecker) up to see if Mrs. Jacob is gathering acorns this morning,
+you old miser of the woods, with your black and white clothes and your
+thrift worse than a Chinaman's; and now, my morning dove has commenced
+its daily drone, growling because breakfast is not ready, I suppose. At
+last you have opened your eyes, Mrs. Lark; a nice bird you are to claim
+to be an early riser, but you have a cheery voice, nevertheless. Now, my
+wren and my oreole, you are making some genuine music, if both of you
+together are not as big as one note of an organ. Hist! that was a
+curlew's cry from away down on the river's bank, and now you are all
+awake and singing, you noisy chatterers, as though your hearts would
+burst for joy. Finally, old night-raiding owl, you are saying 'good
+night' this morning, you old burglar of the woods.'
+
+"Meanwhile the banners of the dawn had grown more and more bright in the
+sky, and as he ceased speaking, the full disc of the sun, lighted with
+omnipotent fires, shone full above the hills, with a splendor too severe
+for human eyes.
+
+"I had not interrupted my friend during the half hour that he, striding
+before me on the trail, had been talking. I half suspected that he had
+forgotten that I was near, absorbed as he was in greeting his warblers.
+Of course I have not named the birds in their order; nor have I named
+half that he greeted; I might as well try to repeat to you all the
+scientific terms in one of Professor Stewart's earthquake lectures. But
+all that day, and for many days afterwards, his words were ringing in my
+ears; and often have I wondered, if, with his thoughts and his
+surroundings, he was not with more reason and more peace, passing down
+life's trail, than as though he were out in the pitiless world of men,
+striving for wealth and for power. Never since have I seen a lonely man
+in town, with shy face which revealed that he was unused to the crowds
+of the city, purchasing some few little necessaries, and, apparently,
+hurrying to get away, that I have not said to myself: 'He has a cabin
+somewhere with books and dogs, and with a garden outside, and he knows
+every bird in the forest by its morning call.'"
+
+While Ashley was talking, he had unconsciously fixed his eyes upon the
+light which shone from a reflector, up through the window from the
+hoisting works down the hill, and seemed to forget the presence of any
+one near.
+
+As he ceased and looked around, he discovered that all his auditors had
+fallen asleep in their chairs, except Yap Sing, who had stolen into the
+room. He looked up knowingly, smiled and said:
+
+"You talkie belly nice. Me heap sabbie, clail, chickie, duckie, goosie.
+Me cookie lem flirst late, you bettie."
+
+"You be--" said Ashley, and went to bed. The rest, awakened by the
+whistles, started up in surprise, and Corrigan said: "I was dramin' of
+agles and pacocks and swans and hummin' birds. I must have been afther
+atin too much supper."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The next evening as the club gathered around the hearth, Brewster, who,
+next to Harding, was the most reticent member of the party, said
+apologetically to Ashley:
+
+"It was shabby of us not to give more heed to your story last night, but
+the truth with me was, I was very tired. We were cutting out a station
+on the 2,300 level of the mine, yesterday; the work was hard, the
+ventilation bad, and it was hot and prostrating work. But, I heard most
+of your story, nevertheless. While I know nothing of your miner who
+lives with his books and birds and dogs and flowers; and hence know
+nothing of what storms he has breasted and what heart-aches he has
+borne; and, therefore, cannot, in my own mind, fix his place, still, on
+general principles, it is man's duty never to accept any rebuff of
+unkind fortune as a reason for ceasing to try; but rather he should
+struggle on and do the best he can; if needs be dying with the harness
+on his back. Moreover, as a rule, it is the easier way. It is in harmony
+with nature's first great law, and man seldom errs when he follows the
+laws that were framed before the world's foundations were laid. When man
+was given his two feet to stand upon; his arms to cleave out for himself
+a path and a career, and his brain to be his guide; then with the rich
+earth for a field, in the opinion of the Infinite Goodness, he has all
+the capital that he required. The opportunities of this land, especially
+this free West, with a capacity to plan and work, are enough for any
+man. The trouble is, men falter too soon. On that last night of anxiety,
+before the New World rose out of the sea to greet the eyes of Columbus;
+when his sullen and fear-stricken crews were on the point of mutiny,
+suddenly there came to the senses of the great commander, the perfume of
+earthly flowers. Soon after the veil of the ocean was rent asunder, and
+upon his thrilled eyes there burst a light. Columbus was not the only
+man who ever discovered a new world. They are being found daily. I meet
+men often on the street and know by something in their faces, that, at
+that very moment, the perfume of the flowers of some glory to come is
+upon them, and that the first rays of the dawn of a divine light are
+commencing to fill with splendor their eyes.
+
+"When the idea of the Alexandrian, after having been transmitted from
+mortal to mortal, for more than fifty generations, at last materialized,
+and the care worn man who was watching, heard the first sob of
+artificial life come from a steam engine, to him was the perfume and the
+light.
+
+"When, after generations of turmoil and war, in the deadly double
+struggle to assimilate various peoples, and at the same time out of
+barbarism to construct a stable and enlightened government; when the
+stern old English barons caught the right inspiration, and gathering
+around their sovereign, asked him to recognize the rights of the men on
+whose valor his throne leaned for safety and to sign Magna Charta; to
+them came the perfume and the light.
+
+"When the desire of the colonies, voiceless before, at length through
+the pen of Jefferson, found expression in the words: 'We hold these
+truths to be self-evident--that all men are created equal; that they are
+endowed by their Creater with certain unalienable rights;' then to a
+whole nation, yes to the world, came the perfume and the light.
+
+"In public life these emotions are marked, and the world applauds. In
+humble life they are generally unnoticed, but they are frequent, and the
+enchantment of the perfume becomes like incense, and it is a softer
+light that dawns. When the poor man, who lays aside daily but a pittance
+from his earnings, finds at last, after months and years, that the sum
+has increased until it is certain that he can build a little home for
+his wife--a home which is to be all his own--and that he can educate his
+children; then the perfume and lights of a new world entrance him, and
+in his sphere he is as great as was the dark-eyed Italian.
+
+"In the Bible we read that all the prophets were given to fasting and to
+labor, in order to bring the body under subjection to the soul. This is
+but typical of what a great soul must submit to, if it would catch the
+perfume and the light. The world's wealth rests on labor. Whether a man
+tills a garden or writes a book, the harvest will be worth gathering
+just in proportion to the soil, and to the energy and intelligence of
+the work performed. Columbus could never have discovered a new world by
+standing on the sea shore and straining his eyes to the West. The
+tempests had to be met; the raging seas outrode; the mutinous crew
+controlled. There are tempests, waves and mutineers in every man's path,
+and it is only over and beyond them that there comes the perfume and the
+light. The lesson taught at Eden's gate is the one that must still be
+learned. All that man can gain is by labor, and the sword that guards
+the gate flames just as fiercely as of old.
+
+"To the Argonauts was given a duty. They were appointed to redeem a wild
+and create a sovereign state. I believe they were a brave, true race.
+The proof is, that without the restraint of pure women and without law,
+they enforced order. Their energy, also, was something tremendous. After
+building up California, they, in great part, made a nucleus for
+civilization to gather to in each of half-a-dozen neighboring
+Territories. But they had advantages which the men who settled the
+Eastern States--the region beyond the Mississippi River, I mean--never
+possessed. They had better food to eat, a better climate to live in. If
+they did not have capital, they knew a living, at least, could be had
+from the nearest gravel bank or ravine, and if they lacked the
+encircling love of wife and children, they were spared the sorrow of
+seeing dear women wear out lives of hardship and poverty, as has been
+seen on all other frontiers in America.
+
+"If some fell by the wayside, it was natural, for human nature is weak
+and Death is everywhere; if some in the pitiless struggle failed, they
+had no right to cease to try, for when men do that the hope that to them
+will come the perfume or that upon their eyes will ever shine the light,
+is forever closed."
+
+"All that is good," said Carlin, "but the rule does not always hold
+true. There is sometimes a limit to man's capacity to suffer, and his
+heart breaks; and still after that his face gives no sign, and there is
+no abatement of his energies. In such cases, however, men generally lose
+the capacity to reason calmly and chase impossibilities. I saw a case
+yesterday. I met a man mounted on a cheap mustang, and leading another
+on which was packed a little coarse food, a pick, shovel, pan,
+coffee-pot and frying pan. As he moved slowly up C. street, a
+friend--himself an Argonaut--clutched me by the arm with one hand, and
+with the other pointing to the man on horseback, asked me if I knew him.
+Replying that I did not, he said: 'Why, that is "Prospecting Joe"; I
+thought everybody knew him.' I told him I had never heard of him, when
+he related his story, almost word for word, as follows:
+
+"He came to the far West from some Eastern state in the old, old days.
+He was not then more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old.
+Physically he was a splendid specimen of a man, I am told. He was,
+moreover, genial and generous, and drew friends around him wherever he
+went. He secured a claim in the hills above Placerville. One who knew
+him at that time told me, that, calling at his cabin one night, he
+surprised him poring over a letter written in a fair hand, while beside
+him on his rude table lay the picture of a beautiful girl. His heart
+must have been warmed at the time, for picking up the picture and
+handing it to my friend, he said. 'Look at her! She is my Nora, _my_
+Nora. She, beautiful as she is, would in her divinity have bent and
+married a coarse mold of clay like myself, and poor, too, as I was; but
+her father said: 'Not yet, Joe. Go out into the world, make a struggle
+for two years, then come back, and if by that time you have established
+that you are man enough to be a husband to a true woman, and you and
+Nora still hold to the thought that is in your hearts now, I will help
+you all I can. And, mind you, I don't expect you to make a fortune in
+two years; I only want you to show that the manhood which I think you
+have within you is true.' 'That was square and sensible talk, and it was
+not unkind. So I came away.' Then he took the picture and looked fondly
+at it for a long time, and said: 'I see the delicious girl as she looked
+on that summer's day, when she waved me her last good by. I shall see
+her all my life, if I live a thousand years.'
+
+"Well, Joe worked on week days; on Sundays, as miners did in those days,
+he went to camp to get his mail and supplies. His claim paid him only
+fairly well, but he was saving some money. In eight months he had been
+able to deposit twelve hundred dollars in the local bank. One Sunday he
+did not receive the expected letter from his Nora, and during the next
+hour or two he drank two or three times with friends. He was about to
+leave for home, when three men whom he slightly knew, and who had all
+been drinking too much, met him and importuned him to drink with them.
+He declined with thanks, when one of the three caught him by the arm and
+said he must drink.
+
+"At any other time he would have extricated him self without trouble and
+gone on his way. But on that day he was not in good humor, so he shook
+the man off roughly and shortly told him to go about his own affairs.
+
+"The others were just sufficiently sprung with liquor to take offense at
+this, and the result was a terrific street fight. Joe was badly bruised
+but he whipped all three of the others. Then he was arrested and ordered
+to appear next morning to answer a charge of fighting. He was of course
+cleared without difficulty, but it took one-fourth of his deposit to pay
+his lawyer. Then the miners gathered around him and called him a hero
+and he went on his first spree.
+
+"Next morning when he awoke and thought of as much as he could remember
+of the previous day's events, he was thoroughly ashamed. As he went down
+to the office of the hotel, in response to an inquiry as to how he felt,
+he answered: 'Full of repentance and beer.' A friend showed him the
+morning paper with a full account of the Sunday fight and his trial and
+acquittal. This was embellished with taking head-lines, as is the custom
+with reporters. It cut him to the heart. He knew that if the news
+reached his old home of his being in a street fight on Sunday, all his
+hopes would be ended. His first thought was to draw his money and take
+the first steamer for Panama and New York. He went to the bank and asked
+how his account stood, for he remembered to have drawn something the
+previous day. He was answered that there was still to his credit $150.
+The steamer fare was $275. Utterly crushed, he returned to his claim.
+The fear that the news of his disgrace would reach home, haunted him
+perpetually and made him afraid to write. He continued to work, but not
+with the old hope.
+
+"After some weeks, a rumor came that rich ground had been 'struck' away
+to the north, somewhere in Siskiyou county. He drew what money he had,
+bought a couple of ponies, one to ride and one to pack, and started for
+the new field. Before starting, he confided to a friend that the
+previous night he had dreamed of a mountain, the crest of which
+glittered all over with gold, and he was going to find it.
+
+"The friend told him it was but a painted devil of the brain, the child
+of a distempered imagination, but he merely shook his head and went
+away.
+
+"He has pursued that dream ever since. His eyes have been ever strained
+to catch the reflection from those shining heights. When he began the
+search, his early home and the loving arms which were there stretched
+out to him, began to recede in the distance. In a few years they
+disappeared altogether. Then his hopes one by one deserted him, until
+all had fled except the one false one which was, and still is, driving
+him on. Youth died and was buried by the trail, but so absorbed was he
+that he hardly grieved. As Time served notice after notice upon him; as
+his hair blanched, his form bent and the old sprightliness went out of
+his limbs, he retired more and more from the haunts of men; more and
+more he drew the mantle of the mountains around him. But his eyes, now
+bright with an unnatural splendor, were still strained upon the shining
+height. There were but a few intervening hills and some forests that
+obstructed his view. A little further on and the goal would be reached.
+Last night he was in his cups and he told my friend that this time he
+would 'strike it sure,' that the old man would make his showing yet,
+that he would yet go back to the old home and be a Providence to those
+he loved when a boy.
+
+"Poor wretch. There is an open grave stretched directly across his
+trail. On this journey or some other soon, he will, while his eyes are
+still straining towards his heights of gold, drop into that grave and
+disappear forever.
+
+"Some morning as he awakens, amid the hills or out upon the desert,
+there will be such a weariness upon him that he will say, 'I will sleep
+a little longer,' and from that sleep he will never waken.
+
+"Heaven grant that his vision will then become a reality and that he may
+mount the shining heights at last.
+
+"Of course it is easy to say that he was originally weak, but that is no
+argument, for human nature is prone to be weak. His was a high-strung,
+sensitive, generous nature. He never sought gold for the joy it would
+give him, but for the happiness he dreamed it would give to those he
+loved. His Nora was a queen in his eyes and he wanted to give her, every
+day, the surroundings of a queen. He made one mistake and never rallied
+from it. Had the letter come that fatal Sunday from Nora, as he was
+expecting it, or had he left for home half an hour earlier, or had he
+been of coarser clay, that day's performance would have been avoided, or
+would have been passed as an incident not to be repeated, but not to be
+seriously minded. But he was of different mold, and then that was a blow
+from Fate. It is easy enough to say that there is nothing in that thing
+called luck. Such talk will not do here on the Comstock. There is no
+luck when a money lender charges five dollars for the use of a hundred
+for a month and exacts good security. He gets his one hundred and five
+dollars, and that is business.
+
+"But in this lead where ore bodies lie like melons on a vine, when ore
+is reported in the Belcher and in the Savage, when Brown buys stock in
+the Belcher and Rogers buys in the Savage; when the streak of ore in the
+Belcher runs into a bonanza and Brown wakes up rich some morning, and
+when the streak of ore in the Savage runs into a Niagara of hot water
+which floods the mine and Rogers's stock is sold out to meet an
+assessment, it will not do to call Brown a shrewd fellow and Rogers an
+idiot.
+
+"Still, I do not object to the theory that a man should always keep
+trying, even if the lack is against him, because luck may change
+sometime, and if it does not, he sleeps better when he knows that with
+the lights before him he has done the best he could. A man can stand
+almost anything when his soul does not reproach him as he tries to go to
+sleep.
+
+"Then, too, man is notoriously a lazy animal, and unless he has the
+nerve to spur himself to work, even when unfortunate, he is liable to
+fail and get the dry rot, which is worse than death.
+
+"But my heart goes out in sympathy when I think of the glorified
+spirits, which on this coast have failed and are failing every day,
+because from the first an iron fortune has hedged them round and baffled
+their every effort, struggle as they would."
+
+Carlin ceased speaking, and the silence which prevailed in the Club for
+a moment was broken by Miller, who said: "Don't worry about them,
+Carlin. If they do fail they have lots of fun in trying."
+
+"I would grave more for your mon Joe," interposed Corrigan, "did I not
+remember Mrs. Dougherty, who married the gintleman of properthy, and
+thin your Joe war a fraud onyway. What war there in a bit of a scrap to
+make a mon grave himself into craziness over it?"
+
+"Your stock-buying illustration is not fair, Carlin, for that is only a
+form of gambling at best," suggested Brewster.
+
+The club winced under this a little, for every member dabbled in stocks
+sometimes, except Brewster and Harding.
+
+For two evenings Harding had been scribbling away behind the table, and
+during a lull in the conversation Ashley asked him what he had been
+writing. "Letters?" suggested Ashley.
+
+"No, not letters," answered Harding, sententiously.
+
+"What is it, then," asked Miller; "won't you read it to us?"
+
+"Yes, rade it, rade it," said Corrigan, and the rest all joined in the
+request.
+
+"You won't laugh?" said Harding, inquiringly.
+
+They all promised, and Harding read as follows:
+
+
+                THE PROSPECTOR.
+
+    How strangely to-night my memory flings
+    From the face of the past its shadowy wings,
+    And I see far back through the mist and tears
+    Which make the record of twenty years;
+    From the beautiful days in the Golden State,
+    When life seemed sure by long leases from Fate;
+    From the wondrous visions of "long ago"
+    To the naked shade that we call "now."
+
+    Those halcyon days! There were four with me then--
+    Ernest and Ned, Wild Tom and Ben.
+    Now all are gone; Tom was first to die.
+    I held his hands, closed his glazed eye;
+    And many a tear o'er his grave we shed
+    As we tenderly pillowed his curly head
+    In the shadows deep of the pines, that stand
+    Forever solemn, forever fanned
+    By the winds that steal through the Golden Gate
+    And spread their balm o'er the Golden State.
+
+    And the others, too, they all are dead.
+    By the turbid Gila perished Ned;
+    Brave, noble Ernest, he was lost
+    Amid Montana's ice and frost;
+    And out upon a desert trail
+    Our Bennie met the spectre pale.
+
+    And I am left--the last of all--
+    And as to-night the white snows fall,
+    As barbarous winds around me roar,
+    I think the long past o'er and o'er--
+    What I have hoped and suffered, all,
+    From twenty years rolls back the pall,
+    From the dusty, thorny, weary track,
+    As the tortuous path I follow back.
+
+    In my childhood's home they think me, there,
+    A failure, or lost, till my name in the prayer
+    At eve is forgot. Well, they cannot know
+    That my toil through heat, through tempest and snow,
+    While it seemed for naught but a struggle for pelf,
+    Was more for them, far more, than myself.
+
+    Ah, well! As my hair turns slowly to snow
+    The places of childhood more distantly grow;
+    And my dreams are changing. 'Tis home no more,
+    For shadowy hands from the other shore
+    Stretch nightly down, and it seems as when
+    I lived with Tom, Ned, Ernest and Ben.
+
+    And the mountains of Earth seem dwindling down,
+    And the hills of Eden, with golden crown,
+    Rise up, and I think, in the last great day,
+    Will my claim above bear a fire assay?
+    From the slag of earth, and the baser strains,
+    Will the crucible show of precious grains
+    Enough to give me a standing above,
+    Where in temples of Peace rock the cradles of Love?
+
+"That is good, but it is too serious by half," Miller said, critically.
+"What is a young fellow like you doing with such a melancholy view of
+things?"
+
+"It's a heap better to write such things for pleasure in boyhood than to
+have to feel them for a fact in old age," said Wright.
+
+"I say, Harding, have you measured all the faet in that poem?" remarked
+Corrigan, good-naturedly.
+
+"We have been talking too seriously for two or three evenings and it is
+influencing Harding," was Miller's comment.
+
+Brewster thought it was a good way for Sammie to spend his evenings. It
+would give him discipline, which would help him in writing all his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The next evening Wright had business down town.
+
+"Carlin was right last night," began Miller, "when he said that all men
+were naturally lazy. Laziness is a fixed principle in this world. I can
+prove it by my friend Wand down at Pioche.
+
+"When he was not so old as he has been these last few years, he made a
+visit to San Francisco, and one day, passing a building on Fourth
+street, saw within several hives of bees, evidently placed there to be
+sold. Some whim led him within the building and, from the man in charge,
+he learned that in California, because of the softer climate, bees
+worked quite nine months in the year; that a good swarm of bees would
+gather a certain number of pounds of honey in a season, which sold
+readily at a certain price, making a tremendous percentage on the cost
+of the bees, which was, if I remember correctly, one hundred dollars per
+hive. The idea seemed to strike Wand. He had fifteen hundred dollars,
+and all that day he was mentally estimating how much money could be made
+out of fifteen swarms of bees in a year. The figures looked exceedingly
+encouraging. They always do, you know, when your mind is fixed upon a
+certain business which you want to engage in.
+
+"That evening Wand happened to meet a friend who had just come in from
+Honolulu. This friend was enthusiastic over the Hawaiian Islands. There
+was perpetual summer there and ever-blooming flowers. Before one flower
+cast its leaves, others on the same tree were budding. Their glory was
+ever before the eyes and their incense ever upon the air.
+
+"Wand fell asleep that night trying to estimate how much money a swarm
+of bees would make a year in a land of perpetual summer. The conclusion
+was that next morning Wand bought twelve hives of bees, and that
+afternoon sailed with them for Honolulu.
+
+"He found a lovely place for his bees, and saw with kindling pleasure
+that they readily assimilated with the new country and went to work with
+apparent enthusiasm.
+
+"The bees worked steadily until, in their judgment, it was time for
+winter to come. Then they ceased to work, remained in their hives until
+they ate up their hoarded wealth, and then, as Wand expresses it, 'took
+to the woods.'
+
+"He borrowed the money necessary to pay his passage to San Francisco,
+and ever since has sworn that bees are like men, 'natural loafers,' that
+will not work unless they are forced to. He believes that the much
+lauded ant would be the same way if it were not urged on to work
+perpetually by the miser's fear of starvation."
+
+Carlin suggested that the question be tested nearer home, and called
+out, "Yap Sing!"
+
+The Mongolian came in from the kitchen and Carlin interrogated him.
+
+"Yap, do you like to work?"
+
+"Yes, me heap likee workee."
+
+"How many hours a day do you like to work, Yap?"
+
+"Maybe eight hour, maybe ten hour, maybe slixteen hour."
+
+"We give you forty dollars a month. Would you work harder if we paid you
+fifty dollars?"
+
+"No. Me thinkee not," answered Yap, adroitly. "You sabbie, you hire me,
+me sellee you my time. Me workee all the slame, forty doll's, fifty
+doll's, one hundred doll's. No diffelence."
+
+"Yap, suppose you were to get $3,000, would you work then?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Me workee all the slame, now."
+
+"Suppose, Yap, you had $5,000--what then?"
+
+"Me workee all the slame."
+
+"Do you ever buy stocks?"
+
+"Slum time buy lettle; not muchee."
+
+"Suppose, Yap, that some time stocks would go up and make you $20,000,
+would you work then?"
+
+The Chinaman, with eyes blazing, replied vehemently: "Not one d----d
+bittee."
+
+The Club agreed that Carlin had pretty well settled a vexed question,
+that conditions which would make both the bee and the Chinaman idlers,
+would be apt to very soon cause the Caucasian to lie in the shade.
+
+"And yet," mused Brewster, "there are mighty works going on everywhere.
+This Nation to-day makes a showing such as this world never saw before.
+From sea to sea, for three thousand miles, the chariot wheels of toil
+are rolling and roaring as they never did in any other land. The energy
+that is exhausted daily amounts to more than all the world's working
+forces did a hundred years ago. The thing to grieve about is not that
+there is not enough work being performed, but that in this intensely
+practical, and material age, the gentler graces in the hearts of men are
+being neglected. In the race for wealth the higher aspirations are being
+smothered. If from the 'tongue-less past' there could be awakened the
+silent voices, the cry which would be heard over all others would be: 'I
+had some golden thoughts; I meant to have given them expression, but the
+swiftly moving years with their cares were too much for me, and I died
+and made no sign.'
+
+"If there is such a thing as a ghost of memory, all the aisles of the
+past are full of wailing voices, wailing over facts unspoken, over
+eloquence that died in passionate hearts unuttered, over divine poems
+that never were set to earthly music. Aside from native indolence, most
+men are struggling for bread, and when the day's work is completed,
+brain and hand are too weary for further effort. So the years drift by
+until the zeal of young ambition loses its electric thrill; until cares
+multiply; until infirmities of body keep the chords of the soul out of
+tune, and the night follows, and the long sleep. There were great
+soldiers before Achilles or Hector, but there were no Homers, or if
+there were, they were dissipated fellows, or they were absorbed in
+business, or, under the clear Grecian sky, it was their wont to dream
+the beautiful days away, and so, no sounds were uttered, of the kind
+which, booming through space, strike at last on the immortal heights,
+and there make echoes which thrill the earth with celestial music ever
+after. If fortune had not made an actor of Shakespeare, and if his
+matchless spirit, working in the line of his daily duties, had not felt
+that all the plays offered were mean and poor, as wanting in dramatic
+power as they were false to human nature, and so was roused to fill a
+business need, the chances are a thousand to one that he 'would have
+died with all his music in him,' and would, to-day, have been as
+entirely lost in oblivion as are the boors who were his neighbors. Just
+now there is not much hope for our own country, and probably will not be
+for another century. Present efforts are all for wealth and power and
+are almost all earthly. Everything is calculated from a basis of coin.
+Before that, brains are cowed, and for it Beauty reserves her sweetest
+smiles. The men who are pursuing grand ideas with no motive more selfish
+than to make the masses of the world nobler, braver and better, or to
+give new symphonies to life, are wondrously few. There are splendid
+triumphs wrought, but they are almost every one material and practical.
+
+"The men who created the science of chemistry dreamed of finding the
+elixir of life; the modern chemist pursues the study until he invents a
+patent medicine or a baking powder, and then all his energies are
+devoted to selling his discovery.
+
+"In its youthful vitality the Nation has performed wonders, and from the
+masses individuals have solved many of nature's mysteries and bridled
+many elemental forces.
+
+"The winds have been forced to swing open the doors to their caves and
+show where they are brewed; the lightnings have submitted to curb and
+rein; the ship goes out against the tempest, carried forward on its own
+iron arms; the secret of the sunlight has been fathomed and a
+counterfeit light created; the laws which govern sound have been
+mastered until the human voice now thrills a wire and is caught with
+perfect distinctness sixty miles away, and a thousand other such
+triumphs have been achieved.
+
+"But no deathless poem has been written, no immortal picture has been
+called to life on canvas; no master hand has touched the cold stone and
+transfigured it into something which seems ready, like the fabled statue
+of the old master, to warm into life and smiles.
+
+"Souls surcharged at first with celestial fire have waited for the work
+of the bodies to be finished, that they might materialize into words of
+form and splendor, waited until the tenement around them fell away and
+left them unvoiced, to seek a purer sphere, and a generation, three
+generations have died with their deepest tints unpainted, their sweetest
+music unsung.
+
+"This is one of the penalties attached to the laying of the foundations
+of new States. There is too much to be accomplished, too many purely
+material struggles to be made, and so hearts are stifled and souls,
+glowing with celestial fervor, are forbidden an altar on which to kindle
+their sacred flame.
+
+"England struggled a thousand years before a man appeared to shame
+wealth, power and titles with the majesty of a divine mind. Perhaps it
+will be as long in the United States before some glorified spirit will
+appear to show by example that the things which this generation is
+struggling most for are mere dust, which, when obtained, are but Dead
+Sea apples to the lips of hope."
+
+"But Brewster," said Harding, "do you not think that a good miner is of
+more use to the world than a bad sculptor?"
+
+"Suppose," said Carlin, "we were all to stop this four dollars a day
+business of ours and go to writing poetry, who would pay the Chinaman
+and settle the grocery bills at the end of the month?"
+
+"Were not the Argonauts making pretty good use of their time," asked
+Miller, "when in twelve years they dug up and gave to the world nearly a
+thousand millions of dollars and caused such a change in the business of
+the country as comes to the fainting man's circulation through a
+transfusion of healthy blood into his veins?"
+
+"Did you not tell us last evening," said Ashley, "that when a poor man
+earned a home for his wife and babies, that to him came the perfume and
+the light?"
+
+"I carved out some beautiful stories and shpoke any amount of illegint
+poethry to Maggie Murphy, but it would not do," said Corrigan.
+
+"There is a mirage before Brewster's eyes to-night," said Miller; "the
+business of most men is to earn bread."
+
+Then Brewster, bristling up, responded:
+
+"My answer to all of you is this: Man's first duty is to provide for
+himself, and for those dependent upon him, by honest toil, either of
+hand or brain, or both. For a long time you have each worked eight hours
+out of the twenty-four; perhaps eight hours more have been absorbed in
+eating and sleeping. What have you done with the other eight hours? You
+are miners. You can set timbers in line, you can lie on your backs and
+hit a drill above you with perfect precision; but could you make a
+draught of a mine, or clothe a description of one in good language on
+paper? You look upon a piece of ore, but can you test it and tell how
+much it is worth? These are all legitimate parts of your business as
+miners, and I refer to them merely to illustrate that in the excitements
+of this city, and the dream of getting rich in stock speculations, you
+have not only neglected your better natures, but have failed to
+thoroughly accomplish yourselves in your real business. You can see what
+you have actually lost, but you cannot estimate the pleasure you have
+been denying yourselves. Then when you are too old to work, what
+amusements and diversions are you preparing for old age?"
+
+"For that, matter," said Miller, "ask the man who fell down the Alta
+shaft last week, 800 feet to the sump, and the pieces of whose body,
+that could be found, were sewed up in canvas to be brought to the
+surface."
+
+Then there was a silence for several minutes until a freight train, with
+two locomotives (a double header), came up the heavy grade from Gold
+Hill and, when opposite the house of the Club, both locomotives
+whistled. At this Corrigan said:
+
+"Hear those black horses neigh! What a hail they give to the night! What
+a power they have under their black skins! I wonder if they don't think
+sometimes, the off-colored monsters."
+
+"If the steam engine has not reflective faculties it ought to have,"
+said Harding. "The highest pleasures which a man, in his normal state,
+can have are the approving whispers of his own soul. If in the iron
+frame of the steam engine there could be hidden a soul, what whispers
+would thrill it in these days! Methinks they would be something like
+this:
+
+"'When I was born Invention gave to Progress a child which was to be to
+the modern world what the Genii were to the ancient world, except that I
+am real, while the Genii were but dreams. In me man finds the
+materialization of a dream which haunted mortals through the centuries,
+while the world was slowly pressing onward to a better state. At my
+birth men were glad to give to me their burdens, because I could carry
+them without fatigue. They thought me but a dumb slave to do their
+bidding; they saw that I could add greatly to their achievements by
+enabling them to overcome heavy matter, and with tireless feet to chase
+the swift hours. I cannot add to man's actual years, but I can make one
+hour for him equal to a day in the olden time. At first my work was
+confined to the closely peopled regions. But at length I was pushed out
+beyond the settlements of men, and then something of the divinity within
+me began to assert itself. Savage man and the wild beast retired before
+me; when the path was made for me into the immemorial hills, before my
+scream the scream of the eagle died away. The lordly bird spread his
+wings to seek more impenetrable crags. Following in my wake,
+civilization came; homes sprang up, temples to art and to learning were
+upreared, and on the air, which but a year before was startled only by
+barbarous cries, there fell the benediction of children's voices, as
+with swinging satchels in their hands, they sang their songs going to
+and returning from schools. Then man began to discover that there was
+more to me than polished iron and brass; more than a heart of fire and a
+breath of steam. In my headlight they began to discover a faint
+reflection of the Infinite light, and in whispers began to say: "It is
+not a dumb slave; rather it is to Progress an evangel." As my power
+increased, it was seen that as the wild man and wild beast fled before
+me, old bigotries and old superstitions likewise fled, snarling like
+wolves, from my path; man moved up to a higher plane, and as he
+comprehended himself better, his thoughts were led upward; with enlarged
+ideas and deeper reverence, he turned to the contemplation of the First
+Great Cause who thrilled the dull matter of the universe with His own
+celestial light and order, and established that nothing was made in
+vain. And now a path is to be made down where the terrible Spaniard
+wrested an empire from the Aztecs; where, with the sword, he hewed down
+the altars on which human sacrifices were made, and built up new altars
+consecrated to Christianity. The people there will gather around me and
+rejoice. They think only of material things; how I will carry their
+burdens, take from them the fatigue of travel and increase their trade.
+They do not know that mine is a higher mission; that as I do their work
+there is to gradually fade from the faith that holds them, the
+superstitions which for centuries have environed their better selves and
+benumbed their grander energies. They will not realize, what is true,
+that angels still walk with men; that it is the near presence of the
+angels of Progress, Truth, Free Thought, Mercy and Eternal Justice, all
+rejoicing, which will give the thrill to their hearts. As yet my work
+has hardly commenced. It is not yet fifty years since I became a power
+in the world. Wait until I am better understood, until the smooth paths
+are made for me through all the wilderness, over all the rivers and
+hills, and I am given dominion over all the deep seas, that I may
+swiftly bring together the children of men, till gradually the nations
+will take on common thoughts and return to that tongue which was
+universal when the world was young, and, as yet, man walked in the clear
+image of his Creator. Then armies will melt away before me as savage
+tribes now do; then no more cannons will be cast, no more swords
+fashioned. Then, through my example, labor in the walks of peace will
+become exalted; then the thirst for gold will cease, because I will till
+the field, drive the loom, and take from man all that is servile or
+gross in toil; and gradually the wild beast in men's souls will be bred
+out, and in the peace of perfect brotherhood men will possess the earth,
+and I will be the good angel that will take away the burdens.'"
+
+As if in response to the words of Harding, just as he finished, the
+whistles all up and down the great lode sounded for the eleven o'clock
+change of shift, and the Club retired with this remark from Corrigan:
+
+"Harding, they heard what yez was remarkin' upon, and now hear the whole
+row of them cheerin' your spache."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Just after the lamps were lighted the next evening the door opened and
+the Professor, Colonel Savage and Alex Strong came in. The greetings
+were warm all around, and at once conversation turned upon stocks. The
+Professor insisted that the first great showing was to be made in the
+south end mines, Alex still believed in Overman, the Colonel was
+sanguine over Utah, Ashley asked the opinion of the others on Sierra
+Nevada. The general sentiment was that if Skae had any real indication
+there the Bonanza firm would gobble it up before any outsider could
+realize.
+
+Wright still inclined to the belief that the water must be conquered
+pretty soon in the Savage and that there would be a showing that would
+make every servant girl and hostler on the coast want some Savage.
+
+So the conversation ran on for an hour, until something was said which
+turned the conversation upon the strange characters which had been met
+on the western coast. At length the Colonel settled down for a talk, and
+the others became willing listeners.
+
+"I have met many royal people on this coast," began the Colonel. "Royal,
+though they never wore crowns, at least crowns not visible in the dim
+light of this world. The emblems of their royalty were hidden from most
+mortal eyes. In narrow spheres they lived and died, and only a few,
+besides God, knew of their sovereignty. One of these was
+
+
+OLD ZACK TAYLOR.
+
+"His last years were passed in Plumas and Lassen counties, California.
+When he came there his hair was already silvered; he must have been
+fifty years of age.
+
+"No one knew his antecedents. In the excitements and free-heartedness of
+those days not many questions were asked. Besides the young and hopeful
+there were many who had sought the new land as a balm for domestic
+troubles; as a spot where former misfortunes might be forgotten, where
+early mistakes might, in earnest lives, be buried out of sight. With the
+rest came Zack Taylor. From the first that region seemed to possess a
+charm for him. No person can imagine the splendor in natural scenery of
+Plumas county. It must be seen to be comprehended. The mountains are
+tremendous; the valleys are so fair that they seem like pictures in
+their mountain frames. And so they are. They are the work of a Master's
+hand, whose work never fades. His signet is upon them as it was
+indented, when, in the long ago, it was decided that at last the earth
+was fitted to be a habitation for man.
+
+"The forests are such forests as are no where seen in this world, except
+in the Pacific States of the United States. There is no exaggeration in
+this. Ordinary pines will make ten thousand feet of lumber, and they
+stand very near together, those mighty pines of the Sierras.
+
+"The panoramas that are unrolled there when nature is in the
+picture-making mood are most gorgeous. Some that I saw there linger
+fresh upon my mind still. They come to me sometimes when I am down in
+the depths of the mine, and for a moment I forget the heat and the
+gloom.
+
+"As a rule, all the summer long, the skies are of a crystal clearness;
+the green of the hill tops melts into the everlasting incandescent white
+beyond, and there is no change for days and weeks at a time, except as
+the green of the day fades into the shadows of the night, and the gold
+of the sunlight gives place to the silver of the stars.
+
+"It was to this region that Zack Taylor came and made his abode. About
+him was an air of perfect contentment. Besides his blanching hair, there
+were deep lines about his face, which were an alphabet from which could
+be spelled out stories of past excitements and trials, but if sorrows
+and sufferings were included, the firm lips gave no sign, and the
+bright, black eyes were ever kindly. There were rumors that he had been
+a soldier, but the general impression was, that from childhood, he had
+been tossed about on the frontier. He had the moods, the gestures and
+dialect of the frontier. He liked wild game cooked upon a camp fire,
+and, in frontier phrase, he could 'punish a heap of whisky.'
+
+"He was at home everywhere; in the saloons his coming was always
+welcome; when he met a lady on the street, no matter whether she was
+young or old, fair or ugly, he always doffed his hat, and the few
+children of those early days looked upon him as a father--or an angel.
+He had a cheery, hearty, winsome way about him which drew all hearts to
+him.
+
+"When I saw him last the gray hair had turned to snowy white; the scars
+of time had grooved deeper furrows on cheek and brow, the old elastic,
+merry way had grown sedate, but the black eyes were still kindly and
+bright. At that time he lived, a welcome pauper, on the citizens of
+Susanville, in Lassen county.
+
+"When hungry he went where he pleased and got food; when he needed
+clothes they were forthcoming in any store where he applied for them.
+When, sometimes, merchants would in jest banter him for money on account
+of what he owed, his way was to softly suggest to them that if the
+patronage of the place did not, in their judgments, justify them in
+remaining; there was no constitutional objection that he was aware of to
+prevent their making an auction.
+
+"One fearfully cold winter's night a few of us were sitting around the
+stove in the Stewart House, in Susanville, when old Zack came in. The
+circle was widened for him, and as he drew up to the fire, some one
+said: 'Zack, tell us about that night's work when you tended bar for the
+poker players?'
+
+"'Itwusdown on Noth Fok (North Fork) of Feather River, 'bout '52 or '53,
+I disremember which,' began Zack. 'It wus in the winter, and it being
+too cold for mining, ther boys wus all in camp. Thar wus no women thar,
+least ways, no ladies, and women as isn't ladies--but we dun no who thar
+mothers wus, nor how much they has suffered, and we haint got no
+business to talk about 'em. But, as I wus sayin', the boys wus all in
+camp, and thar wus lots of beans and whisky and sich things, and we hed
+good times, you bet!
+
+"Jake Clark kept a saloon thar, which wus sort of headquarters, and
+sometimes when the boys got warmed up on Jake's whisky thar wus lively
+times. Well, I _should_ remark. It wussent much wonder, neither, for
+Jake made his whisky in the back room, made it out of old boots,
+akerfortis and sich things, and if you believe me, a fire assay of that
+beverage would have shown 93 per cent, of cl'ar hell. Thar wus three or
+four copies of Shakespeare in camp, and everbody got a Sacermento
+_Union_ every week when the express came in; so we kept posted solid.
+Speakin' of that, if folks only jest stick to Shakespeare and then
+paternize one first-class paper, sich as the old _Union_ wus, and read
+'em, in the long run they'd have a heap more sense.
+
+"'Of course the boys would play poker sometimes. Men will always do that
+when the reproach in honest women's eyes is taken away, and I have
+heard, now and then, of one who would play in spite of good influences.
+At least thar is rumors to that effect.
+
+"'Well, they wus playin' one night, five or six of them, inter Jake's
+saloon. It got to be about ten o'clock, and Jake says to me, says he,
+'Zack, them fellers is playin' and will most likely run it all night. By
+mornin' Tom D. will have the hul pile, and Tom never pays nuthin'. I'm
+goin' home. You run the ranch, Zack, and when they call for it you give
+'em whisky outer this 'ere keg, so if they never pay we won't lose too
+much." This he told me in a low voice behind the bar, in confidence
+like.
+
+"'Jake started for home and I went on watch. Thar wus lots of coin and
+dust on the table and the boys wus playin' high. I stood behind the bar
+and watched 'em, and as I watched I said to myself, says I, "The
+doggoned cusses! They come here and bum Jake's fuel and lights, and
+drink his whisky, and don't pay nuthin'. It's too bad."
+
+"'Then an idea struck me. I had a log of fat pine in the back yard. It
+wus fuller of pitch than Bill Pardee is of religion in revival times,
+and I thought of somethin'. I went out, got a lot of the pitch, warmed
+it in the candle down behind the bar and rubbed it all along the bottom
+of my hands, so, and then I waited developments.
+
+"'Pretty soon thar wus a call for whisky. I started out with a bottle in
+one hand and a glass in the other, and, setting down the glass first, I
+said, "'Ere's your glass," and settin' down the bottle, said, "'Ere's
+your whisky."
+
+"'They drank all 'round, when Harlow Porter said: "This is mine, Zack."
+I argued the pint with him and asked him how a man could furnish a
+house, lights, fires and whisky, and keep it up if nobody paid? They
+told me to "hire a hall," and all laughed. It wus only old Zack, you
+know.
+
+"'But I did tolerable well after all. When I sat down the glass half a
+dollar stuck to my hand, and when I sat down the whisky the other hand
+caught up a two and a half piece.
+
+"'The playin' went on, and I warmed my hands. By and by more whisky wus
+called for. I responded. Once more I said, '"Ere's your glass," and
+"'Ere's your whisky." They drank, and then Henry Moore said to Hugh
+Richmond: "Why don't you ante?" "I have," wus Hugh's reply; "I jist put
+up five dollars." "No you didn't," said Henry. "Yes I did," said Hugh,
+hotly. "You're a liar," said Miller, and then biff! biff! biff! came the
+blows.
+
+"'I got down behind the bar, for some of them cusses would shoot if half
+a chance wus given them. The truth wus, I had picked up the five with my
+pitch when I said "'Ere's your whisky."
+
+"'The boys got hold and stopped the row and the players proceeded. The
+oftener they drank the wurs bookkeepers they became, and all the time I
+wus doin' reasonably well.
+
+"'Durin' the night I took in eighty-three dollars and seen a beautiful
+fight.
+
+"'I didn't tell of it, though, for nigh onto three year, 'cept to Jake.
+It nearly killed me to keep it to myself. But Lord! wouldn't they have
+made it tropic for me if they'd ever dropped on the business! Well, I
+should remark!'
+
+"When Zack finished his story I asked if he would not take something.
+
+"He remarked that he was not particularly proud and, besides, the
+weather was 'powerful sarchin';' he believed he would.
+
+"He swallowed a stiff drink, returned to the stove, resumed his seat,
+began and told the whole story over, except that the whisky was having
+its effect, and as he drew towards the close he commenced to exaggerate,
+and wound up by the assertion that he took in one hundred and sixty
+dollars and saw two tremendous fights.
+
+"Some one else asked him to drink. He accepted, then returned to his
+chair and apparently fell into a doze. After a few minutes, however, he
+aroused himself and began again, as follows:
+
+"'It wus down on North Fok of Feather River, in '52 or '53, I
+disremember which. It was in the winter, and it bein' too cold for
+minin' ther boys wus all in camp. Thar wus no women thar, leastways no
+ladies, and women as is no ladies--but we dun no.'
+
+"Here I arose and slipped out of the room. Returning about fifteen
+minutes later. I found old Zack gesticulating wildly and in a high key
+exclaiming:
+
+"'I everlastingly broke the boys with my pitch. I took in _three hundred
+and forty-three dollars_ and seen three the _dod-durndest fights in the
+world_.'
+
+"But it was not this that I began to tell. Three or four years before
+Zack's death, a courier announced to the people of Susanville that three
+days before, out near Deep Hole, on the desert eighty miles east of
+Susanville, a man had been killed by renegade Pi Ute Indians. The
+announcement made only a temporary impression, for such news was often
+brought to Susanville in those days. In a very few years eighty Lassen
+county men were murdered by Indians.
+
+"A few days after the news of this particular murder was brought in,
+Susanville began to be vexed by the evident presence of a mysterious
+thief. If a hunter brought in a brace of grouse or rabbits and left them
+exposed for a little while they disappeared.
+
+"If a string of trout were caught from the river and were left anywhere
+for a few minutes they were lost. Gardens were robbed of fruit and
+vegetables; blankets, flannels and groceries disappeared from stores.
+The losses became unbearable at length, everybody was aroused and on the
+alert, but no thief could be discovered, though the depredations still
+went on. This continued for days and weeks, until the people became
+desperate, and many a threat was made that when the thief should finally
+be caught, in disposing of him the grim satisfaction of the frontier
+should be fully enjoyed. Old Zack was especially fierce in his
+denunciations.
+
+"One morning a horseman dashed into town, his mustang coming in on a
+dead run. Reining up in front of the main hotel, he sprang down from his
+horse and to the people who came running to see what was the matter, he
+explained that half a mile from town, around the bend of the hill, in
+the old deserted cabin, he had found the widow of the man killed weeks
+before by the Indians; had found her and a nest of babies, and none of
+them with sufficient food or clothing.
+
+"When the story was finished, men and women--half the population of the
+village--made a rush for the cabin. It was nearly concealed from view
+from the road by thick bushes, but they found the woman there and four
+little children. The woman seemed like one half dazed by sorrow and
+despair, but when questioned, she replied that she had been there five
+weeks. 'But how have you lived?' asked half a dozen voices in concert.
+Then the woman explained that she and her children would have starved,
+had it not been for a kind old gentleman who brought her everything that
+she required.
+
+"'Indeed,' she added, 'he brought me many things that I did not need,
+and which I felt that I ought not to accept, but he over-persuaded me,
+telling me that I did not know how rich he was, that his supplies were
+simply inexhaustible.
+
+"When asked to describe this man, she began to say: 'He is a heavy-set
+old gentleman; wears blue clothes; his hair is white as snow, but his
+eyes are black, and--'but she was not allowed to go any farther, for
+twenty voices, between weeping and laughing, cried 'Old Zack!'
+
+"The widow and her children were taken to the village, a house with its
+comforts provided for them, and there was, thenceforth, no more trouble
+from the ubiquitous thief.
+
+"Living on charity himself, with the wreck of a life behind him and
+nothing before him but the grave, which he was swiftly nearing, this
+great-hearted, old heavenly bummer and Christian thief, had taken care
+of this helpless family, and had done it because despite the dry rot and
+the whisky which had benumbed his energies, his soul, deep down, was
+royal to the core.
+
+"It is true that he had robbed the town to minister to the woman and her
+babies, but in the books of the angels, though it was written that he
+was a thief, in the same sentence it was also added, 'and God bless
+him,' and these words turned to gold even as they were being written.
+
+"When Old Zack was asked why he did not make the facts about the family
+known, after waiting a moment he replied:
+
+"'You see I've been tossed about a powerful sight in my time; have drank
+heaps of bad whisky; have done a great many no-account things and not a
+great many good ones. Since I wus a boy I have never had chick or kin of
+my own. I met the woman and her babies up by the cabin; they wus as
+pitiful a sight as ever you seen; and besides, the woman wus jist about
+to go stark mad with grief and hunger and anxiety and weariness. I seen
+she must have quiet and that anxiety about her children must be soothed
+some way. Then I did some of the best lyin' you ever heard. I got her to
+eat some supper and waited until the whole outfit wus fast asleep. I
+watched 'em a little while and then I got curis to know what kind of a
+provider I would have made for a family had I started out in life
+different, and that wus all there wus about it.'
+
+"Is it a wonder, then, that when the old man died his body was dressed
+in soft raiment, placed in a costly casket, and that, preceded by a
+martial band playing a requiem, all the people followed sorrowingly to
+the grave; and that, as they gently heaped the sods above his breast
+they sent after him into the Beyond heartfelt 'all-hails and
+farewells?'"
+
+"You see your man through colored spectacles, Colonel," spoke up
+Brewster. "From your description, I think there was more of the border
+deviltry in the old man than there was true royalty. Life had been a
+joke to him always; he played it as a joke to the end. One such a man
+was entertainment to the village; had there been a dozen more like him
+they would have become intolerable nuisances?"
+
+"That," said the Colonel, "only shows how miserable are my descriptive
+powers. There are not a dozen other such men as old Zack Taylor was
+among all the fourteen hundred millions of people on this sorrowful
+earth."
+
+"No," interposed Miller, "you told the story well enough, but it was
+only descriptive of a good-humored bummer at best--of one who was
+warm-hearted without a conscience, of one who was more willing to work
+to perpetrate a joke on others than to honorably earn the bread that he
+ate.
+
+"I will tell you of a royal fellow that I knew. It was Billie Smith. He
+lived in Eureka that first hard winter of '70-71. He was not a miner as
+we are, receiving four dollars per day. He and his partner, a surly old
+fellow, had a claim which they were developing, hoping that it would
+amount to something in the spring. That was before smelting had been
+made a success. The ores were all base and of too low a grade to ship
+away. These men had a little supply of flour, bacon and coffee, and that
+was about all, and it was all they expected until spring.
+
+"It was early in January and the weather was exceedingly cold. Their
+cabin was but a rude hut, open on every side to the winds. I was there
+and I know how things were. One day I was waiting in a tent, which by
+courtesy was called a store, when Billie came in. He had a cheery smile
+and hearty, welcome words for every one. He had been there but a few
+minutes when his partner came in. The old man was fairly boiling with
+rage. So angry was he that he could hardly articulate distinctly.
+Finally he explained that some thief had stolen their mattress, a pair
+of their best blankets and a sack of flour. He wanted an officer
+dispatched with a search warrant. Then I overheard the following
+conversation between the two men:
+
+"'O, never mind,' said Billie; 'some poor devil needed the things or he
+would not have taken them.'
+
+"'Yes, but we need them, too; need them more than anything else,' was
+the response.
+
+"'O, we will get along; we have plenty.'
+
+"'Yes,' retorted the partner, 'but what are we going to do for a bed?
+Our hair mattress and best pair of blankets are gone, and the cabin is
+cold.'
+
+"'We can sew up some sacks into a mattress, and fill it with soft brush
+and leaves, and use our coats for blankets,' replied Billie. 'We'll get
+along all right. The truth is we have been sleeping too warm of late.'
+
+"Too warm!' said the partner, bitterly; 'I should think so. A polar bear
+would freeze in that cabin without a bed.'
+
+"'Do you think so?' asked Billie, smiling. 'Well, that is the way to
+keep it, and so if any wild animal comes that way we can freeze him out.
+Brace up, partner! Why should a man make a fuss about the loss of a
+trifle like that?'
+
+"Later I found out the facts. A little below Billie's cabin was another
+cabin, into which a family of emigrants had moved. They were dreadfully
+poor. Going to and returning from town Billie had noticed how things
+were. One night as he passed, going home in the dark, he heard a child
+crying in the cabin and heard it say to its mother that it was hungry
+and cold.
+
+"Next morning he waited until his partner had gone away, then rolled the
+mattress around a sack of flour, then rolled the mattress and flour up
+in his best pair of blankets, swung the bundle on his shoulder, carried
+it down the trail to the other cabin, where, opening the door, he flung
+it inside; then with finger on his lip he said in a hoarse whisper to
+the woman: 'Don't mention it! Not a word. I stole the bundle, and if you
+ever speak of it you will get me sent to prison,' and in a moment was
+swinging down the trail singing joyously:
+
+    "If I had but a thousand a year, Robin Ruff,
+    If I had but a thousand a year."
+
+"Last winter, after the fire, there was one man in this city, John W.
+Mackay, who gave $150,000 to the poor. It was a magnificent act, and was
+as grandly and gently performed as such an act could be. No one would
+ever have known it, had not the good priest who distributed the most of
+it, one day, mentioned the splendid fact. That man will receive his
+reward here, and hereafter, for it was a royal charity. But he has
+$30,000,000 to draw against, while, when Billie in the wilderness gave
+up his bed and his food, he not only had not a cent to draw against, but
+he had not a reasonably well-defined hope.
+
+"When at last the roll-call of the real royal men of this world shall be
+sounded, if any of you chance to be there, you will hear, close up to
+the head of the list, the name of Billie Smith, and when it shall be
+pronounced, if you listen, you will hear a very soft but dulcet refrain
+trembling along the harps and a murmur among the emerald arches that
+will sound like the beating of the wings of innumerable doves."
+
+"That was a good mon, surely. Did he do well with his mine?" asked
+Corrigan.
+
+"No," answered Miller. "It was but a little deposit, and was quickly
+worked out. He scuffled along until the purchase of the Eureka Con. in
+the spring, then went to work there for a few months, then came here,
+and a day or two after arriving, was shot dead by the ruffian Perkins.
+
+"He was shot through the brain, and people tell me he was so quickly
+transfixed that in his coffin the old sunny smile was still upon his
+face. I don't believe that, though. I believe the smile came when, as
+the light went out here, he saw the dawn and felt the hand clasps on the
+other side.
+
+"By the way, there was a man here who knew him, and who wrote something
+with the thought of poor Billie in his mind while he was writing."
+
+At this Miller arose and went to his carpet-sack, opened it and drew out
+a paper. Then handing it to Harding, he said: "Harding, you read better
+than I do, read it for us all."
+
+Harding took the paper and read as follows:
+
+
+            ERNEST FAITHFUL.
+
+    'Twas the soul of Ernest Faithful
+      Loosed from its home of clay--
+    Its mission on earth completed,
+      To the judgment passed away.
+
+    'Twas the soul of Ernest Faithful
+      Stood at the bar above,
+    Where the deeds of men are passed upon
+      In justice, but in love.
+
+    And an angel questioned Faithful
+      Of the life just passed on earth!
+    What could he plead of virtue,
+      What could he count of worth.
+
+    And the soul of Ernest Faithful
+      Trembled in sore dismay;
+    And from the judgment angel's gaze
+      Shuddering, turned away.
+
+    For memory came and whispered
+      How worldly was that life;
+    Unfairly plotting, sometimes,
+      In anger and in strife;
+
+    For a selfish end essaying
+      To treasures win or fame,
+    And the soul of Ernest cowered 'neath
+      The angel's eye of flame.
+
+    Then from a book the angel drew
+      A leaf with name and date,
+    A record of this Ernest's life
+      Wove in the looms of Fate.
+
+    And said: "O, Faithful, answer me,
+      Here is a midnight scroll,
+    What didst thou 'neath the stars that night?
+      Didst linger o'er the bowl?
+
+    "Filling the night with revelry
+      With cards and wine and dice,
+    And adding music's ecstacy,
+      To give more charms to vice?"
+
+    Then the soul of Faithful answered,
+      "By the bedside of a friend
+    I watched the long hours through; that night
+      His life drew near its end."
+
+    "Here's another date at midnight,
+      Where was't thou this night, say?"
+    "I was waiting by the dust of one
+      Whose soul had passed that day."
+
+    "These dollar marks," the angel said;
+      "What mean they, Ernest, tell?"
+    "It was a trifle that I gave
+      To one whom want befell."
+
+    "Here's thine own picture, illy dressed;
+      What means this scant attire?"
+    "I know not," answered Faithful, "save
+      That once midst tempest dire,
+
+    "I found a fellow-man benumbed,
+      And lost amid the storm
+    And so around him wrapped my vest,
+      His stiffening limbs to warm."
+
+    "Here is a woman's face, a girl's.
+      O, Ernest, is this well?
+    Knowst thou how often women's arms
+      Have drawn men's souls to hell?"
+
+    Then Ernest answered: "This poor girl
+      An orphan was. I gave
+    A trifle of my ample store
+      The child from want to save."
+
+    "Next are some words. What mean they here?"
+      Then Ernest answered low:
+    "A fellow-man approached me once
+      Whose life was full of woe,
+
+    "When I had naught to give, except
+      Some words of hope and trust;
+    I bade him still have faith, for God
+      Who rules above is just."
+
+    Then the grave angel smiled and moved
+      Ajar the pearly gate
+    And said: "O, soul! we welcome thee
+      Unto this new estate.
+
+    "Enter! Nor sorrow more is thine,
+      Nor grief; we know thy creed--
+    Thou who hast soothed thy fellowmen
+      In hour of sorest need.
+
+    "Thou who hast watched thy brother's dust,
+      When the wrung soul had fled;
+    And to the stranger gave thy cloak,
+      And to the orphan, bread.
+
+    "And when all else was gone, had still
+      A word of kindly cheer
+    For one more wretched than thyself,
+      Thou, soul, art welcome here.
+
+    "Put on the robe thou gav'st away
+      'Tis stainless now and white;
+    And all thy words and deeds are gems;
+      Wear them, it is thy right!"
+
+    And then from choir and harp awoke
+      A joyous, welcome strain,
+    Which other harps and choirs took up,
+      In jubilant refrain,
+
+    Till all the aisles of Summer Land
+      Grew resonant, as beat
+    The measures of that mighty song
+      Of welcome, full and sweet.
+
+"That is purty. I hope there were no mistake about the gintleman making
+the showing up above," said Corrigan.
+
+"What lots of music there must be up in that country," chimed in Carlin.
+"I wonder if there are any buildings any where on the back streets where
+new beginners practice."
+
+"That represents the Hebrew idea of Heaven," said Alex. "I like that of
+the savage better, with hills and streams and glorious old woods. There
+is a dearer feeling of rest attached to it, and rest is what a life
+craves most after a buffet of three score years in this world."
+
+"Rest is a pretty good thing after an eight-hours' wrestle with the
+gnomes down on a 2,300 level of the Comstock," said Miller; "suppose we
+say good night."
+
+"Withdraw the motion for a moment, Miller," said Wright. "First, I move
+that our friends here be made honorary members of the Club."
+
+It was carried by acclamation, and thereafter, for several nights, the
+three were present nightly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+When the Club reassembled Carlin, addressing the Colonel, said: "You
+told us of a royal old bummer last night, and Miller told us of an angel
+in miner's garb. Your stories reminded me of something which happened in
+Hamilton, in Eastern Nevada, in the early times, when the thermometer
+was at zero, when homes were homes and food was food. There was a royal
+fellow there, too, only he was not a miner, and though he lived upon the
+earnings of others, he never accepted charity. By profession he was a
+gambler, and not a very 'high-toned' gambler at that. He was known as
+'Andy Flinn,' though it was said, for family reasons, he did not pass
+under his real name.
+
+"Well, Andy had, in sporting parlance, been 'playing in the worst kind
+of luck' for a good while. One afternoon his whole estate was reduced to
+the sum of fifteen dollars. He counted it over in his room, slipped it
+back into his pocket and started up town. A little way from the lodging
+where he roomed he was met by a man who begged him to step into a house
+near by and see how destitute the inmates were.
+
+"Andy mechanically followed the man, who led the way to a cabin, threw
+open the door and ushered Andy in. There was a man, the husband and
+father, ill in bed, while the wife and mother, a delicate woman, and two
+little children, were, in scanty garments, hovering around the ghost of
+a fire.
+
+"Andy took one look, then rushed out of doors, the man who had led him
+into the cabin following. Andy walked rapidly away until out of hearing
+of the wretched people in the house, then swinging on his heel, for full
+two minutes hurled the most appalling anathemas at the man for leading
+him, as Andy expressed it, 'into the presence of those advance agents of
+a famine.'
+
+"When he paused for breath the man said, quietly: 'I like that; I like
+to see you fellows, that take the world so carelessly and easily,
+stirred up occasionally.'
+
+"'Easy!' said Andy; 'you had better try it. You think our work is easy;
+you are a mere child. We don't get half credit. I tell you to make a man
+an accomplished gambler requires more study than to acquire a learned
+profession; more labor than is needed to become a deft artisan. You talk
+like a fool. Easy, indeed!'
+
+"'I don't care to discuss that point with you, Andy,' said the man. 'I
+expect you are right, but that is not the question. What are you, a big,
+strong, healthy fellow, going to do to help those poor wretches in the
+cabin yonder?'
+
+"Andy plunged his hand into his pocket, drew out the fifteen dollars and
+was just going to pass it over to the man when a thought struck him.
+'Hold on,' he said; 'a man is an idiot that throws away his capital and
+then has to take his chances with the thieves that fill this camp. You
+come with me. I am going to try to take up a collection. By the way,' he
+said, shortly, 'do you ever pray?'
+
+"The man answered that he did sometimes. 'Then,' said Andy, 'you put in
+your very biggest licks when I start my collection.'
+
+"Not another word was said until they reached and entered a then famous
+saloon on Main street.
+
+"Going to the rear where a faro game was in progress, Andy exchanged his
+fifteen dollars for chips and began to play. He never ceased; hardly
+looked up from the table for two hours. Sometimes he won and sometimes
+he lost, but the balance was on the winning side. Finally he ceased
+playing, gathered up his last stakes, and beckoning to the man who had
+come with him to the saloon, and who had watched his playing with lively
+interest, he led the way into the billiard room.
+
+"Andy went to a window on one side of the room and began to search his
+pockets, piling all the money he could find on the sill of the window.
+The money was all in gold and silver.
+
+"When his pockets were emptied, with the quickness of men of his class,
+he ran the amount over. Then taking from a billiard table a bit of chalk
+he, with labored strokes, wrote on the window sill the following:
+
+    hul sum                     $263 50
+    starter                       15 00
+                                -------
+        doo ter god             $248 50
+
+"He picked up a ten-dollar piece and a five-dollar piece from the
+amount, then pushing the rest along the sill away from the figures,
+asked the man to count it. He did so and said:
+
+"'I make altogether $248.50, Andy.'
+
+"'I suspect you are correct,' said Andy, 'and now you take that money
+and go and fix up those people as comfortably as you can. Tell 'em we
+took up a collection among the boys; don't say a word about it on the
+outside, and see here. If you ever again show me as horrible a sight as
+that crowd makes in that accursed den down the street, I'll break every
+bone in your body.'
+
+"'But,' said the man, 'this is not right, Andy. It is too much. Fifty
+dollars would be a most generous contribution from you. Give me fifty
+dollars and you take back the rest.'
+
+"'What do you take me for?' was Andy's reply. 'Don't you think I have
+any honor about me? When I went into that saloon I promised God that if
+He would stand in with me, His poor should have every cent that I could
+make in a two hours' deal. I would simply be a liar and a thief if I
+took a cent of that money. You praying cusses have not very clear ideas
+of right and wrong after all.'
+
+"The man went on his errand of mercy, and Andy returned and invested his
+money in the bank again, as he said, 'to try to turn an honest penny.'"
+
+"That was a right ginerous man," remarked Corrigan.
+
+"May be and may be not," was the remark of the Colonel. "It is possible
+that he had been 'playing in bad luck,' as they say, for a good while
+and did it to change that luck. Confirmed gamesters never reason clearly
+on ordinary subjects. They are either up in the clouds or down in the
+depths; they are perpetually studying the doctrine of chances, and are
+as full of superstitions as so many fortune tellers."
+
+"That class of men are proverbially generous, though," said Harding;
+"but the way they get their money, I suspect, has something to do with
+the matter. Had the man earned the money at four dollars a day, running
+a car down in a hot mine, he would hardly have given up the whole sum."
+
+Here Miller took up the conversation. "I knew a man down in Amador
+county, California," said he, "who worked in a mine as we are working
+here, except that wages were $3.50 instead of $4.00 per day. He came
+there in the fall of the year and worked eight months. His clothes were
+always poor. He lived in a cabin by himself, and such miners as happened
+into his cabin at meal time declared their belief that his food did not
+cost half a dollar a day. He never joined the miners down town; was
+never known to treat to as much as a glass of beer. We all hated him
+cordially and looked upon him as a miner so avaricious that he was
+denying himself the common comforts of life. He was the talk of the
+mine, and many were the scornful words which he was made to hear and to
+know that they were uttered at his expense. Still he was quiet and
+resented nothing that was said, and there was no dispute about his being
+a most capable and faithful miner. At last one morning as the morning
+shift were waiting at the shaft to be lowered into the mine, Baxter
+(that was his name) appeared, and, after begging our attention for a
+moment, said:
+
+"'Gentlemen, there is the dead body of an old man up in the cabin across
+from the trail. It will cost sixty dollars to bury it in a decent
+coffin. The undertaker will not trust me, but if twenty of you will put
+in three dollars each, I will pay you all when pay-day comes.'
+
+"Then we questioned him, and it came out at last that Baxter had found
+the old man sick a few days after he came to work, and of his $3.50 per
+day had spent $3.00 in food, medicine and medical attendance upon the
+man, all through the long winter, and had moreover often watched with
+him twelve hours out of the twenty-four. It was not a child that
+something might be hoped for; there was no beautiful young girl about
+the place to be in love with. It was simply a death watch over a
+worn-out pauper. I thought then, I think still, it was as fine a thing
+as ever I saw.
+
+"There were sixty of us on the mine. We put in ten dollars apiece, went
+to Baxter in a body, and, begging his pardon, asked him to accept it.
+
+"With a smile, he answered: 'I thank you, but I cannot take it. I have
+wasted much money in my time. Now I feel as though I had a little on
+interest, and I shall get along first rate.'
+
+"Talk about royalty, our Baxter was an Emperor."
+
+"He did have something on interest," said Brewster. "Something for this
+world and the world to come."
+
+"Did you ever hear about Jack Marshall's attempt to pay his debts by
+clerking in a store?" asked Savage. "Jack brought a good deal of coin
+here and opened a store. He did first rate for several months, and after
+awhile branched out into a larger business, which required a good many
+men. When everything was promising well a fire came and swept away the
+store and a flood destroyed the other property. There was just enough
+saved out of the wreck to pay the laborers.
+
+"When all was settled up Jack had but forty-three dollars left and an
+orphan boy to take care of. Just then a man that Jack had known for a
+good while as a miner, came into town, and hearing of Jack's
+misfortunes, hunted him up and told him that he had given up mining and
+settled down to farming, and begged Jack to come and make his home with
+him until he had time to think over what was best to do. He further said
+that he had twelve acres of land cleared and under fence, with ditches
+all dug for irrigating the crop; that he had a yoke of oxen to plough
+the land; that his intention was to plant the whole twelve acres to
+potatoes; that a fair crop would yield him sixty tons, which, as
+potatoes then were four cents a pound, would bring him nearly $5,000 for
+the season. But he explained that he could not drive oxen, and more than
+that, it required two men to do the work, and as he had not much money
+and did not want to run in debt, his business in town was to find some
+steady man who could drive oxen, who would go with him and help him
+plant, tend, harvest and sell the crop on shares. The ranch was down on
+Carson River, not far from Fort Churchill.
+
+"When the man had finished his story, Jack said to him: 'How would I do
+for a steady man and a bovine manipulator?'
+
+"'My God, Mr. Marshall! you would not undertake to drive oxen and plant
+potatoes, would you?' said the man.
+
+"'That's just what I would,' said Jack, 'if you think you can endure me
+for a partner. I will become a horny-handed tender of the vine--the
+potato vine. What say you?'
+
+"Well, that evening both men started for the farm. No friend of Jack
+knew his real circumstances. They knew he had been unfortunate, but did
+not know that it was a case of 'total wreck.' He bade a few of them
+good-bye, with the careless remark that he was going for a few days'
+hunt down toward the sink of the Carson.
+
+"Well, he ploughed the land, the two men planted the crop and irrigated
+it until the potatoes were splendidly advanced and just ready to
+blossom. It got to be the last of June and the promise for a bountiful
+crop was encouraging. They had worked steadily since the middle of
+March. But just then a thief, who had some money, made a false
+affidavit, got from a court an injunction against the men and shut off
+the water. It was just at the critical time when the life of the crop
+depended upon water. In two weeks the whole crop was ruined. In the
+meantime for seed and provisions, clothes, etc., a debt of one hundred
+and fifty dollars had been contracted at the store of a Hebrew named
+Isaacs. News of the injunction reached the merchant, and one morning he
+put in an appearance.
+
+"'Meester Marshall, hous dings?' asked Isaacs.
+
+"Pointing to the blackened and withering crop, Jack answered: 'They look
+a little bilious, don't you think so?'
+
+"'Mine Gott! Mine Gott!' was the wailing exclamation. Then, after a
+pause, 'Ven does you suppose you might pay me, Meester Marshall?'
+
+"'As things have been going of late, I think in about seven years. It is
+said that bad luck changes about every seven years.'
+
+"'Mine Gott! Meester Marshall,' cried Isaacs; 'haven't you got nodings
+vot you can pay? I vill discount de bill--say ten per cent.'
+
+"'Nothing that I can think of, except a dog. I have a dog that is worth
+two hundred dollars, but to you I will discount the dog twenty-five per
+cent.'
+
+"'O, mine Gott! vot you dinks I could do mit a dog?' said the despairing
+merchant.
+
+"'Why keep him for his society, Mr. Isaacs,' was the bantering answer.
+'With him salary is not so much an object as a comfortable and
+respectable home. There's too much alkali on the soil to encourage fleas
+to remain, so there's no difficulty on that score; and he's an awfully
+good dog, Isaacs; no bad habits, and the most regular boarder you ever
+saw; he has never been late to a meal since we have been here. You had
+better take him; twenty-five per cent is an immense discount.'
+
+"By this time the Hebrew was nearly frantic.
+
+"'Meester Marshall,' he said, hesitatingly, 'did you clerk ever in a
+store?'
+
+"'Oh, yes.'
+
+"'Vould you clerk for me?'
+
+"'Yes: that is, until that bill shall be settled.'
+
+"'Ven could you come?'
+
+"'Whenever you wish.'
+
+"'Vould you come next Monday--von of mine clerks, Henery, goes avay
+Monday?'
+
+"'Yes, I will be on hand Monday. Let us see; it is seven miles to walk.
+I will be there about nine o'clock in the morning.'
+
+"'Vell, I danks you, Meester Marshall; danks you very much.'
+
+"He turned away and rode off a few steps, then stopped and called back:
+'Meester Marshall, if you dinks vot de society of de dog is essential to
+your comfort, bring him.'
+
+"'Thanks, Isaacs,' cried Jack, cheerfully; 'considering where I am going
+to work, and the company I am going to keep, it will not be necessary.'
+
+"Jack went as he had promised. Isaacs, who was a thoroughly good man,
+was delighted to see him, shook hands cordially, and then suddenly, with
+a mysterious look, led him to the extreme rear end of the store, and
+when there, placing his lips close to Jack's ear, in a hoarse whisper,
+said:
+
+"'Meester Marshall, de vater here is ---- bad; it is poison, horrible.
+You drinks nodings but vine until you gets used to de vater.'
+
+"Marshall went to work at once. It was in 1863. The war was at its
+height, and Jack was intensely Union, while Isaacs, his employer, was a
+furious Democrat. Nothing of especial interest transpired for a couple
+of weeks, when one day an emigrant woman, just across the plains,
+leading two little children, came into the store.
+
+"She was an exceedingly poor woman, evidently. All her clothes were not
+worth three dollars, while her children were pitiful looking beyond
+description.
+
+"Isaacs was in the front of the store; Jack was putting up goods in the
+rear, but in hearing, while another clerk was in the warehouse outside
+of the main store. Isaacs went to wait on the woman. She picked out some
+needed articles of clothing for her children, amounting to some six or
+eight dollars, then unrolling a dilapidated kerchief, from its inner
+folds drew out a Confederate twenty-dollar note and tendered it in
+payment.
+
+"Isaacs, who had been all smiles, drew back in horror, exclaiming: 'I
+cannot take dot; dot is not monish, madam.'
+
+"Jack overheard what Isaacs said and the woman's reply, as follows:
+
+"'It is all that I have; it is all the money that we have had in
+Arkansas since the war commenced. Everybody takes it in Arkansas.'
+
+"This conversation continued for two or three minutes, and the woman was
+just about turning away without the goods when Jack, unable to longer
+bear it, stepped forward and said:
+
+"'Mr. Isaacs, Mr. Smith would like to see you in the warehouse; please
+permit me to wait upon the lady.'
+
+"'All right,' said Isaacs, 'only (in a whisper) remember dot ish not
+money.'
+
+"Isaacs passed out of the store and Jack then said: 'If you please,
+madam, let me see your money.'
+
+"The woman, with a trembling hand, presented the Confederate note. Jack
+glanced at it and said:
+
+"'Why, this is first-class money, madam. It is just a prejudice that
+that infernal old Abolitionist has. I will discharge him to-night. They
+would hang him in two hours in Arkansas, and they ought to hang him
+here. Buy all the goods you want, madam.'
+
+"With eyes full of gratitude the woman increased the bill, until it
+amounted to eleven dollars and a half. Jack tied up the goods, took the
+Confederate note, handed the woman a five-dollar gold piece and three
+dollars and fifty cents in silver, and she went on her way holding the
+precious coin, the first she had seen in years, closely clasped in her
+hand.
+
+"Jack charged goods to cash twenty dollars, charged himself to cash
+twenty dollars, and went back to putting up goods, humming to himself.
+
+"'Half the world never knows how the other half lives.' Jack's salary
+was one hundred and fifty dollars a month. He owed one hundred and fifty
+dollars when he went to work. It took him four months to pay off his
+indebtedness, but when he gave up his place he had all his pockets full
+of Confederate money."
+
+As the story was finished, Miller said: "A real pleasant but
+characteristic thing happened right here in this city when Bishop W----
+first came here.
+
+"He wanted to establish a church, and his first work was to select men
+who would act and be a help to him as trustees.
+
+"It is nothing to get trustees for a mining company here, but a church
+is a different thing. In a church, you know, a man has to die to fill
+his shorts, and then, somehow, in these late years men have doubts about
+the formation, so that when a man starts a company on that lead any more
+he finds it mighty hard to place any working capital.
+
+"At the time I was speaking of it was just about impossible to get a
+full staff of trustees that would exactly answer the orthodox
+requirements. But the Bishop is a man of expedients. It was sinners that
+he came to call to repentance, and it did not take him long to discover
+that right here was a big field. He went to work at once with an energy
+that has never abated for a moment since. He selected all his trustees
+but one, and looking around for him, with a clear instinct he determined
+that Abe E---- should be that one if he would accept the place.
+
+"Now Abe was the best and truest of men, but he would swear sometimes.
+Indeed when he got started on that stratum he was a holy terror. But the
+Bishop put him down as a trustee, and, meeting Abe on the street,
+informed him that he was trying to organize a church; had taken the
+liberty to name him as a trustee, and asked Abe to do him the honor of
+attending a trustees' meeting at 1 o'clock the next afternoon.
+
+"'I would be glad to help you, Bishop,' said Abe, 'but----it----I
+don't know. I can run a mine or a quartz mill, but I don't know any more
+than a Chinaman about running a church.'
+
+"But the Bishop plead his case so ably that Abe at length surrendered,
+promised to attend the meeting, and, having promised, like the sterling
+business man that he was, promptly put in an appearance.
+
+"Besides Abe and the Bishop, there were six others. When all had
+assembled the Bishop explained that he desired to build a church; that
+he had plans, specifications and estimates for a church to cost $9,000,
+with lot included; that he believed $1,500 might be raised by
+subscription, leaving the church but $7,500 in debt, which amount would
+run at low interest and which in a growing place like Virginia City the
+Bishop thought might be paid up in four or five years, leaving the
+church free. He closed by asking the sense of the trustees as to the
+wisdom and practicability of making the attempt.
+
+"There was a general approval of the plan expressed by all present
+except Abe, who was silent until his opinion was directly asked by the
+Bishop.
+
+"'Why ---- it, Bishop,' said he, 'I told you that I knew nothing about
+church business, but I don't like the plan. If you were to get money at
+fifteen per cent per annum, which is only half the regular banking rate,
+your interest would amount to nearly $1,200 a year, or almost as much as
+you hope to raise for a commencement. I am afraid, Bishop, you would
+never live long enough to get out of debt. You want a church, why ----
+it, why don't you work the business as though you believed it would pay?
+That is the only way you can get up any confidence in the scheme.'
+
+"Abe sat down and the Bishop's heart sank with him.
+
+"With a smile, one of the other gentlemen asked Abe what his plan for
+getting a church would be.
+
+"'I will tell you,' said Abe, 'I move that an assessment of one thousand
+dollars be levied upon each of the trustees, payable immediately.'
+
+"It was a startling proposition to the Bishop, who was just from the
+East and who had not become accustomed to Comstock ways. With a
+faltering voice he said:
+
+"'Mr. E., I fear that I cannot at present raise $1,000.'
+
+"'Never mind, Bishop,' said Abe, 'we will take yours out in preaching;
+but there is no rebate for any of the rest of you. If you are going to
+serve the Lord, you have got to be respectable about it. Your checks if
+you please, gentlemen.'
+
+"All were wealthy men, the checks were laughingly furnished, with joking
+remarks that it was the first company ever formed in Virginia City where
+the officers really invested any money.
+
+"'Abe took the checks, added his own to the number, begged the Bishop to
+excuse him, remarking as he went out that while he had every faith in
+the others still he was anxious to reach the bank a little in advance of
+them, and started up town.
+
+"He met this man and that and demanded of each a check for from $50 to
+$250, as he thought they could respectively afford to pay.
+
+"When asked how long he would want the money his reply was: 'I want it
+for keeps, ---- it. I am building a church.' In forty minutes he had the
+whole sum. He took the checks to the bank and for them received a
+certificate of deposit in the Bishop's name. Carrying this to the
+Bishop's house he rang the bell.
+
+"'The Bishop had seen his coming and answered the summons in person.
+Handing him the certificate Abe said:
+
+"'Take that for a starter, Bishop. It won't be enough, for a church is
+like an old quartz mill. The cost always exceeds the estimates a good
+deal, but go ahead, and when you need more money we will levy another
+assessment on the infernal sinners.'"
+
+Strong, who had been listening attentively said: "I heard the Bishop
+preach and pray over Abe's dead body three years ago, and watched him as
+he took a last, long look at Abe's still, clear-cut splendid face as it
+was composed in death. Abe never joined the church, and I am told that
+he swore a little to the last. His part in building the church was
+simply one of his whims, but for years he was a Providence here to
+scores of people. No one knew half his acts of bountiful, delicate
+charity, or in how many homes bitter tears were shed when he died.
+
+"But the Bishop knew enough to know and feel as he was praying over his
+remains, that while it was well as a matter of form, it was quite
+unnecessary; that, so far as Abe was concerned, he was safe; that in the
+Beyond where the mansions are and where the light is born; where, over
+all, are forever stretched out the brooding wings of celestial peace,
+Abe had been received, and that, upon his coming, while the welcomes
+were sounding and the greetings were being made to him, flowers burst
+through the golden floor and blossomed at his feet.
+
+"Among the royal ones of the earth, the soul of Abe E---- bore the
+sceptre of perfect sovereignty."
+
+"I knew him," said Corrigan, "may his soul rest in peace, for he was a
+noble man."
+
+"I knew him," interposed Carlin, "no words give an idea of how sterling
+and true a man he was."
+
+"I knew him," added Wright. "When he died Virginia City did not realize
+the loss which his death entailed."
+
+"I knew him," concluded Strong. "His heart was a banyan tree, its limbs
+were perpetually bending down and taking root, till it made shade for
+the poor of the city."
+
+Then Carlin, opening the door to the kitchen, called Yap Sing to bring
+glasses. A night-cap toddy was made and as it was drank the good nights
+were spoken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+With the lighting of the pipes the next night Miller said:
+
+"All your royal people so far, though not perfect men, have had
+redeeming traits. I once knew one who had not a single characteristic,
+except, perhaps, some pluck. My man was simply a royal liar. In Western
+parlance, 'he was a boss.' His name was Colonel Jensen.
+
+"Now, in my judgment, lying is the very grossest of human evils. A
+common liar is a perpetual proof of the truth of the doctrine of
+original sin. By that vice more friendships are broken and more real
+misery is perpetrated and perpetuated in the world than comes through
+any other channel.
+
+"But as genius excites admiration even when exerted for sinister
+purposes, so when the art of lying is reduced to an absolute science
+there is something almost fine about it.
+
+"My liar, when I first knew him, seemed to be between fifty and sixty
+years of age; but no one ever knew what his real age was.
+
+"But he was quite an old man, for his hair was perfectly white, and
+that, with a singularly striking face and fine faculty of expressing his
+ideas, gave him an appearance at once venerable and engaging. It was
+hard to look into his almost classical face and to think that if he had
+told the truth within twenty years, it must have been an accident; but
+such was the fact, nevertheless.
+
+"He was indeed a colossal prevaricator. He was at home, too, on every
+theme, and there was the charm of freshness to every new falsehood, for
+he spoke as one who was on the spot--an actor. If it was an event that
+he was describing, he was a participant; if a landscape or a structure,
+it was from actual observation; if it chanced to be a scientific theme,
+he invariably reported the words of some great scientist 'just as they
+fell from his lips.'
+
+"He knew and had dined with all the great men of his generation--that
+is, he said so. He always spoke with particularly affectionate
+remembrance of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, always referring to them
+as 'Hank' and 'Dan,' so intimate had he been with them.
+
+"My introduction to him was on a stormy winter night, in the early years
+of the Washoe excitement. A few of us were conversing in a hotel. One
+gentleman was describing something that he had witnessed in his boyhood,
+in Columbus, Ohio.
+
+"As he finished his story, a venerable gentleman, who was a stranger in
+Washoe, and who had, for several minutes, been slowly pacing up and down
+the room, suddenly stopped and inquired of the gentleman who had been
+talking if he was from Columbus? When answered in the affirmative, the
+stranger extended his hand, dropped into a convenient seat as he spoke,
+and expressed his pleasure at meeting a gentleman from Columbus, at the
+same time introducing himself as Colonel Jensen and remarking that one
+of the happiest recollections of his life was of a day in Columbus, on
+which day all his prospects in life were changed and wonderfully
+brightened.
+
+"With such an exordium, the rest could do no less than to press the old
+gentleman to favor the company with a rehearsal of what had transpired.
+
+"The story was as follows:
+
+"I had just returned with the remnant of my regiment from Mexico, and
+had received the unanimous thanks of the Legislature of Ohio for--so the
+resolution was worded--"the magnificent ability and steadfast and
+desperate courage displayed by Colonel Jensen for twelve consecutive
+hours on the field of Buena Vista." I was young at the time and had not
+got over caring for such things. The day after this resolution of thanks
+was passed the Governor of the State ordered a grand review, at the
+capital, of the militia of the State in honor of the soldiers who had
+survived the war. As a mark of especial honor I was appointed
+Adjutant-General on the Governor's staff. My place at the review was
+beside the Governor--who was, of course, Commander-in-Chief--except when
+my particular regiment was passing.
+
+"'There are a few things which I have never outgrown a weakness for. One
+is a real Kentucky blood horse. I had sent to Kentucky and paid four
+thousand dollars for a son of old Gray Eagle. I bought him cheap, too,
+because of his color. He was a dappled gray. The Boston stock of horses
+was just then becoming the rage, and gray was beginning to be an off
+color for thoroughbreds. My horse was a real beauty. He had been trained
+on the track, and from a dead stand would spring twenty-two feet the
+first bound. But he was thoroughly broken and tractable, though he had
+more style than a peacock, and when prancing and careering, though not
+pulling five pounds on the bit, he looked as though in a moment he would
+imitate Elijah's chariot and take to the clouds.
+
+"'As the hour for the review approached I mounted my horse and took my
+position, as assigned, beside the Governor.
+
+"'I was quietly conversing with him and with our Brigadier-General, when
+a runaway team, attached to an open carriage in which were two ladies,
+dashed past us.
+
+"'What followed was instinct. I gave Gray Eagle both rein and spur. In a
+few seconds he was beside the running horses. I sprang from his back
+upon the back of the near carriage horse, gathered the inside reins of
+the team, drew the heads of the two horses together and brought them to
+a standstill only a few feet from the bluffs, which any one from that
+city will remember, and over which the team would have dashed in a
+moment more.
+
+"'People gathered around instantly, took the horses in hand and helped
+the ladies from the vehicle. Being relieved, I caught and remounted my
+horse, took my place and the review proceeded.
+
+"'After the review, I received a note from the Governor asking me to
+dine with him that evening.
+
+"'I accepted, supposing the invitation was due to my Mexican record.
+Judge my surprise, then, when going to the Governor's mansion, I was
+shown into the parlor, and, on being presented to the Governor's wife
+and her beautiful unmarried sister, in a moment found myself being
+overwhelmed by the grateful thanks of the two ladies, learning for the
+first time, from their lips, that they were the ladies I had rescued.
+
+"'Of course, after that, I was a frequent visitor at the house, and in a
+few months the young lady became my wife.'
+
+"His story was told with an air of such modest candor and at the same
+time with such dramatic effect, that what might have seem improbable or
+singular about it, had it been differently related, was not thought of
+at the time. The old man was a real hero for a brief moment at least.
+
+"When, later, we knew the Colonel had never been in the Mexican war or
+any other war; that he had never been married; that if he had ever
+witnessed a military review it was from a perch on a fence or tree; that
+he had never possessed four thousand or four hundred dollars with which
+to buy a horse, and that his oldest acquaintances did not believe that
+he had ever been on a horse's back, still, while the admiration for the
+man was somewhat chilled, there was no difference of opinion as to the
+main fact, which was that as a gigantic and dramatic liar, on merit, he
+was entitled to the post of honor on a day when the Ananiases of all the
+world were passing in review.
+
+"Old and middle-aged men in the West will remember the delightful
+letters, which Lieut. B., under the _nom de plume_ of 'Ching Foo,' used
+to write to the Sacramento _Union_. Once in the presence of Colonel
+Jensen these letters were referred to as masterpieces. The Colonel
+smiled significantly and said:
+
+"'They were delicious letters, truly. Take him all in all, Ching Foo was
+the most intelligent Chinaman I ever saw. He cooked for me three years
+in California. I taught him reading and writing. I reckon he would have
+been with me still, but the early floods in '54 washed out my bed-rock
+flume in American River and I had to break up my establishment. I had a
+ton of gold in sight in the river bed, but next morning the works were
+all gone and with them $125,000 which I had used in turning the river.'
+
+"One day an Ohio man and a Tennessee man engaged in a warm dispute over
+the relative excellencies of the respective State houses in Ohio and
+Tennessee. Finally they appealed to Colonel Jensen for an opinion. The
+Colonel, with his sovereign air, said to the Ohio man:
+
+"'You are wrong, Tom. I had just completed the State house at Columbus,
+when I was sent for to go and make the plans and superintend the
+construction of the State house at Nashville. It would have been strange
+if I had not made a great many improvements over the Ohio structure, in
+preparing plans for the one to be erected in Tennessee.'
+
+"The Colonel was a bungling carpenter by trade, and never built anything
+more complicated or imposing than a miner's cabin.
+
+"One more anecdote and I will positively stop. Two neighbors had a law
+suit in Washoe City. One was an honest man, the other a scoundrel. As is
+the rule in Nevada, both the plaintiff and defendant testified. The
+defendant denied point blank the testimony of the plaintiff. It was
+plain that one or the other had committed terrible perjury. Some other
+witnesses were called, the case was closed and the jury retired to
+consider upon a verdict. But how to decide was the question. Which was
+the honest man and which the scoundrel?
+
+"At last one juror hit upon a happy thought. He said:
+
+"Gentlemen, did you notice closely the last witness for the defendant?
+His hair was white as snow, his body bent, his steps were feeble and
+tottering. That man has already one foot in the grave; he will not
+survive another month. Surely a man in his condition would tell the
+truth.' The argument seemed logical and the reasoning sound. The verdict
+was unanimous for the defendant.
+
+"No case ever showed clearer the 'infallibility' of a jury. The witness
+was Colonel Jensen. The defendant was the perjurer, and all the Colonel
+knew of the case was what the defendant had, that morning, out behind a
+hay corral, drilled him to know and to swear to, for a five-dollar
+piece.
+
+"The Colonel has gone now to join his ancestors on the other side. In
+the old orthodox days there would not have been the slightest doubt as
+to who his original ancestor was, or of the temperature of his present
+quarters, but who knows?
+
+"I only know that, while upon the earth, he was one of the few men whom
+I have known that I believed was a native genius; a very Shakespeare (or
+Bacon) in language; a Michael Angelo in coloring; a colossal,
+all-embracing, magnificent, measureless liar."
+
+"He was a good one, sure," said Carlin.
+
+"He was a bad one, sure," remarked Ashley.
+
+Then Brewster, taking up the theme, said: "He had a chronic disease,
+that was all. He was as much of an inebriate in his way as ever was
+drunkard a slave to alcohol. He had great vanity and self-esteem and a
+flowery imagination. These were chastened or disciplined by no moral
+attributes. He could no more help being what he was than can the raven
+avoid being black."
+
+"There was bad stock in the mon," said Corrigan. "He should have been
+strangled in his cradle; for sich a mon is forever making bitterness in
+a neighborhood, and is not fit to live."
+
+"Boys," asked the Colonel, "do you believe that lying is ever
+justifiable?"
+
+Brewster, Harding and Ashley simultaneously answered "No."
+
+"It depends," said Carlin.
+
+"Hardly iver," said Corrigan.
+
+Miller thought it might be necessary.
+
+"For one's self, no; for another, perhaps yes," said the Professor.
+
+"That is just the point," remarked the Colonel. "Let me tell you about a
+case which transpired right here in this city. There were two men whose
+first names were the same, while their surnames were similar. Their
+given names were Frank and their surnames were, we will say, Cady and
+Carey, respectively. Cady was a young married man. He had a beautiful
+wife, a lovely little girl three years of age and a baby boy a year old
+at the time I am speaking of. Carey was five or six years younger and
+single. They were great friends, notwithstanding that Cady was pretty
+fast while Carey was as pure-hearted a young man as ever came here.
+More, he was devotedly attached to a young lady who was a close friend
+of the wife of Cady. The young couple were expecting to be married in a
+few weeks at the time the incident happened which I am going to relate.
+
+"Cady was wealthy, while Carey was poor and a clerk in a mercantile
+establishment. One day Cady said to his friend: 'Carey, I bought some
+Con. Virginia stock to-day at $55. I have set aside eighty shares for
+you. Some people think it is going to advance before long. If it does
+and there is anything made on the eighty shares it shall be yours.'
+Sixty days later the stock struck $463, when it was sold and the bank
+notified Carey that there was a deposit of $32,000 to his credit. When
+this stroke of good fortune came the youth hastened to tell the good
+news to the girl of his heart, and before they separated their troth was
+plighted and the marriage day fixed.
+
+"During this delicious period, one morning Carey stepped into the outer
+office of Cady and was horrified to hear from behind the glass screen
+which separated the inner office from the main office the wife of Cady
+upbrading her husband in a most violent manner. Her back was to the
+front of the building. She was holding a letter in her hand, and as
+Carey entered the building she began and read the letter through, and
+wound up by crying: 'Who is this Marie who is writing to you and
+directing the letters simply to Frank, Postoffice box 409? You are
+keeping a private box, are you? But you are too careless by half; you
+left this letter in your overcoat pocket, and when I went to sew a
+button on the coat this morning it fell out, so I could not help but see
+it.'
+
+"Just then Cady looked up and saw Carey through the glass petition. The
+latter with a swift motion touched a finger to his lips and shook his
+head, which in perfect pantomime said: 'Don't give yourself away,' then
+in a flash slipped noiselessly from the building.
+
+"Once outside, he hastily, on a leaf of his memorandum book, wrote to
+the postmaster that if he called with a lady and asked what his
+postoffice box was to answer 409; to at once take out anything that
+might be in the box, and if he had time to seal and stamp an envelope,
+direct it to him and put it in 409, and he added: 'Don't delay a
+moment.'
+
+"Calling a bootblack who was standing near, he gave him the note and a
+silver dollar, bade him run with the letter to the postoffice and to be
+sure to deliver the note only to some of the responsible men there, to
+the postmaster himself if possible.
+
+"Then, with a good deal of noise, he rushed into his friend's place of
+business again.
+
+"As he entered he heard his friend's wife, through her sobs, saying:
+'Oh, Frank! I should have thought that respect for our children would
+have prevented this, even if you have no more love for me.'
+
+"Carey dashed through the sash door, seemed taken all aback at seeing
+Cady's wife in the office. In great apparent confusion he advanced and
+said: 'Excuse me, Cady, but I am in a little trouble this morning. I was
+expecting a letter last night directed simply to my first name and my
+postoffice box. It has not come, and as you and myself have the same
+first name, I did not know but the mistake might have been made at the
+postoffice.' He was apparently greatly agitated and unstrung and seemed
+particularly anxious about the letter.
+
+"Cady replied: 'With my mail last night a letter came directed as you
+say. I opened and glanced over it, thought it was some joke, put it in
+my pocket and thought no more about it until my wife brought it in this
+morning. Somehow she does not seem satisfied at my explanation.'
+
+"At this the lady sprang up, and, confronting the young man, said:
+'Frank Carey, what is the number of your box in the postoffice?'
+
+"With steady eyes and voice he answered; '409.' The woman was dumfounded
+for a moment, but she quickly rallied.
+
+"'Come with me,' she said. The young man obeyed. She took her way
+directly to the postoffice. Arriving, she tapped at the delivery window
+and asked if she could see the postmaster in person. The boy delivered
+the message and in a moment the door opened and the pair were ushered
+into the private office of the postmaster. Hardly were they seated when
+the lady said abruptly: 'We have come, Judge, on a serious business.
+Will you be kind enough to tell me the number of this gentleman's
+postoffice box?'
+
+"The postmaster looked inquiringly at Carey, who nodded assent. Then in
+response to the lady, he replied: 'I do not exactly remember. I will
+have to look at the books.'
+
+"He passed into the main office, but returned in a moment with a petty
+ledger containing an alphabetical index. He opened at the 'C's' and
+read: 'Frank Carey, box 409; paid for one quarter from Jan----'
+Continuing, he said: 'I remember now, Frank, you hired the box about the
+time you realized on Con. Virginia, and the quarter has about a month
+more to run.'
+
+"This he said with an imperturbable, and incorruptible face, and with an
+air of mingled candor and business which it was charming to behold.
+
+"The lady was nearly paralyzed, but she made one more effort.
+
+"'There can be no possible mistake in what you have told me, Judge?' she
+asked.
+
+"'I think not the least in the world,' was the reply, and, rising, he
+continued: 'Please step this way.' He led the way to the boxes, and
+there over 409 was the name of Frank Carey. More, there was a sprinkle
+of dust over it, showing that it had been there for some time.
+
+"'By the way,' said the postmaster, you have a letter, Frank. It must be
+a drop letter, as no mail has been received this morning.' He took the
+letter from the box in a manner so awkward that the lady could not help
+seeing that it had evidently been directed in a disguised female hand,
+and that the superscription was simply 'Frank, P. O. Box 409.'
+
+"Arrived again in the private office, the lady said to the young man, in
+a latitude 78-degree north tone, 'I see, sir, you have a very extensive,
+and I have no doubt, very _select_ correspondence.'
+
+"At the same time she caught up her skirts--the ladies wore long skirts
+that year--and, with a 'I thank you, Judge; good morning,' started
+toward the door. As she passed Carey she drew close to the wall, as
+though for her robes to touch the hem of his garments would be
+contamination, and passed haughtily into the street.
+
+"When she had disappeared Carey sank into a chair and drew a long breath
+of relief, while the grave face of the ancient 'Nasby' unlimbered and
+warmed into a smile which shone like virtue's own reward.
+
+"'Lord! Lord!' he said, 'but it was a close shave. I had just got things
+fixed when you came. And was not she mad though? She looked like the
+prospectus of a cyclone. But tell me, Carey, am I not rather an
+impressive liar, when, in the best interests of domestic peace, my duty
+leads me into that channel?'
+
+"Frank answered, 'As Mark Twain told those wild friends of his who
+perpetrated the bogus robbery upon him, "You did a marvelous sight too
+well for a mere amateur." But now, Judge, mum is the word about this
+business.'
+
+"'Mum is the word,' was the reply.
+
+"That evening Carey called at the home of his betrothed. A servant
+showed him into the parlor, but for the first time the young lady did
+not put in an appearance. In her stead her mother came. The elder lady,
+without sitting, in a severe tone said: 'Mr. Carey, my daughter has
+heard something to-day from Mrs. Cady. Until you explain that matter to
+my satisfaction my daughter will beg to decline to see you.'
+
+"Carey replied: 'Since your daughter has heard of the matter, it does
+concern _her_, and I shall very gladly explain to her; but I cannot to
+any one else, not even to you.'
+
+"'You could easily impose upon a silly girl who is in love, but I am no
+silly girl, and am not in love, especially not with _you_, and you will
+have to explain to _me_,' said the lady.
+
+"'My dear madam,' said Carey, mildly, 'in one sense there is nothing in
+all that gossip. In another sense so much is involved that I would not
+under the rack whisper a word of it to any soul on earth save she who
+has promised to give her happiness into my keeping. When your daughter
+becomes my wife your authority as mother in our home shall never be
+questioned by me. Until then my business is not with you.'
+
+"'It is not worth while to prolong this discussion,' said the old lady,
+excitedly. 'If you have nothing more to say, I will bid you good
+evening.'
+
+"'Good evening, madam,' said Carey, and went out into the night.
+
+"A year later the young lady married the wildest rake on the Comstock,
+but Carey never married, and died last year.
+
+"When Cady saw how things were going, he went to Carey and said: 'Carey,
+let me go and explain to those ladies. It kills me to see you as your
+are.'
+
+"'It will never do,' was the reply. 'They would not keep the secret,
+especially the elder one never would. It would kill her not to get even
+with your wife. It worried me a little at first, for I feared that ----
+might grieve some and be disappointed; but she is all right. I watched
+her covertly at the play last night. She will forget me in a month. She
+will be married within the year. We will take no chance of having your
+home made unhappy. Dear friend, it is all just as I would have it.'"
+
+"It was too bad," said Harding.
+
+"That Carey was a right noble fellow," was Wright's comment.
+
+Miller thought if he had been right game he would have seen that girl,
+old woman or no old woman.
+
+"He was punished for his falsehood. He had to atone for his own and his
+friend's sins," was Brewster's conclusion.
+
+"O, murther! I think he had a happy deliverance from the whole family
+intoirely," said Corrigan.
+
+Carlin, addressing Brewster, said: "You say he was punished for the sins
+of himself and his friend; how do you dispose of the wickedness of the
+postmaster?"
+
+"Possibly," was the response, "he is wicked by habit, and it may be he
+is being reserved for some particular judgment."
+
+"All that I see remarkable about Carey's case," said Ashley, "is that he
+made the money in the first place. Had that stock been carried for me,
+the mine would have been flooded the next week and my work would have
+been mortgaged for a year to come to make good the loss."
+
+"It was a hard case, no doubt," said Strong, "but I think with Corrigan,
+that the punishment was not without its compensations."
+
+"He had his mirage and it was worse than wild Injuns, was it not,
+Wright?" asked Corrigan.
+
+"Or worse, Barney," said Wright, "than a blacksmith, a foine mon and a
+mon of property."
+
+"O, murther, Wright," said Corrigan; "stop that. There go the whistles.
+Let us say good night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+About this time Virginia City was visited one day by a heavy rain storm
+accompanied with thunder. But as the sun was disappearing behind Mount
+Davidson, the clouds broke and rolled away from the west, while at the
+same time a faint rainbow appeared in the East, making one of those
+beautiful spectacles common to mountainous regions.
+
+At the same time the flag on Mount Davidson caught the beams from the
+setting sun and stood out a banner of fire. This, too, is not an
+unfrequent spectacle in Virginia City, and long ago inspired a most
+gifted lady to write a very beautiful poem, "The Flag on Fire."
+
+The storm and the sunset turned the minds of the Club to other beautiful
+displays of nature which they had seen. Said Miller, "I never saw
+anything finer than a sunset which I witnessed once at sea down off the
+Mexican coast.
+
+"We were in a tub of a steamship, the old "Jonathan." We had been in a
+storm for four days, three of which the steamer had been thrown up into
+the wind, the machinery working slowly, just sufficient to keep
+steerageway on the ship.
+
+"There were 600 passengers on board, with an unusual number of women and
+children, and we had been miserable past expression. But at last, with
+the coming of the dawn, the wind ceased; as soon as the waves ran down
+so that it was safe to swing the ship, she was turned about and put upon
+her course.
+
+"In a few hours the sea grew comparatively smooth, and the passengers by
+hundreds sought the deck.
+
+"All the afternoon the Mexican coast was in full view, blue and
+rock-bound and not many miles away.
+
+"Just before the sun set its bended rays struck those blue head-lands
+and transfigured them. They took on the forms of walls and battlements
+and shone like a city of gold rising out of the sea in the crimson East,
+and looked as perhaps the swinging gardens of Semiramis did from within
+the walls of Babylon. In the West the disc of the sun, unnaturally
+large, blazed in insufferable splendor, while in glory this seeming city
+shone in the East. Between the two pictures the ship was plunging on her
+course and we could feel the pulses of the deep sea as they throbbed
+beneath us. The multitude upon the deck hardly made a sound; all that
+broke the stillness was the heavy respirations of the engines and the
+beating of the paddles upon the water. The spell lasted but a few
+minutes, for when the sun plunged beneath the sea, the darkness all at
+once began as is common in those latitudes, but while it lasted it was
+sublime.
+
+"Speaking of Nature's pictures, in my judgment about the most impressive
+sight that is made in this world, is a storm at sea. I mean a real storm
+in which a three thousand ton ship is tossed about like a cork, when the
+roar of the storm makes human voices of no avail, and when the billows
+give notice that 'deep is answering unto deep.'
+
+"When a boy I often went down under the overhanging rock over which the
+current of Niagara pours. As I listened to the roar and tried to compute
+the energy which had kept those thunders booming for, heaven only knows
+how many thousands of years, it used to make me feel small enough; but
+it never influenced me as does an ocean storm. When all the world that
+is in sight goes into the business of making Niagaras, and turns out a
+hundred of them every minute, I tell you about all an ordinary landsman
+can do is to sit still and watch the display.
+
+"A real ocean storm--a shore shaker--is about the biggest free show that
+this world has yet invented."
+
+Corrigan spoke next; said he: "Spakin' of storms, did you iver watch the
+phenomenon of a ragin' snow storm high up in the Sierras? When it is
+approaching there is a roar in the forest such as comes up a headland
+when the sea is bating upon its base. This will last for hours, the
+pines rocking like auld women at a wake, and thin comes the snow. Its no
+quiet, respectable snow such as you see in civilized countries, but it
+just piles down as though a new glacial period had descinded upon the
+worreld. As it falls all the voices of the smaller streams grow still
+and the wind itself grows muffled as though it had a could in the head.
+The trees up there are no shrubs you know. They grow three hundred feet
+high and have branches in proportion, and whin they git to roarin' and
+rockin', it is as though all the armies of the mountains were presentin'
+arms.
+
+"When the storm dies away, thin it is you see a picture, if the weather
+is not too cold. The snow masses itself upon the branches, and thin you
+stand in a temple miles in extent, the floor of which is white like
+alabaster while the columns that support it are wrought in a lace-work
+of emerald and of frost more lofty and dilicate than iver was traced out
+by the patient hand of mortal in grand cathadrals."
+
+Here Carlin interrupted.
+
+"Say, Barney, is there not a great deal of frieze to one of those Sierra
+temples?"
+
+"It might same so, lookin' from the standpoint of the nave," was
+Barney's quick reply.
+
+Groans followed this outbreak, from various members of the Club. They
+were the first puns that had been fired into that peaceful company and
+they were hailed as omens of approaching trouble.
+
+The gentle voice of Brewster next broke the silence.
+
+"I saw," he said, "in Salt Lake City, three years ago on a summer
+evening, a sunset scene which I thought was very beautiful. The electric
+conditions had been strangely disturbed for several days; there had been
+clouds and a good deal of thunder and lightning. You know Salt Lake City
+lies at the western base of the Wasatch range. On this day toward
+evening the sky to the west had grown of a sapphire clearness, but in
+the east beyond the first high hills of the range a great electric storm
+was raging. The clouds of inky blackness which shrouded the more distant
+heights, and through which the lightnings were incessantly zigzaging,
+were in full view from the city, though the thunders were caught and
+tied in the deep caverns of the intervening hills. To the southeast the
+range with its imposing peaks was snow-crowned and under a clear sky. In
+the southwest the Oquirrh range was blue and beautiful. Just then from
+beyond the great lake the setting sun threw out his shafts of fire, and
+the whole firmament turned to glory. The sun blazed from beyond the
+waters in the west, the lightnings blazed beyond the nearer hills in the
+east, the snowy heights in the southeast were turned to purple, while in
+the city every spire, every pane of glass which faced the west, every
+speck of metal on house and temple in a moment grew radiant as burnished
+gold, and there was a shimmer of splendor in all the air. Then suddenly
+over the great range to the east and apparently against the black clouds
+in which the lightnings were blazing the glorious arch of a magnificent
+rainbow was upreared. All the colors were deep-dyed and perfectly
+distinct. There was neither break nor dimness in all the mighty arch.
+There it stood, poised in indescribable splendor for quite five minutes.
+So wonderful was the display that houses were deserted: men and women
+came out into the open air and watched the spectacle in silence and with
+uncovered heads.
+
+"No one stopped to think that the glory which shone on high was made
+merely by sunlight shining through falling water; the cold explanation
+made by science was forgotten, and hundreds of eyes furtively watched,
+half expecting to catch glimpses of a divine hand and brush, for the
+pictures were rare enough to be the perfect work of celestial beings
+sent to sketch for mortals a splendor which should kindle within them
+dim conceptions of the glories which fill the spheres where light is
+born.
+
+"Salt Lake City is famous for its sunsets, but to this one was added new
+and unusual enchantments by the storm which was wheeling its sable
+squadrons in the adjacent mountains.
+
+"As I watched that display I realized for the first time how it was that
+before books were made men learned to be devout and to pray; for the
+picture was as I fancy Sinai must have appeared, when all the elements
+combined to make a spectacle to awe the multitude before the mountain;
+and when they were told that the terrible cloud on the mountain's crest
+was the robe which the infinite God had drawn around Himself in mercy,
+lest at a glimpse of His unapproachable brightness they should perish,
+it was not strange if they believed it."
+
+It was not often that Brewster talked, but when he did there was about
+him a grave and earnest manner which impressed all who heard him with
+the perfect sincerity of the man.
+
+After he ceased speaking the room was still for several seconds. At
+length the Colonel broke the silence:
+
+"Brewster, you spoke of Sinai. What think you of that story; of the Red
+Sea affair; of the Sinai incident, and the golden calf business?"
+
+"Believed literally," Brewster continued, "it is the most impressive of
+earthly literature; looked upon allegorically, still it is sublime. Its
+lesson is, that when in bondage to sorrow and to care, if we but bravely
+and patiently struggle on, the sea of trouble around us will at length
+roll back its waves into walls and leave for us a path. Unless we keep
+straining onward and upward, no voice of Hope, which is the voice of
+God, will descend to comfort us. If we are thirsty we must smite the
+rock for water; that is, for what we have we must work, and if we cease
+our struggle and go into camp, we not only will not hold our own, but in
+a little while we will be bestowing our jewels upon some idol of our own
+creation. If we toil and never falter, before we die we shall climb
+Pisgah and behold the Promised Land; that is, we shall be disciplined
+until we can look every fate calmly in the face and turn a smiling brow
+to the inevitable.
+
+"I found a man once, living upon almost nothing, in a hut that had not
+one comfort. He had graded out a sharp hillside, set some rude poles up
+against the bank, covered them with brush, and in that den on a bleak
+mountain's crest he had lived through a rough winter. I asked him how he
+managed to exist without becoming an idiot or a lunatic. His answer was
+worthy of an old Roman. 'Because,' said he, 'I at last am superior to
+distress.'
+
+"He had reached the point that Moses reached when he gained the last
+mountain crest. After that the Promised Land was forever in sight."
+
+"Suppose," asked Savage, "you buy stocks when they are high and sell
+them, or have them sold for you, when they are low, where does the
+Promised Land come in?"
+
+"What becomes of the 'superior to distress' theory," asked Carlin, "when
+a man in his fight against fate gets along just as the men do in the
+Bullion shaft, finding nothing but barren rock, and all the time the air
+grows hotter and there is more and more hot water?"
+
+"Oh, bother the stocks and the hot water," said Strong. "Professor, we
+have heard about the Wasatch Range and Mount Sinai, shake up your memory
+and tell us about old Mount Shasta! I heard you describe it once. It is
+a grand mountain, is it not?"
+
+"The grandest in America, so far as I have seen," was the reply. "It is
+said that Whitney is higher, but Whitney has for its base the Sierras,
+and the peaks around it dwarf its own tremendous height. But Shasta
+rises from the plain a single mountain, and while all the year around
+the lambs gambol at its base, its crown is eternal snow. Men of the
+North tell me that it is rivaled by Tacoma, but I never saw Tacoma. In
+the hot summer days as the farmers at Shasta's base gather their
+harvests, they can see where the wild wind is heaping the snow drifts
+about his crest. The mountain is one of Winter's stations, and from his
+forts of snow upon its top he never withdraws his garrison. There are
+the bastions of ice, the frosty battlements; there his old bugler, the
+wind, is daily sounding the advance and the retreat of the storm. The
+mountain holds all latitudes and all seasons at the same time in its
+grasp. Flowers bloom at its base, further up the forest trees wave their
+ample arms; further still the brown of autumn is upon the slopes and
+over all hangs the white mantle of eternal winter.
+
+"Standing close to its base, the human mind fails to grasp the immensity
+of the butte. But as one from a distance looks back upon it, or from
+some height twenty miles away views it, he discovers how magnificent are
+its proportions.
+
+"For days will the mountain fold the mist about its crest like a vail
+and remain hidden from mortal sight, and then suddenly as if in
+deference to a rising or setting sun, the vapors will be rolled back and
+the watcher in the valley below will behold gems of topaz and of ruby
+made of sunbeams, set in the diadem of white, and towards the sentinel
+mountain, from a hundred miles around, men will turn their eyes in
+admiration. In its presence one feels the near presence of God, and as
+before Babel the tongues of the people became confused, so before this
+infinitely more august tower man's littleness oppresses him, and he can
+no more give fitting expression to his thoughts.
+
+"It frowns and smiles alternately through the years; it hails the
+outgoing and the incoming centuries, changeless amid the mutations of
+ages, forever austere, forever cold and pure. The mountain eagle strains
+hopelessly toward its crest; the storms and the sunbeams beat upon it in
+vain; the rolling years cannot inscribe their numbers on its naked
+breast.
+
+"Of all the mountains that I have seen it has the most sovereign look;
+it leans on no other height; it associates with no other mountain; it
+builds its own pedestal in the valley and never doffs its icy crown.
+
+"The savage in the long ago, with awe and trembling, strained his eyes
+to the height and his clouded imagination pictured it as the throne of a
+Deity who issued the snow, the hoar frost and the wild winds from their
+brewing place on the mountain's top.
+
+"The white man, with equal awe, strains his eye upward to where the
+sunlight points with ruby silver and gold the mimic glaciers of the
+butte, and is not much wiser than the unlettered savage in trying to
+comprehend how and why the mighty mass was upreared.
+
+"It is a blessing as well as a splendor. With its cold it seizes the
+clouds and compresses them until their contents are rained upon the
+thirsty fields beneath; from its base the Sacramento starts, babbling on
+its way to the sea; despite its frowns it is a merciful agent to
+mankind, and on the minds of those who see it in all its splendor and
+power a picture is painted, the sheen and the enchantment of which will
+linger while memory and the gift to admire magnificence is left."
+
+"That is good, Professor," said Corrigan; "but to me there is
+insupportable loneliness about an isolated mountain. It sames always to
+me like a gravestone set up above the grave of a dead worreld. But
+spakin' of beautiful things, did yees iver sae Lake Tahoe in her glory?
+
+"I was up there last fall, and one day, in anticipation of the winter, I
+suppose, she wint to her wardrobe, took out all her winter white caps
+and tied them on; and she was a daisy.
+
+"Her natural face is bluer than that of a stock sharp in a falling
+market; but whin the wind 'comes a wooin' and she dons her foamy lace,
+powders her face with spray and fastens upon her swellin' breast a
+thousand diamonds of sunlight, O, but she is a winsome looking beauty,
+to be sure. Thin, too, she sings her old sintimintal song to her shores,
+and the great overhanging pines sway their mighty arms as though keeping
+time, joining with hers their deep murmurs to make a refrain; and thus
+the lake sings to the shore and the shore answers back to the song all
+the day long. Tahoe, in her frame of blue and grane, is a fairer picture
+than iver glittered on cathadral wall; older, fairer and fresher than
+ancient master iver painted tints immortal upon. There in the strong
+arms of the mountains it is rocked, and whin the winds ruffle the azure
+plumage of the beautiful wathers, upon wather and upon shore a splendor
+rists such as might come were an angel to descend to earth and sketch
+for mortals a sane from Summer Land."
+
+"You are right, Corrigan," said Ashley. "If the thirst for money does
+not denude the shores of their trees, and thus spoil the frame of your
+wonderful picture, Lake Tahoe will be a growing object of interest until
+its fame will be as wide as the world.
+
+"But while on grand themes, have you ever seen the Columbia River? To me
+it is the glory of the earth. It is a great river fourteen hundred miles
+above its mouth, and from thence on it rolls to the sea with increasing
+grandeur all the way. Where it hews its way through the Cascades a new
+and gorgeous picture is every moment painted, and when the mountain
+walls are pierced, with perfect purity and with mighty volume it sweeps
+on toward the ocean. It is, through its last one hundred and fifty
+miles, watched over by great forests and magnificent mountains. There
+are Hood and St. Helens and the rest, and where, upon the furious bar,
+the river joins the sea, there is an everlasting war of waters as
+beautiful as it is terrible.
+
+"It makes a man a better American to go up the Columbia to the Cascades
+and look about him. He is not only impressed with the majesty of the
+scene, but thoughts of empire, of dominion and of the glory of the land
+over which his country's flag bears sovereignty, take possession of him.
+He looks down upon the rolling river and up at Mount Hood, and to both
+he whispers, 'We are in accord; I have an interest in you,' and the
+great pines nod approvingly, and the waterfalls babble more loud.
+
+"The Mississippi has greater volume than the Oregon, the Hudson makes
+rival pictures which perhaps are as beautiful as any painted in the
+Cascades; but there is a power, a beauty, a purity and a wildness about
+the river of the West which is all its own and which is unapproachable
+in its charms.
+
+"More than that. To me the river is the emblem of a perfect life.
+Through all the morning of its career it fights its way, blazing an
+azure trail through the desert. There is no green upon its banks, hardly
+does a bird sing as it struggles on. But it bears right on, and so
+austere is its face that the desert is impotent to soil it. Then it
+meets a rocky wall and breaks through it, roaring on its way. Then it
+takes the Willamette to its own ample breast, and it bears it on until
+it meets the inevitable, and then undaunted goes down to its grave.
+
+"It fights its way, it bears its burdens, it remains pure and brave to
+the last. That is all the best man that ever lived could do."
+
+As Ashley concluded Strong said: "Why, Ashley! that is good. Why do you
+not give up mining and devote yourself to writing?"
+
+Ashley laughed low, and said: "Because I have had what repentant sinners
+are said to have had, my experience. Let me tell you about it.
+
+"It was in Belmont in Eastern Nevada, during that winter when the small
+pox was bad. It took an epidemic form in Belmont, and a good many died.
+
+"Among the victims was Harlow Reed. Harlow was a young and handsome
+fellow, a generous, happy-hearted fellow, too, and when he was stricken
+down, a 'soiled dove,' hearing of his illness, went and watched over him
+until he died.
+
+"The morning after his death, Billy S. came to me, and handing me a slip
+of paper on which was Reed's name, age, etc., asked me to prepare a
+notice for publication. I fixed it as nearly as I could, as I had seen
+such things in newspapers. It read:
+
+     DIED--In Belmont, Dec. 17, Harlow Reed, a native of New Jersey
+     aged twenty-three years.
+
+"Billie glanced at the paper and then said: 'Harlow was a good fellow
+and a good friend of ours, can you not add something to this notice?'
+
+"In response I sat down and wrote a brief eulogy of the boy, and closed
+the article in these words:
+
+     And for her, the poor woman, who braving the dangers of the
+     pestilence, went and sat at the feet of the man she loved,
+     until he died; for her, though before her garments were soiled,
+     we know that this morning, in the Recording Angel's book it is
+     written "her robes are white as snow."
+
+"Billie took the paper to the publisher, and as he went away, I had a
+secret thought that, all things being considered, the notice was not
+bad.
+
+"Next morning I went into a restaurant for breakfast and took a seat at
+a small table on one side of the narrow room. Directly opposite me were
+two short-card sharps. One was eating his breakfast, while the other,
+leaning back to catch the light, was reading the morning paper. Suddenly
+he stopped, and peering over his paper, though with chair still tilted
+back, said to his companion: 'Did you see this notice about that woman
+who took care of Harlow Reed while he was sick?'
+
+"'No,' was the reply. 'What is it?' asked the companion.
+
+"'It's away up,' said the first speaker. 'But what is it?' asked the
+other.
+
+"The first speaker then threw down the paper, leaned forward, and,
+seizing his knife and fork, said shortly:
+
+"'Oh, it's no great shakes after all. It says the woman while taking
+care of Harlow got her clothes dirty, but after he died she changed her
+clothes and she's all right now.'
+
+"Since then I have never thought that I had better undertake a literary
+career so long as I could get four honest dollars a day for swinging a
+hammer in a mine; but I have always been about half sorry that I did not
+kill that fellow, notwithstanding the lesson that he taught me."
+
+There was a hearty laugh at Ashley's expense, and then Strong roused
+himself and said:
+
+"The Columbia is very grand, but you must follow it up to its chief
+tributary if you would find perfect glory--follow it into the very
+desert. You have heard of the lava beds of Idaho. They were once a river
+of molten fire from 300 feet to 900 feet in depth, which burned its way
+through the desert for hundreds of miles. To the east of the source of
+this lava flow, the Snake River bursts out of the hills, becoming almost
+at once a sovereign river, and flowing at first south-westerly, and then
+bending westerly, cuts its way through this lava bed, and, continuing
+its way with many bends, finally, far to the north merges with the
+Columbia. On this river are several falls. First, the American Falls,
+are very beautiful. Sixty miles below are the Twin Falls, where the
+river, divided into two nearly equal parts, falls one hundred and eighty
+feet. They are magnificent. Three miles below are the Shoshone Falls,
+and a few miles lower down the Salmon Falls. It was of the Shoshone
+Falls that I began to speak.
+
+"They are real rivals of Niagara. Never anywhere else was there such a
+scene; never anywhere else was so beautiful a picture hung in so rude a
+frame; never anywhere else on a background so forbidding and weird were
+so many glories clustered.
+
+"Around and beyond there is nothing but the desert, sere, silent,
+lifeless, as though Desolation had builded there everlasting thrones to
+Sorrow and Despair.
+
+"Away back in remote ages, over the withered breast of the desert, a
+river of fire one hundred miles wide and four hundred miles long, was
+turned. As the fiery mass cooled, its red waves became transfixed and
+turned black, giving to the double desert an indescribably blasted and
+forbidding face.
+
+"But while this river of fire was in flow, a river of water was fighting
+its way across it, or has since made the war and forged out for itself a
+channel through the mass. This channel looks like the grave of a volcano
+that has been robbed of its dead.
+
+"But right between its crumbling and repellant walls a transfiguration
+appears. And such a picture! A river as lordly as the Hudson or the
+Ohio, springing from the distant snow-crested Tetons, with waters
+transparent as glass, but green as emerald, with majestic flow and
+ever-increasing volume, sweeps on until it reaches this point where the
+august display begins.
+
+"Suddenly, in different places in the river bed, jagged, rocky reefs are
+upraised, dividing the current into four rivers, and these, in a mighty
+plunge of eighty feet downward, dash on their way. Of course, the waters
+are churned into foam and roll over the precipice white as are the
+garments of the morning when no cloud obscures the sun. The loveliest of
+these falls is called "The Bridal Veil," because it is made of the lace
+which is woven with a warp of falling waters and a woof of sunlight.
+Above this and near the right bank is a long trail of foam, and this is
+called "The Bridal Train." The other channels are not so fair as the one
+called "The Bridal Veil," but they are more fierce and wild, and carry
+in their furious sweep more power.
+
+"One of the reefs which divides the river in mid-channel runs up to a
+peak, and on this a family of eagles have, through the years, may be
+through the centuries, made their home and reared their young, on the
+very verge of the abyss and amid the full echoes of the resounding boom
+of the falls. Surely the eagle is a fitting symbol of perfect
+fearlessness and of that exultation which comes with battle clamors.
+
+"But these first falls are but a beginning. The greater splendor
+succeeds. With swifter flow the startled waters dash on and within a few
+feet take their second plunge in a solid crescent, over a sheer
+precipice, two hundred and ten feet to the abyss below. On the brink
+there is a rolling crest of white, dotted here and there, in sharp
+contrast, with shining eddies of green, as might a necklace of emerald
+shimmer on a throat of snow, and then the leap and fall.
+
+"Here more than foam is made. Here the waters are shivered into fleecy
+spray, whiter and finer than any miracle that ever fell from India loom,
+while from the depths below an everlasting vapor rises--the incense of
+the waters to the water's God. Finally, through the long, unclouded
+days, the sun sends down his beams, and to give the startling scene its
+crowning splendor, wreaths the terror and the glory in a rainbow halo.
+On either sullen bank the extremities of its arc are anchored, and there
+in its many-colored robes of light it stands outstretched above the
+abyss like wreaths of flowers above a sepulcher. Up through the glory
+and the terror an everlasting roar ascends, deep-toned as is the voice
+of Fate, a diapason like that the rolling ocean chants when his eager
+surges come rushing in to greet and fiercely woo an irresponsive
+promontory.
+
+"But to feel all the awe and to mark all the splendor and power that
+comes of the mighty display, one must climb down the steep descent to
+the river's brink below, and, pressing up as nearly as possible to the
+falls, contemplate the tremendous picture. There something of the energy
+that creates that endless panorama is comprehended; all the deep
+throbbings of the mighty river's pulses are felt; all the magnificence
+is seen.
+
+"In the reverberations that come of the war of waters one hears
+something like God's voice; something like the splendor of God is before
+his eyes; something akin to God's power is manifesting itself before
+him, and his soul shrinks within itself, conscious as never before of
+its own littleness and helplessness in the presence of the workings of
+Nature's immeasurable forces.
+
+"Not quite so massive is the picture as is Niagara, but it has more
+lights and shades and loveliness, as though a hand more divinely skilled
+had mixed the tints, and with more delicate art had transfixed them upon
+that picture suspended there in its rugged and sombre frame.
+
+"As one watches it is not difficult to fancy that away back in the
+immemorial and unrecorded past, the Angel of Love bewailed the fact that
+mortals were to be given existence in a spot so forbidding, a spot that
+apparently was never to be warmed with God's smile, which was never to
+make a sign through which God's mercy was to be discerned; that then
+Omnipotence was touched, that with His hand He smote the hills and
+started the great river in its flow; that with His finger He traced out
+the channel across the corpse of that other river that had been fire,
+mingled the sunbeams with the raging waters and made it possible in that
+fire-blasted frame of scoria to swing a picture which should be, first
+to the red man and later to the pale races, a certain sign of the
+existence, the power and the unapproachable splendor of the Great First
+Cause.
+
+"And as the red man through the centuries watched the spectacle,
+comprehending nothing except that an infinite voice was smiting his
+ears, and insufferable glories were blazing before his eyes; so through
+the centuries to come the pale races will stand upon the shuddering
+shore and watch, experiencing a mighty impulse to put off the sandals
+from their feet, under an overmastering consciousness that the spot on
+which they are standing is holy ground.
+
+"There is nothing elsewhere like it; nothing half so weird, so wild, so
+beautiful, so clothed in majesty, so draped with terror; nothing else
+that awakens impressions at once so startling, so winsome, so profound.
+While journeying through the desert to come suddenly upon it, the
+spectacle gives one something of the emotions that would be experienced
+to behold a resurrection from the dead. In the midst of what seems like
+a dead world, suddenly there springs into irrepressible life something
+so marvelous, so grand, so caparisoned with loveliness and irresistible
+might, that the head is bowed, the strained heart throbs tumultuously
+and the awed soul sinks to its knees."
+
+The whistles had sounded while Strong was speaking, and as he finished
+the good nights were spoken and the lights put out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+With the lighting of the pipes one evening, the conversation of the Club
+turned upon what constituted courage and a high sense of honor; whether
+they were native or acquired gifts. A good deal of talk ensued, until at
+last Wright's opinion was asked:
+
+"You are all right," said he, "and all wrong. Some men are born
+insensible to fear, and some have a high sense of honor through
+instinct. But this, I take it, is not the rule and comes, I think,
+mostly as an hereditary gift, through long generations of proud
+ancestors. In my judgment, no gift to mortals is as noble as a lofty,
+honest pride. I do not mean that spurious article which we see so much
+of, but the pride which will not permit a man or woman to have an
+unworthy thought, because of the sense of degradation which it brings to
+the breast that entertains it. This, I believe, is more common in women
+than in men, and I suppose that it was this divine trait, manifesting
+itself in a brutal age, which gave birth to the chivalry of the Middle
+Ages.
+
+"I have known a few men who, I believe, were born without the instinct
+of fear. Charley Fairfax was one of these. He was a dead shot with a
+pistol. He had some words with a man one day on the street in
+Sacramento, and the man being very threatening, Fairfax drew and cocked
+his Derringer. At the same moment the man drove the blade of a sword
+cane through one of the lungs of Fairfax, making a wound which
+eventually proved fatal. Fairfax raised his Derringer and took a quick
+aim at the heart of the murderer, but suddenly dropped the weapon and
+said: 'You have killed me, but you have a wife and children; for their
+sakes I give you your life,' and sank fainting and, as he thought,
+dying, into the arms of a friend who caught him as he was falling.
+
+"There are other men as generous as Fairfax was, but to do what he did,
+when smarting under a fatal wound, requires the coolness and the nerve
+of absolute self-possession.
+
+"Not one man in a million under such circumstances could command himself
+enough to think to be generous. Many a man has, for his courage, had a
+statue raised to his memory who never did and never could have given any
+such proof of a manhood absolutely self-contained as did Fairfax on that
+occasion.
+
+"But, as a rule, we are all mere creatures of education. A friend of
+mine came 'round the Horn in a clipper ship. He told me that when off
+the cape they encountered a gale which drove the ship far to the
+southward; that the weather was so dreadfully cold that the ship's
+rigging was sheeted with ice from sleet and frozen spray.
+
+"One evening the gale slackened a little and some sails were bent on,
+but toward the turn of the night the wind came on again and the sails
+had to be taken in. Said my friend: 'The men went up those swaying masts
+and out upon those icy yards apparently without a thought of danger,
+while I stood upon the deck fairly trembling with terror merely watching
+them.' After awhile the storm was weathered, the cape was rounded and
+the ship put into Valparaiso for fresh supplies.
+
+"The sailors were given a holiday. They went ashore and hired saddle
+horses to visit some resort a few miles out of town. They mounted and
+started away, but within three minutes half of them returned leading
+their horses, and one spoke for all when he said: 'The brute is crank; I
+am afraid he will broach to and capsize.'
+
+"The men who rode the icy spars off Cape Horn on that inky midnight were
+afraid to ride those gentle mustangs.
+
+"There are, I suppose, in this city to-night one hundred men who, with
+knife or pistol, would fight anybody and not think much about it. But
+what would they do were they placed where I saw Corrigan unconcernedly
+working to-day?
+
+"He was sitting on a narrow plank which had been laid across a shaft at
+the eight hundred-foot level, repairing a pump column. He was eight
+hundred feet from the surface, and there was only that plank between him
+and the bottom of that shaft nine hundred feet below. Put the ordinary
+ruffian who cuts and shoots on that plank and he would faint and fall
+off through sheer fright."
+
+"I guess you are right," interposed Carlin. "There is the Mexican who
+lives across the street from us. If I were to take a revolver and go
+over there in the morning and attack him, the chances are I would scare
+him to death; were I to try the same experiment with a bowie knife the
+chances are more than even that he would give me more of a game than I
+would want, and simply because he is accustomed to a knife and not to a
+pistol.
+
+"So the mountain trapper will attack a grizzly bear with perfect
+coolness, or cross the swiftest stream in a canoe without any fear, but
+bring the same man for the first time here to the mine and ask him to
+get on a cage with you and go down a shaft, and he will grow pale and
+tremble like a girl."
+
+"An Indian," suggested the Professor, "at the side of a white man will
+go into a desperate battle and never flinch; so long as the white man
+lives he will fight even unto death. But let a white man engage in a
+hand to hand fight with two or three Indians, and if he has the nerve to
+hold him up to the fight for two or three minutes he will conquer,
+because an hereditary fear overcomes the savage that the pale face will
+conquer in the end. That is really the cowardice which Falstaff assumed
+to feel, the cowardice of instinct in the presence of the true prince,
+and is the mark which the Indian mothers have impressed upon their babes
+for ten generations.
+
+"The rule is that we follow our trades!"
+
+"Then some men are brave at one time and cowardly at another," said the
+Colonel. "Men who will fight without shrinking, by day, are often
+completely demoralized by a night attack. With such men the trouble is,
+they cannot see to estimate their danger, and their imaginations
+multiply and magnify it a hundred fold. I know a man in this city who
+has been in a hundred fights, many of them most desperate encounters. He
+told me once that he believed it would frighten him to death to be
+awakened at night by a burglar in his room.
+
+"This is the fear, too, which paralyzes men in the presence of an
+earthquake. The sky may be clear and the air still, but the thought that
+in a moment chaos may come is too much for the ordinary nerves of
+mortals."
+
+"The bravest act I ever witnessed was on C street in this city,"
+responded Strong. "It was a little Hebrew dunning a desperado for the
+balance due on a pair of pantaloons. The amount was six dollars and
+fifty cents. I would not have asked the fighter for the money for six
+times the sum, but the little chap not only asked for it, but when the
+fighter tried to evade him, he seized him by the arm with one hand and
+putting the forefinger of his other hand alongside his own nose, in the
+most insulting tone possible said: 'You does not get avay. Der man vot
+does not bay for his glose is, vots yer call him? one d----d loafer. I
+vants my monish.'
+
+"The fighter could no more escape from that eye than a chicken hawk can
+from the spell of the eye of the black snake, and so he settled.
+
+"That was the courage which it required the hardships and persecutions
+of one hundred generations of suffering men to acquire, and I tell you
+there was something thrilling in the way it was manifested."
+
+"So, too, men's ideas of honor are often warped strangely by education,"
+Miller said. "Do you remember there was a Frenchman hanged in this city
+a few years ago? On the scaffold, with a grandiloquent air, just before
+the cap was drawn over his face, he said: 'Zey can hang me, but zey
+cannot hang Frawnce.' He had from childhood entertained the belief that
+there was but one entirely invincible nation on this earth, and that was
+France; and the thought that to the last France must be honored
+possessed him.
+
+"That man had murdered a poor woman of the town for her money."
+
+"I should say there were some queer ideas of honor in this country,"
+chipped in the Colonel. "I believe the rule among some or all sporting
+men is, that it is entirely legitimate to practice any advantage on an
+opponent in a game, so long as the same idea controls the opponent.
+Still those men have most tenacious ideas of honor. Indeed they have a
+code of their own. If one borrows money of another he pays it if he has
+to rob someone to do it. If one stakes another--that is gives him money
+to play--and a winning is made, the profits are scrupulously divided. If
+one loses more at night than he has money to pay, he must have it early
+next morning or go into disgrace.
+
+"A friend of mine who lived on Treasure Hill during that first fearful
+winter, told me that during that season a faro game was running, and the
+owners of the bank had won some thirty-five hundred dollars. The
+dealer's habit was to lock up his place in the forenoon and not return
+until evening. The interval was his only time for sleep, as the game
+frequently ran all night.
+
+"Three or four 'sports' who lived together in a house, had lost heavily
+at this game. One morning, one of them said that if he could only get
+that dealer's cards for half an hour he believed he could 'fix' them so
+that the luck of the boys would change.
+
+"They had for a cook and servant a young man who had confessed that he
+left the East without any extensive or extended preparations, and that
+he did it to avoid paying a penalty for picking a lock and robbing a
+till.
+
+"He was called up, it was explained to him what was wanted and for what
+reason, and asked if it was not possible for him to procure those cards.
+
+"The youth took kindly to the proposition, went away, and in a few
+minutes returned--not with the cards--but with the dealer's sack of
+coin, saying as he laid down the sack: 'As I picked the lock of the
+drawer I found the sack and the cards lying side by side. I thought it
+would be easier to take the coin than to fool with the cards, and here
+it is.'
+
+"Instantly there was a commotion, and a perfect storm of imprecations
+was poured out upon the thief. On every side were shouts of: 'Take back
+that money! you miserable New York thief! What do you take us for? Take
+back that sack or we will sell you for headcheese before night!'
+
+"The youth carried back the coin and brought the cards. They were found
+to be 'fixed'; they were 'fixed' over and returned, and that night 'on
+the dead square,' the bank was broken. The boys had the sack for the
+second time, but this time the transaction, according to their code, was
+entirely legitimate.
+
+"By the operation the professional thief obtained new ideas of the nice
+distinctions which are made in the gamblers' code of honor."
+
+"I once in Idaho knew a most conscientious judge," said Miller. "In his
+court a suit involving the title of some mining ground was pending
+between two companies. In another part of the district the Judge had
+some claims which were looked upon as mere 'wild cat.'
+
+"He had for a year been trying to raise money to open his claims, but
+without avail. He had incorporated with 40,000 shares and held his
+shares at one dollar, with the understanding that twenty per cent. of
+the stock should be set aside as a working capital. But no one could see
+the ground with the sanguine eyes of the Judge, so he still had all his
+stock.
+
+"But one night quite late the Judge heard a soft knock on the door. In
+answer to his 'come in,' the president of the company that was plaintiff
+in the mining suit entered, when this conversation ensued:
+
+"'I was looking at your claims over on the east side to-day,' said the
+President, 'and I believe they are good and would like some of the
+stock.'
+
+"There is some of it for sale at one dollar,' was the reply.
+
+"'I will take ten thousand shares,' said the President. 'If you please,
+have the stock ready and I will call at nine o'clock to-morrow morning
+with the money.'
+
+"'I suppose this transaction had better be kept secret at present,'
+suggested the Judge.
+
+"'Oh, yes. It is a private speculation of my own and I would rather my
+company would not hear of it.'
+
+"'Very well, the stock will be ready.'
+
+"The money was promptly paid and the stock delivered.
+
+"The day of trial drew near, when one day the Judge met the
+superintendent of the company which was defendant in the suit. The Judge
+told the superintendent that he had some promising claims, and added
+impressively that if he could afford to purchase about 10,000 shares he
+felt sure that he would do well. The superintendent admitted that he had
+examined the claims with considerable care, and believed with the Judge,
+that there was promise in them. The result was that the next day another
+ten thousand dollars was paid to the Judge and ten thousand more shares
+delivered. The Judge deposited sixteen thousand dollars to his own
+account and four thousand dollars to the credit of the company. With the
+four thousand dollars he let a contract for work on the mine.
+
+"In due time the case in court came on and was decided in favor of the
+plaintiff and an appeal provided for. The plaintiff kept still about the
+stock transaction, but the superintendent of the defendant company did
+not hesitate to declare that the Judge was a thief. So matters ran along
+for some months, when one day the aforesaid president and superintendent
+each received a note asking them to call at the office of the Judge at a
+certain hour. Both responded, and each was greatly surprised to see the
+other.
+
+"The Judge opened the business by saying that a grand deposit of ore had
+been struck on one of the claims from which enough ore had already been
+taken to enable the company to pay a dollar per share dividend on the
+capital stock, upon which he pushed a check for ten thousand dollars to
+each of the men. He then went on to say that he had that morning
+received an offer of two hundred thousand dollars for the property,
+which he thought was a fair price, and asked the opinion of the others.
+They thought so too, and in a few days the money was paid over and each
+of the two received fifty thousand dollars.
+
+"'Now,' said the Judge, 'let me give you some advice. Settle up that
+foolish lawsuit outside of court. The claim is not worth what either one
+of you will pay out in attorneys' fees if you fight it out in the
+courts.'
+
+"By this time the three men had grown familiar, so the superintendent
+ventured to say:
+
+"'Judge, will you tell me what caused you to urge me to buy those
+shares?'
+
+"'I thought it was a good investment,' was the reply.
+
+"'But was not there something else?' asked the superintendent.
+
+"'To tell you the truth,' replied the Judge, 'I had received ten
+thousand dollars from the President here, and I was afraid if the matter
+went that way into the court I might be prejudiced, so I sold you a like
+amount that I might go upon the bench, to try the case, _entirely
+unbiased_.'"
+
+"He was a good judge, no doubt, but he ividently had a leaning toward
+the east side," said Corrigan.
+
+"That was one case where the only justification was success," said
+Brewster.
+
+"He took his chances, that was all," Miller remarked, "and that is the
+corner-stone on which every fortune on the coast has been builded. I
+mean every fortune in mining."
+
+"That is so," chimed in Carlin. "Mining is simply a grand lottery and is
+about as much of a game of chance as poker or faro."
+
+"Oh, no, Carlin," said Strong. "You have picked up the idea that is
+popular, but there is nothing to it. I am not referring to mining on
+paper, that mining which is done on Pine and California streets. That is
+not only gambling, but it is, nine times out of ten, pure stealing. But
+what I mean is where a man, or a few men, from the unsightly rock, by
+honest labor, wrest something, which all men, barbarous and civilized
+alike, hold as precious; something which was not before, but which when
+found, the whole world accepts as a measure of values, and the
+production of which makes an addition to the world's accumulated wealth,
+and not only injures none, but quickens the arteries of trade
+everywhere; that is not gambling. Of course there are mistakes, of
+course worlds of unnecessary work have been performed, of course hopes
+have been blasted and hearts broken through the business, but in this
+world men have to pay for their educations. Twenty years ago there was
+not a man in America who could work Comstock ores up to seventy-five per
+cent. of their money value; only a scholarly few knew anything about the
+formations in which ore veins are liable to be found; processes to work
+ores and economical methods to open and work mines had to be invented;
+so far as the West was concerned the business of mining and reducing
+ores had to be created. The results do not justify any man in calling
+mining a lottery. In my judgment, it is the most legitimate business in
+the world; the only one in which there can be no overproduction, and the
+one which, above all others, advances every other industry of the
+country.
+
+"When the steam engine was first invented steam boilers blew up every
+day. This was no argument against the engine, but was a notice to men to
+build better boilers. For the same reason the sixty-pound steel rail has
+been substituted for the old wooden rail with an iron strap on top on
+railways, and the sixteen ton Pullman car for the old rattle trap that
+the slightest collision would smash. The Westinghouse air brake and the
+Miller platform are part of the same education.
+
+"By and by men will learn to know the rocks, and when their marks and
+signs are reduced to a perfect alphabet the crude work of mining as
+carried on now will take on the dignity of a science, and mining will
+become what it deserves to be, the most honored of industries."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+At length the first sorrow fell upon the Club. The mail brought to
+Corrigan one day the news of the death of his mother in New York. It was
+a terrible blow to him. It had been his dream all through the years that
+he had been absent from his home that some time he would accumulate
+money enough to provide her with a home, where around her life every
+comfort would be drawn, and from her life every heart-breaking care
+would be driven away. But time would not wait for him, and the letter,
+which only in gentle words told him of his mother's death, kindled in
+his heart such bitter self-reproaches that for awhile the warm-hearted
+man's grief was inconsolable.
+
+The Club heartily sympathized with him, but there was little said. The
+men who face death daily in a deep mine either come to think, after
+awhile, that this life hangs on too tender a thread to be grieved over
+so very much when that thread is broken, or, because of the nature of
+their occupation, which is necessarily carried on mostly in silence,
+they lose the faculty to say the words which in society circles are
+intruded upon people who are in deep sorrow.
+
+On this evening the supper was eaten in silence, Corrigan hardly tasting
+anything.
+
+As the Club took their seats Ashley found opportunity to covertly
+whisper to Yap Sing that Corrigan had received bad news and he must
+prepare something especially tempting for him to eat. When the meal was
+nearly finished Yap Sing brought a mammoth dish of strawberries, a bowl
+of sugar and pitcher of cream, and after the noiseless manner of his
+race, set them in front of Corrigan's plate. No one else at the table
+seemed to notice the act of the Chinaman. Corrigan gave a quick glance
+around the table and when he saw that no one else was to be served with
+the berries--that it was meant as a special act of sympathy for him--his
+eyes filled with tears and he hastily withdrew from the room.
+
+At his leisure during the evening Yap Sing ate the berries and the
+cream, remarking to himself as he did so:
+
+"Me heap slory Meester Clorigan; me likee be heap slory ebbly day."
+
+For an hour after supper the Club did little but smoke. At length,
+however, Harding, who usually spent his evenings absorbed in reading,
+laid aside his book and in his low and kindly voice, began to talk.
+
+"Often when a boy I heard my father tell a story of a woman, a Sister of
+Charity, which, I think, may be, it will be good to tell to-night. In
+one of the mountain towns of Northern California a good many years ago,
+while yet good women, compared to the number of the men, were so
+disproportionately few, suddenly one day, upon the street, clad in the
+unattractive garb of a Sister of Charity, appeared a woman whose
+marvelous loveliness the coarse garments and uncouth hood peculiar to
+the order could not conceal.
+
+"There was a Sisters' Hospital in the place and this nun was one of the
+devoted women who had come to minister to the sick in that hospital.
+
+"She was of medium size and height, and despite her shapeless garments
+it was easy to see that her form was beautiful. The hand that carried a
+basket was a delicate one; under her unsightly hood glimpses of a brow
+as white as a planet's light could be caught; the coarse shoes upon her
+feet were three sizes too large. When she raised her eyes from the inner
+depths a light like that of kindly stars shone out, and though a Sister
+of Charity, there was something about her lips which seemed to say that
+of all famines a famine of kisses was hardest to endure. There was a
+stately, kindly dignity in her mien, but in all her ways there was a
+dainty grace which, upon the hungry eyes of the miners of that mountain
+town, seemed like enchantment. She could not have been more than twenty
+years of age.
+
+"It was told that she was known as 'Sister Celeste,' that she had
+recently come to the Western Coast, it was believed, from France, and
+that was all that was known of her. When the Mother Superior at the
+hospital was questioned about the new sister, she simply answered:
+'Sister Celeste is a sister now; she will be a glorified saint by and
+by.'
+
+"The first public appearance of Sister Celeste in the town was one
+Sunday afternoon. She emerged from her hospital and started to carry
+some delicacy to a poor, sick woman, a Mrs. De Lacy, who lived on the
+opposite side of the town from the hospital; so to visit her the nun was
+obliged to walk almost the whole length of the one long, crooked street
+which, in the narrow canon, included all the business portion of the
+town.
+
+"When the nun started out from the hospital the town was full of miners,
+as was the habit in those days on Sunday afternoons, and as the Sister
+passed along the street hundreds of eyes were bent upon her. She seemed
+unconscious of the attention she was attracting; had she been walking in
+her sleep she could not have been more composed.
+
+"Many were the comments made as she passed out of the hearing of
+different groups of men. One big, rough miner, who had just accepted an
+invitation to drink, caught sight of the vision, watched the Sister as
+she passed and then said to the companion who had asked him:
+
+"'Excuse me, Bob, I have a feeling as though my soul had just partaken
+of the sacrament. No more gin for me to-day.'
+
+"Said another: 'It is a fearful pity. That woman was born to be loved,
+and to love somebody better than nine hundred and ninety out of every
+thousand could. Her occupation is, in her case, a sin against nature.
+Every hour her heart must protest against the starvation which it feels;
+every day she must feel upon her robes the clasp of little hands which
+are not to be.'
+
+"One boisterous miner, a little in his cups, watched until the Sister
+disappeared around a bend in the crooked street, and then cried out:
+'Did you see her, boys? That is the style of a woman that a man could
+die for and smile while dying. Oh! Oh!' Then drawing from his belt a
+buckskin purse, he held it aloft and shouted: 'Here are eighty ounces of
+the cleanest dust ever mined in Bear Gulch; it's all I have in the
+world, but I will give the last grain to any bruiser in this camp who
+will look crooked at that Sister when she comes back this way, and let
+me see him do it. In just a minute and a half--but no matter, I'm better
+that I have seen her.'
+
+"After that, daily, for all the following week, Sister Celeste was seen
+going to and returning from the sick woman's house. It suddenly grew to
+be a habit with everybody to uncover their heads as Sister Celeste came
+by.
+
+"Sunday came around again, and it was noticed that on that morning the
+nun went early to visit her charge and remained longer than usual. On
+her return, when just about opposite the main saloon of the place, a
+kindly, elderly gentleman, who was universally known and respected,
+ventured to cross the path of the Sister, and address her as follows:
+
+"'I beg pardon, good Sister, but you are attending upon a sick person.
+We understand that it is a woman. May I not ask if we can not in some
+way assist you and the woman?'
+
+"A faint flush swept over the glorious face of Sister Celeste as she
+raised her eyes, but simply and frankly, and with a slight French
+accent, she answered:
+
+"'The lady, kind sir, is very ill. Unless, in some way, we can manage to
+remove her to the hospital, where she can have an evenly warmed room and
+close nursing, I fear she will not live; but she is penniless and we are
+very poor, and, moreover, I do not see how she can be moved, for there
+are no carriages.'
+
+"She spoke with perfect distinctness, notwithstanding the slight foreign
+accent. The accent was no impediment; rather from her lips it gave her
+words a rhythm like music.
+
+"The man raised his voice: 'Boys,' he shouted, 'there is a suffering
+woman up the street. She is very destitute and very ill, and must be
+removed to the hospital. The first thing required is some money.' Then,
+taking off his hat with one hand, with the other he took from his pocket
+a twenty-dollar piece, put the money in the hat, then sprang upon a low
+stump that was standing by the trail and added: 'I start the
+subscription, those who have a trifle that they can spare will please
+pass around this way and drop the trifle into the hat.'
+
+"Then Sister Celeste had a new experience. In an instant she was
+surrounded by a shouting, surging, struggling crowd, all eager to
+contribute. There was a Babel of voices, but for once a California crowd
+were awakened to full roar without an oath being heard. The boys could
+not swear in the presence of Sister Celeste.
+
+"In a few minutes between seven and eight hundred dollars was raised. It
+was poured out of the hat into a buckskin purse, the purse was tied, and
+handed, by the man who first addressed her, to Sister Celeste, with the
+remark that it was for her poor and that when she needed more the boys
+would stand in.
+
+"Again the nun raised her eyes and in a low voice which trembled a
+little, she said:
+
+"'Please salute the gentlemen and say to them that God will keep the
+account.'
+
+"The man turned around and with an awkward laugh said: 'Boys! I am
+authorized, by one of His angels, to say that for your contribution, God
+has taken down your names, and given you credit.'
+
+"Then a wild fellow cried out from the crowd:
+
+"'Three cheers for the Angel!'
+
+"The cheers rang out like the braying of a thousand trumpets in accord.
+Then in a hoarse under-tone a voice shouted 'Tiger!' and the deep-toned
+old-day California 'Tiger' rolled up the hillsides like an ocean roar.
+It would have startled an ordinary woman, but Sister Celeste was looking
+at the purse, and it is doubtful if she heard it at all.
+
+"Then the first speaker called from the crowd eight men, by name, and
+said:
+
+"'You were all married men in the States and for all that I know to the
+contrary, were decent, respectable gentlemen. As master of ceremonies I
+delegate you, as there are no carriages in this camp, to go to the sick
+woman's house, and carry her to the hospital, while the good Sister
+proceeds in advance and makes a place for her.'
+
+"This was agreed to, and the Sister was told that in half an hour she
+might expect her patient.
+
+"Then she hurried away, the crowd watching her and remarking that her
+usual stately step seemed greatly quickened.
+
+"Long afterward, the Mother Superior related that, when Sister Celeste
+reached the hospital on that day, she fell sobbing into the Mother's
+arms, and when she could command her voice, said: 'Those shaggy men that
+I thought were all tigers are all angels disguised. O, Mother, I have
+seen them as Moses and Elias were, transfigured.'
+
+"The eight men held a brief consultation in the street, then going to a
+store they bought a pair of heavy white blankets, an umbrella and four
+pick handles. Borrowing a packer's needle and some twine they began to
+sew the pick handles into the sides of the blanket, first rolling the
+handles around once or twice in the edges of the blanket. They then
+proceeded to the sick woman's house; one went in first and told the sick
+woman, gently, what they had come to do, and bade her have no fears,
+that she was to be moved so gently that if she would close her eyes she
+would not know anything about it. The others were called in; the blanket
+was laid upon the floor; the bed was lifted with its burden from the
+bedstead and laid on the blanket; the covers were neatly tucked under
+the mattress; four men seized the pickhandles at the sides, lifted the
+bed, woman and all from the floor, a fifth man stepped outside, raised
+the umbrella and held it above the woman's face, and so, as gently as
+ever mother rocked her babe to sleep, the sick woman was carried the
+whole length of the street to the hospital, where Sister Celeste and the
+Mother Superior received her.
+
+"Then all hands went up town and talked the matter over, and I am afraid
+that some of them drank a little, but the burden of all the talk and all
+the toasts, was Sister Celeste.
+
+"After that the nun was often seen, going on her errands of mercy, and
+it is true that some men who had been rough and who had drank hard for
+months previous to the coming of the Sister, grew quiet in their lives
+and ceased to go to the saloons.
+
+"One day a most laughable event transpired. Two men got quarrelling in
+the street which in a moment culminated in a fight. The friends of the
+respective men joined and soon there was a general fight in which
+perhaps thirty men were engaged. When it was at its height (and such a
+fight meant something) Sister Celeste suddenly turned the sharp bend of
+the street and came into full view not sixty yards from where the melee
+was raging in full fury.
+
+"One of the fighters saw her and made a sound between a hiss and a low
+whistle, a peculiar sound of alarm and warning, so significant that all
+looked up.
+
+"In an instant the men clapped their hands into their side pockets, and
+commenced moving away, some of them whistling low and dancing as they
+went, as though the whole thing was but a jovial lark. When Sister
+Celeste reached the spot a moment afterward, the street was entirely
+clear. The men washed their faces, some wag began to describe the
+comical scene which they made when they concluded that the street under
+certain circumstances was no good place for a fight; good humor was
+restored, the chief combatants shook hands with perfect cordiality, a
+drink of reconciliation was ordered all around, and when the glasses
+were emptied, a man cried out: 'Fill up once more, boys. I want you to
+drink with me the health of the only capable peace officer that we have
+ever had in town--Sister Celeste.' The health was drank with enthusiasm.
+
+"The winter came on at length and there was much sickness. Sister
+Celeste redoubled her exertions; she was seen at all hours of the day,
+and was met, sometimes, as late as midnight, returning from her watch
+beside a sick bed.
+
+"The town was full of rough men; some of them would cut or shoot at a
+word, but Sister Celeste never felt afraid. Indeed, since that Sabbath
+when the subscription was taken up in the street she had felt that
+nothing sinister could ever happen to her in that place.
+
+"Once, however, she met a jolly miner who had been in town too long, and
+who had started for home a good deal the worse for liquor. She met him
+in a lonely place where the houses had been a few days previous burned
+down on both sides of the street. Emboldened by rum, the man stepped
+directly in front of the nun and said:
+
+"'My pretty Sister, I will give your hospital a thousand dollars for one
+kiss.'
+
+"The Sister never wavered; she raised her calm and undaunted eyes to the
+face of the man, an incandescent whiteness warmed upon her cheek, giving
+to her striking face unwonted splendor. For a moment she held the man
+under the spell of her eyes, then stretching her right arm out toward
+the sky, slowly and with infinite sadness in her tones said:
+
+"'If your mother is watching from there, what will she think of her
+son?'
+
+"The man fell on his knees, crying 'pardon,' and Sister Celeste, with
+her accustomed stately step, passed slowly on her way.
+
+"Next day an envelope directed to Sister Celeste was received at the
+hospital. Within there was nothing but a certificate of deposit from a
+local bank for one thousand dollars, made to the credit of the hospital.
+
+"On another occasion the nun had a still harder trial to bear. A young
+man was stricken with typhoid fever and sent to the hospital. He was a
+rich and handsome man. He had come from the East only a few weeks before
+he was taken down. His business in California was to settle the estate
+of an uncle recently deceased, who had died leaving a large property.
+
+"When carried to the hospital Sister Celeste was appointed his nurse.
+The fever ran twenty-one days, and when it left him finally, he lay
+helpless as a child and hovering on the very threshhold of the grave for
+days.
+
+"With a sick man's whim, no one could do anything for him but Sister
+Celeste. She had to move him on his pillows, give him his medicines and
+such food as he could bear. In lifting him her arms were very often
+around him and her bosom was so near his breast that she could feel the
+throbbing of his heart.
+
+"As health slowly returned, the young man watched the nurse with
+steadily increasing interest.
+
+"At length the time came when the physician said that in another week
+the patient would require no further attendance, but that he ought, so
+soon as possible, to go to the seaside, where the salt air would furnish
+him the tonic that he needed most.
+
+"When the physician went away the young man said: 'Sister Celeste, sit
+down and let us talk.' She obeyed. 'Let me hold your hand,' he said: 'I
+want to tell you of my mother and my home, and with your hand in mine it
+will seem as though the dear ones there were by my side.' She gave him
+her hand in silence.
+
+"Then he told her of his beautiful home in the East; of the love that
+had always been a benediction to that home; of his mother and little
+sister, of their daily life and their unbroken happiness.
+
+"Insidiously the story flowed on until at length he said, with returning
+health, his business being nearly all arranged, he should return to
+those who awaited, anxiously, his coming. And before Sister Celeste had
+any time for preparation or remonstrance, the young man added:
+
+"'You have been my guardian angel; you have saved my life. The world
+will be all dark without you. You can serve God and, humanity better as
+my wife than as a lowly and poor Sister here. Some women have higher
+destinies and a nobler sphere to fill on earth than as Sisters of
+Charity; you were never meant to be a nun, but a loving wife. Be mine.
+If it is the poor you wish to serve, a thousand shall bless you where
+one blesses you here; but come with me, filling my mother's heart with
+joy and taking your rightful place as my wife. Be my guardian angel
+forever!'
+
+"The face of Sister Celeste was white as the pillow on which her hand
+lay; for a moment she seemed choking, while about her lips and eyes
+there was a tremulousness as though she was about to break into a storm
+of uncontrollable sobs. But she rallied under a tremendous effort at
+self-control, gently disengaged her hand from the hand that held it,
+rose to her feet and said:
+
+"'I ought not to have permitted this; ought not to have heard what you
+said. However, we must bear our cross. I do not belong to the world; but
+do not misjudge me, I have not always been as you see me. I can only
+tell you this: To a woman now and then there comes a time when either
+her heart must break or she must give it to God. I have given mine to
+Him. I cannot take it back. I would not if I could.
+
+"'If you suffer a little now, you will forget it with returning
+strength. I only ask that when you are strong and well and far away, you
+will sometimes remember that the world is full of heart aches. Comfort
+as many as you can. And now, God bless you, and farewell.'
+
+"She laid her hand a moment on his brow, then drew it down upon his
+cheek, where it lingered for a moment like a caress, and then she was
+gone.
+
+"After that the Mother Superior became the young man's nurse until he
+left the hospital. He tried hard, but never saw Sister Celeste again.
+While he remained in the place she ceased to appear on the street.
+
+"Another year passed by and Sister Celeste grew steadily in the love of
+the people. With the winter months some cases of smallpox broke out. The
+country was new, the people careless, and no particular alarm was felt
+until the breaking out of ten cases in one day awakened the people to
+the fact that the disease prevailed generally.
+
+"Sister Celeste labored almost without rest, night or day, until the
+violence of the contagion had passed; then she was stricken. She
+recovered, but was shockingly marked by the disease.
+
+"She was in a darkened room, and how to break to her the news of her
+disfigurement was a matter of sore distress to the other nuns. But one
+day, to a Sister who was watching by her bed side, she suddenly said:
+
+"'I am almost well now, Sister. Throw back the blinds and bring me a
+mirror,' and, with a gentle gaiety that never forsook her when with her
+sister nuns, she added: 'It is time that I began to admire myself.'
+
+"The nun opened the blinds, brought the glass, laid it upon the bed and
+sat down in fear and trembling.
+
+"Sister Celeste, without glancing at the mirror, laid one hand upon it,
+and, shading her eyes with the other hand, for a moment was absorbed in
+silent prayer. Then she picked up the glass and held it before her face.
+The watching nun; hardly breathing and in an agony of suspense, waited.
+After a long, earnest look, without a shade passing over her face,
+Sister Celeste laid down the glass, clasped her hands and said: 'God be
+praised! Now all is peace. Never, never again will my face bring sorrow
+to my heart.'
+
+"The waiting nun sank, sobbing, to her knees; but as she did so, she
+saw, on the face of the stricken woman, a smile which she declared was
+as sweet as the smile of God.
+
+"With the return of health, Sister Celeste again took up her work of
+mercy, and for a few months more her presence was a benediction to the
+place. At last, however, it began to be noticed that her presence on the
+street was less frequent than formerly, and soon an unwelcome rumor
+began to circulate that she was ill. The truth of this was soon
+confirmed, and then, day by day, for some weeks, the report was that she
+was growing weaker and weaker, and finally, one morning, it was known
+that she was dead.
+
+"A lady of the place who was greatly attached to Sister Celeste, because
+of that attachment and because of her devotion to 'Mother Church,' was
+permitted to watch through the last hours of the nun's life. Of the
+closing moments of the glorified woman's life she gave the following
+account:
+
+"For an hour the dying nun had been motionless, as though hushed in a
+peaceful sleep. When the first rays of the dawn struck on the window, a
+lark lighted on the sill, and in full voice warbled its greeting to the
+day. Then the Sister opened her eyes, already fringed by the death
+frost, and in faint and broken sentences murmured:
+
+"'A delicious vision has been sent me. _Deo gratias_, every act meant in
+kindness that I have ever done, in the vision had become a flower,
+giving out an incense ineffable. These had been woven into a diadem for
+me. Every word, meant in comfort or sympathy, that I have ever spoken,
+had been set to exquisite music, which voices and harps not of this
+world were singing and playing while I was being crowned. Every tear of
+mine shed in pity had become a precious gem. These were woven into the
+robes of light that they drew around me. A glass was held before me;
+from face and bosom the cruel scars were all gone, and to eye and brow
+and cheek the luster and enchantment of youth had returned, and near all
+radiant'--
+
+"'The eyes, with a look of inexpressibly joyous surprise in them, grew
+fixed, and all was still save where on the casement the lark was
+repeating her song.'
+
+"Among the effects left by Sister Celeste was found a package addressed
+to the same lady who had watched during the closing hours of the dead
+nun's life. This was brought to her by the Mother Superior. On being
+opened, within was found another package, tied with silver strings,
+sealed with wax, and the seal bore the date on which she took her vows.
+This in turn was opened, and a large double locket was revealed. In one
+side was the picture of a young man in the uniform of a French colonel.
+From the other side a picture had evidently been hastily removed, as
+though in a moment of excitement, for there were scars upon the case
+which had been made by a too impetuous use of some sharp instrument. On
+the outer edge of the case was a half-round hole, such as a bullet
+makes, and there were dark stains on one side of the case. Below the
+picture in a woman's delicate hand-writing, were the words: 'Henrie.
+Died at Majenta.'
+
+"The lady called the Mother Superior aside and showed her the picture.
+Tears came to the faded eyes of the devoted woman.
+
+"'Now God be praised!' said she. 'Three nights since, as I watched by
+the poor child, I heard her murmur that name in her fevered sleep, and I
+was troubled, for I feared she was dreaming of the youth she nursed back
+to life here in the hospital. It was not so. Her work was finished on
+earth, she was nearing the spheres where love never brings sorrow; her
+soul was already outstretching its wings to join--' the poor nun
+stopped, breathed short and hard a few times, and then incoherently
+began to tell her beads in Latin.
+
+"While they were conversing the body of Sister Celeste lay dressed for
+the grave in another apartment, watched over by two Sisters. When the
+Mother Superior ceased speaking, the lady said to her:
+
+"Mother, come with me to where Sister Celeste is sleeping! When we reach
+the room, send the watchers away, and then do not look at me. I want to
+put this picture away.'
+
+"The Mother Superior was strangely agitated, but she led the way to the
+room, bade the nuns there go and get some rest, then knelt by the foot
+of the casket, and bowed her head in prayer.
+
+"The lady slipped the locket beneath the folds of the winding sheet,
+where it lay above the pulseless heart of the dead nun.
+
+"The whole population of the place were sorrowing mourners at the
+obsequies of Sister Celeste, and for years afterward, every morning, in
+summer and winter, upon her grave, a dressing of fresh flowers could be
+seen.
+
+"On the day of the funeral the miners made up a purse and gave it to
+Mrs. De Lacy, the consideration being that every day for a year, the
+grave of the Sister should be flower-crowned. The contract was renewed
+yearly until Mrs. De Lacy moved away. In the meantime a wild rosebush
+and cypress had been planted beside the grave, and they keep watch there
+still."
+
+The good-night whistles had already blown when Harding finished his
+story. Not much was said as the Club retired, but Corrigan,
+understanding why the story had been told, in silence wrung Harding's
+hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+The Club had now been running a month. It had been most enjoyable. When
+Yap Sing had been installed as cook and housekeeper he was given a
+memorandum book, on the first page of which was written an order for
+such supplies as the Club might require at the stores and markets.
+Brewster had objected to this at first, inasmuch as the Mongolian was a
+stranger, and because it was not good to make bills. But he was
+overruled by the explanation that almost everything required, except
+fresh vegetables and, now and then, fresh meat, had already been
+provided, and that the Chinaman could not cheat very much with seven men
+to watch him.
+
+But from the first day the Club fared sumptuously. Yap Sing was a
+thorough artist in his way. He had a trick of preparing substantials and
+dainties, and of arranging a table, which was wonderful. His breakfasts
+and suppers were masterpieces, and daily as the dinner buckets, which
+Yap Sing had filled, were opened at the mines, the members of the Club
+were the envy of all the men, underground, who were their companions. It
+was a change from the boarding houses, so delicious, that the members of
+the Club did not care to consider what the probable extra expense would
+be. Moreover, each had a feeling that so long as the rest were satisfied
+it was not worth while to interrupt the pleasant course which events
+were taking by intruding questions which possibly might lead to
+unpleasant developments.
+
+But on pay day the bills were sent in. For provisions and crockery they
+amounted to more than three hundred dollars, or about one dollar and a
+half per day for each member of the Club. This was in addition to the
+stock of food purchased at the beginning.
+
+The first thought was that Yap Sing had been robbing the Club. He was
+called in, confronted with the bills and questioned as to what he had to
+say to the amount.
+
+He declared it to be his belief that it was "belly cheapee."
+
+Miller took up the case for the plaintiffs and said: "But, Yap, you
+understand when you came here a month ago we had plenty of
+provisions--flour, butter, bacon, lard, tea, coffee, sugar--everything
+required except fresh vegetables and, now and then, fresh meat."
+
+"Yes, me sabbe; got plentie now, allee samee," said Yap.
+
+"But, Yap," said Miller, "you know in boarding-houses and restaurants
+board is only eight dollars a week. Besides what you had at the
+beginning, this is costing a dollar and a half a day for each one of us.
+What have you to say to that?"
+
+"Me say him heap cheapee," said Yap. "Me no care for bloarding-housie;
+me no care for lestaulent; me heap sabbie 'em. You likie 'em, you
+bletter go lare eatie. You no likie loyster; you likie hashie. You no
+likie tlenderloin; you likie corn beefe. You no likie turkie; you likie
+bull beefe. You no likie plum puddie; you likie dlied apples. All litie,
+me cookie him; me no care. You no likie bloiled tongue, loast chickie
+and devil ham for dinner bucket; you likie blead and onion. All litie,
+me fixie him. You wantie one d----d cheapee miners' bloarding-housie.
+All litie, no difflence me."
+
+It was hard to argue the point with the countryman of Confucius.
+Notwithstanding the magnificent fare, the impression was general that
+Yap Sing had been feeding three or four of his cousins and making a
+little private pocket change for himself by the transaction, but it
+would have been useless to try to convict him. Indeed, it would have
+been impossible, for when any particularly outrageous item was pointed
+out he would cite some special occasion when he had outdone himself in
+his art.
+
+"What a time-keeper he would make for a mine!" said Carlin. "He would
+have his pay-roll full every day if he had to rob a graveyard of all the
+names on its monuments to fill it."
+
+"What a superintendent he would make!" said Miller. "There would not be
+an item in the monthly accounts that he would not be prepared to explain
+with entire satisfaction and appalling promptness, and all the time he
+would have looked like a sorrowful statue of unappreciated innocence."
+
+"What a mining expert he would be!" said Ashley. "With his faculty for
+making doubtful things look plausible, and his powers of expression, he
+would convince the ordinary man that he could see further into the
+ground than you could bore with a diamond drill."
+
+"But his cooking is lovely; you must all admit that," said Wright.
+
+"If there be blame anywhere, it rests on us," said Brewster, "for we
+could all see that we were living a little high, and yet not one of us
+so much as cautioned Yap to go slow."
+
+It was finally decided that there must be a return to sound and economic
+principles. Yap was paid his month's salary and instructed that, in
+future, the fare must be reduced to plain, solid miner's food. The money
+to pay all the bills, together with what was due on the previous month,
+and also the rent, was contributed and placed in Miller's hands as
+treasurer and paymaster, that he might pay the accounts, and the Club
+settled down to its pipes and conversation.
+
+In the meantime the honorary members had come in. As usual, the first
+theme was the condition of stocks. Miller believed that Silver Hill was
+the best buy on the lode, Corrigan had heard that day that a secret
+drift had been run west from the thirteen hundred level of the Con.
+Virginia; that up in the Andes ground an immense body of ore had been
+cut through, but that nothing would come of it until the Bonanza firm
+could gather in more of the stock. Carlin was disposed to believe that a
+development was about to be made in Chollar Potosi, because during the
+past month the superintendent had come up twice from Oakland,
+California, to look at the property. Strong was disposed to unload all
+the stocks that he had and invest in Belcher and Crown Point because the
+superintendent of both mines had that day assured him that they had no
+developments worth mentioning.
+
+At length the conversation turned on silver. The Club had that day
+received a portion of their month's pay in silver, and some grumbled,
+thinking they should have received their full wages in gold. After a
+good deal had been said, the Professor, who had been quietly reading and
+had taken no part in the discussion, was asked for his opinion. He
+answered as follows:
+
+"It is not right to pay laboring men in a depreciated currency; it is a
+still greater wrong that there is a discount on silver. It is the
+steadiest measure of values that mankind has ever found; it is the only
+metal that three-fifths of the human race can measure their daily
+transactions in; its full adoption by our Government, as a measure of
+values and basis of money, would mean prosperity; its rejection during
+the past five years and the denying to it its old sovereignty, have
+wrought incalculable loss.
+
+"Here on the Comstock it sleeps in the same matrix with gold, the
+proportion in bullion being about forty-four per cent. gold to fifty-six
+per cent. silver. The Nation cannot make a better adjustment than to
+keep that proportion good in her securities. Five years ago silver
+commanded a premium over gold. Since then two dollars in gold to one in
+silver have been taken from the earth, but silver is at a discount,
+because through unwise if not dishonest legislation, its sovereignty as
+a measure of values, its recognition as money was taken away. The whole
+burden was put upon gold, and the result is that the purchasing power of
+gold has been enhanced, and silver is, or seems to be, at a discount.
+Those who have accomplished this wrong affect to scorn the proposition
+that legislation could restore to silver its old value, ignoring the
+fact that the present apparent depreciation is due entirely to
+unfriendly legislation, and conveniently forgetting that with silver,
+everything else is at a discount when measured by gold. That is, gold is
+inflated by the discriminations which have been made in its favor. The
+chief use of silver in the world is for a measure of values, as the
+chief use of wheat is for material out of which to make bread. Were men
+forbidden to make any more bread from wheaten flour and compelled to use
+corn meal as a substitute, would the present prices of wheat and corn
+remain respectively the same?
+
+"Silver should be restored to its old full sovereignty, side by side
+with gold. Then, in this country, just as little of either metal as
+possible should be used in men's daily transactions. Handling gold and
+silver directly in trade is but continuing the barter of savage men, and
+is a relic of a dark age. Moreover, the loss by abrasion is very great.
+Both metals should be cast into ingots and their values stamped upon
+them. Then they should be stored in the Treasury and certificates
+representing their value should be issued as the money of the people. If
+this makes the Government a banker no matter, so long as it supplies to
+the people a money on which there can be no loss. The thought that this
+would drain our land of gold has not much force, because the trade
+balances are coming our way and will soon be very heavy; if the gold
+shall be taken away something will have to be returned in lieu of it,
+and after all the truth is that four-fifths of our people do not see a
+gold piece twice a year. Our internal commerce is very much greater than
+our foreign commerce, and to keep that moving without jar should be the
+first anxiety of American statesmen. For that purpose nothing could be
+better than the silver certificate.
+
+"The Government has commenced to coin silver and has partially
+remonetized it. It is only partial because gold is still made the
+absolute measure of values and preference is reserved for it in ways
+which will keep silver depressed until there shall come a demand for it
+which cannot at once be met; then it will be discovered that it is still
+one of the precious metals and it will take its place in trade as it has
+its place here in the mines, side by side and the full brother of gold.
+Were the Government to-morrow to commence to absorb and hoard all the
+product of our mines and keep this up for a generation, issuing
+certificates on the same for the full value, at the end of about thirty
+years there would be on deposit as security for the paper afloat more
+than one thousand millions of dollars. This seems like a vast sum, but
+it would then amount to but ten dollars per capita for our people. You
+have each received two and a half times that amount to-day on account of
+your last month's wages, and the only serious inconvenience it has
+inflicted upon you is the discount which wicked legislation has given to
+silver.
+
+"But long before one thousand millions in silver could be secured it
+would command a premium, because that would mean one-fourth of all the
+silver in circulation, and this old world cannot spare to one Nation
+that amount and still keep her commerce running and the arts supplied."
+
+"But, Professor," said Alex, "why hoard the metals? Why may not money be
+represented by paper backed by the Nation's faith? Why pile up the
+metals in the Government vaults when the printing press can supply as
+good money as the people want?"
+
+"That," replied the Professor, "is an argument for times of peace and
+prosperity only. The failure of one crop would so lessen the faith of
+the people that a serious discount would fall upon the money that was
+only backed by faith. And suppose Europe were to combine to fight the
+United States, then what would the loss be to the people? We can only
+estimate the amount by thinking what the United States currency was
+worth in 1864.
+
+"Such a combination is not at all impossible. There is a vast country to
+the south of us, the trade of which should be ours, and with the
+Governments of which we have notified Europe there must be no
+interference from beyond the Atlantic. There are channels for ships to
+be hewed through the Spanish American Isthmus, and their control is to
+become a question.
+
+"Above all, the light and majesty of our Republic are becoming a terror
+to the Old World. Think of it. The immigrants that come to us annually,
+together with the young men and women that annually reach their majority
+here, are enough to supply the places of all the people of this coast
+were they to go away. Who can estimate the swelling strength that is
+sufficient to fully equip a new state annually?
+
+"Before the spectacle thrones are toppling and kings sleep on pillows of
+thorns. If our soil was adjacent to Europe, the nations would combine
+and assail us to-morrow, in sheer self-defense. They have tremendous
+armies; they are accumulating mighty navies and arming them as ships
+were never armed before. Suppose that sometime they decide that the
+world's equilibrium is being disturbed by the Great Republic, even as
+they did when Napoleon the first became their terror, and that, as with
+him, they determine that our country shall be divided or crushed. What
+then? Of course they will maneuver to have a rebellion in our country
+and espouse the cause of the weaker side. This is what nearly happened
+in 1862; what would have surely happened had not Great Britain possessed
+the knowledge that if she joined with France in the proposed scheme,
+whatever the outcome might be, one thing was certain, for a season at
+least, there would be no night on the sea; the light made by British
+ships in flames would make perpetual day.
+
+"Then ocean commerce was carried mostly in ships that had to trust alone
+to the fickle winds for headway. In twenty years more steam will be the
+motive power for carrying all valuable freights, and will be
+comparatively safe as against pursuing cruisers.
+
+"Imagine such a crisis upon us, what then would the unsupported paper
+dollar be worth? But imagine that behind the Republic there was in the
+treasury a thousand millions of dollars in silver, the original money of
+the world, and another thousand millions in gold, what combination of
+forces could place the money of the Nation in danger of loss by
+depreciation?
+
+"Gold and silver when produced are simply the measures of the labor
+required to produce them; they are labor made imperishable; and when
+either is destroyed--and demonetization is destruction--just so much
+labor is destroyed, and you who work have to make up the loss by working
+more hours for a dollar. You are supposed to receive the same wages that
+the miners did who worked on this lode six years ago, for a month's
+work. But you do not because, through the mistake of honest men or the
+manipulation of knaves, twenty per cent. of the twenty-five dollars paid
+you in silver for last month's work has been destroyed; and now those
+who have dealt this blow insist that money can in no wise be changed in
+value by legislation.
+
+"The trouble is our law-makers do not estimate at half its worth their
+own country. They stand in awe of what they call the money centers of
+the world, and refuse to see that already the world is placed at a
+disadvantage by our Republic; that within thirty years all existing
+nations, all the nations that have existed through all the long watches
+of the past, will, in material wealth and strength, seem mean and poor
+in comparison with our own.
+
+"Look at it! Five hundred thousand foreigners absorbed annually, and not
+a ripple made where they merge with the mighty current of our people!
+What is equal to a new State, with all its people and equipments,
+launched upon the Union every year--it makes me think of the Creator
+launching worlds--with immeasurable resources yet to be utilized; the
+wealth of the country already equal to that of Great Britain, with all
+her twelve hundred years of spoils; all our earnings our own; no five
+millions of people toiling to support another million that stand on
+guard, as is required in France and Germany and Russia and Austria and
+Italy; our great Southern staple commanding tribute from all the world;
+hungry Europe looking to our Northern States for meat and bread, and to
+our rivers for fish; our Western miners supplying to business the tonic
+which keeps its every artery throbbing with buoyant health, while over
+all is our flag, which symbols a sovereignty so awful in power and yet
+so beneficent in mercies, that while the laws command and protect, they
+bring no friction in their contact; rather they guarantee the perfect
+liberty of every child of the Republic, to seize with equal hand upon
+every opportunity for fortune, or for fame, which our country holds
+within her august grasp.
+
+"To carry on the business of such a land an ocean of money is needed,
+and infinitely more will be required in future. And for this money there
+must be a solid basis; not merely a faith which expands with this year's
+prosperity and contracts with next year's calamity; not something which
+the death of a millionaire or a visitation of grasshoppers will throw
+down; but something which is the first-born child of labor, and is
+therefore immortal and without change. This is represented by gold and
+silver, and to commerce they are what 'the great twin brethren' at Lake
+Regillus were to Rome."
+
+When the Professor ceased speaking, Harding said: "Professor, what you
+have been saying about our Republic sounds to me almost like a
+coincidence. Did you dream what you have been saying?"
+
+The Professor replied that he did not, and asked what in the world
+prompted such a question.
+
+Harding smiled and blushed, and then said: "Because I had a dream last
+night."
+
+All wanted to hear what it was.
+
+"You won't laugh, Carlin?" said Harding.
+
+Carlin said he would not.
+
+"And you will not call me a fool, Wright?" Harding asked.
+
+Wright promised to conceal his sentiments, if necessary.
+
+"You will not call it a mirage, Corrigan?" asked Harding.
+
+Corrigan agreed to refrain.
+
+"And, Colonel, you will not ask mysterious questions about who usually
+sits as a commission of lunacy in Virginia City?" Harding inquired.
+
+The Colonel agreed to restrain himself.
+
+"And, Alex, you will not expose me in the paper?" questioned Harding.
+
+Alex promised to be merciful to the public.
+
+In final appeal, Harding said: "And you, Professor, you will not say it
+is a tough, hard formation and too nearly primitive to carry any
+treasure?"
+
+The Professor assured him that faults and displacements were common in
+the richest mineral-bearing veins.
+
+"Well," said Harding, "I was tired and nervous last night. I could not
+sleep, and so determined to get up and read for an hour. I happened to
+pick up a volume of Roman history, and became so absorbed in it that I
+read for an hour or two more than I ought to. I went to bed at last, and
+my body dropped to sleep in a moment, but my brain was still half awake,
+and for a while ran things on its own account in a confused sort of a
+way.
+
+"I thought I was sitting here alone, when, suddenly, a stranger appeared
+and began to pace, slowly, up and down the room. He had an eye like a
+hawk, nose like an eagle's beak and an air that was altogether martial.
+His walk had the perfect, measured step of the trained veteran soldier.
+After watching him for a little space, I grew bold and demanded of him
+his name and business. When I spoke the sound of my own voice startled
+me, for he was more savage looking than a shift boss. He turned round to
+me--don't laugh, I pray you--and said:
+
+"'I am that Scipio to whom Hannibal the terrible capitulated. I was
+proud of my Rome and my Romans. We were the "Iron Nation," truly. All
+that human valor and human endurance could do we accomplished. Amid the
+snows of the Alps and the sands of Africa we were alike invincible. We
+were not deficient either in brain power. We left monuments enough to
+abundantly establish that fact. To us the whole civilized world yielded
+fealty, but we were barbarians after all. Listen!'
+
+"Just then there floated in through the open window what seemed a full
+diapason of far-off but exquisite music.
+
+"'Do you know what that is?' he asked. 'It is the echo of the melody
+which the children of this Republic awaken, singing in their free
+schools. It smites upon and charms the ear of the sentinel angel, whose
+station is in the sun, through one-eighth of his daily round; those
+echoes that with an enchantment all their own ride on the swift pinions
+of the hours over all the three thousand miles between the seas.
+
+"My Rome had nothing like that. We trusted alone to the law of might,
+and though we tried to be just, the slave was chained daily at our
+gates; we sold into slavery our captives taken in war; we fought
+gladiators and wild beasts for the amusement of our daughters and wives;
+we never learned to temper justice with mercy; only the first leaves of
+the book of knowledge were opened to us; our brains and our bodies were
+disciplined, but our hearts were darkened and we perished because we
+were no longer fit to rule.
+
+"'Whether by evolution the world has advanced, or whether, indeed, the
+lessons of that Nazarene, whom our soldiers crucified, are bearing
+celestial fruit, who knows! But surely our Rome, with all its power, all
+its splendor, all its heroic men and stately women; its victories in the
+field, its pageants in the Imperial City on the days when, returning
+from a conquest, our chieftians were laurel-crowned; our art, our
+eloquence--all, were nothing compared with this song of songs. It
+started at first where the sullen waves wash against Plymouth Rock; it
+swelled in volume while the deep woods gave place to smiling fields;
+over mountain and desert it rolled in full tones and only ceases, at
+last, where the roar of the deep sea, breaking outside the Golden Gate,
+or meeting in everlasting anger the Oregon upon her stormy bar, gives
+notice that the pioneer must halt at last in his westward march.'
+
+"As he ceased to speak the melody was heard again, sweeter, clearer and
+fuller than before. My guest faded away before me and I awoke. In all
+the air there was no sound save the deep respirations of the hoisting
+engine in the Norcross works, and the murmur of the winds, as on slow
+beating wings they floated up over the Divide and swept on, out over the
+desert."
+
+The verdict of the Club was that if old Scipio talked in that strain he
+had softened down immensely since the days when he was setting his
+legions in array against the swarthy hosts of the mighty Carthagenian.
+
+After a while Corrigan spoke: "You native Americans," he said, "at least
+the majority of yees, do not half appreciate your country. I was but a
+lad whin, after a winter of half starvation, in the care of an uncle, I
+lift Ireland in an English imigrant ship. One mornin' as me uncle and
+meself were watchin' from the deck a sail rose out of the say directly
+in our path. It grew larger and larger, in a little while the hull
+appeared, and soon after we could discern that it was a frigate. The
+wind was off her beam, blowing fresh; every sail was crowded on, and as
+her black beak rose and fell with the says, I thought her more beautiful
+than the smile of the sunlight on the hills of Kildare. Half careened as
+she was under the pressure on her sails, but still resolutely rushing
+on, she made a pictur' of courage which has shone before me eyes a
+thousand times since, when me heart has been heavy. She drew quite near,
+and as she swung upon her tack her flag was dipped in salute. Then me
+uncle bent and said: 'Barney, lad, mark will that flag! That is an
+Amirican ship of war.'
+
+"Great God! Child that I was, I think in that moment I knew how the
+young mother feels, when in the curtained dimness of her room, she half
+fainting, hears the blissful whisper that unto her is born a son.
+
+"There was the ensign of the land which held all joy in thought for us;
+which to us opened the gates of hope; that wondrous land in the air of
+which the pallid cheek of Want grows rosy red and Irish hearts cast off
+hereditary dispair.
+
+"I rushed forward, where thray hundred imigrants were listlessly
+lounging about the deck, and, in mad excitement, shouted: 'See! See! It
+is the Amirican flag!' Just then the sunlight caught in its folds and
+turned it to gold.
+
+"O, but thin there was a transformation sane. Ivery person on that deck
+sprang up and shouted. Men waved their hats and women embraced each
+other, and with a mighty 'All Hail' those Irish imigrants--Irish no
+longer, but henceforth forever to be Amiricans--greeted that flag. In
+response the marines manned the yards, and off to us across the wathers
+came the first ringing Amirican chare that we had iver heard. We
+answered back with a yell like that which might have been awakened at
+Babel. It was not a disciplined chare, but simply a wild cry of joy, and
+it was none the less hearty that over us swung haughtily the red cross
+of St. George.
+
+"You native Amiricans are like spiled children, that niver having known
+an unsatisfied want, surfeit on dainties."
+
+Corrigan relapsed into silence, but his eyes were glistening and there
+was a tremble about his lips. His mind was still in the burial place,
+where "memory was calling up its dead."
+
+While the spell of Barney's words was still upon the Club, Yap Sing
+softly opened the door and announced that the evening luncheon was
+ready. The heathen had inaugurated these luncheons on the first day of
+his coming. They were at once accepted and had become a regular thing.
+Seeing that they were received approvingly, Yap had exhausted every
+device to make them a marked feature of the Club.
+
+On this occasion the table was fully set, but there was no food on the
+table. Beside each plate stood a glass of water and a dish of salt. When
+the company was seated, Yap went to the cooking range, took out and set
+upon the table an immense platter which was piled high with huge baked
+potatoes, after which, with a face utterly destitute of expression, he
+went to his bench in the corner of the room and sat down.
+
+Wright, who was nearest him, said: "What is the matter, Yap? Are you
+sick?"
+
+"Nothing matter; me no sickie," said Yap.
+
+"But why do you not bring on the supper?" asked Wright.
+
+"No catchie any more," was the answer.
+
+"What! Just potatoes straight, Yap? What is the matter?" said Wright.
+
+"I no sabbie what's the matter," said the sullen Oriental. "You livie
+belly cheapie now. Potato belly good. Blenty potato, blenty saltie,
+blenty cold water; no makie you sickie; I dink belly good."
+
+The Club took in the situation with great hilarity; the cause of Yap
+Sing's frugality was briefly explained to the guests; each seized a
+potato and commenced their meal.
+
+At length Carlin asked Yap Sing if he could not furnish a little butter
+with the salt. Yap shook his head resolutely, and said:
+
+"No catchie. Blutter five bittie [sixty-two and a half cents] one pound.
+No buy blutter for five bittie to putee on potato; too muchie money
+allee time pay out for hashie."
+
+Then Ashley asked for a pickle, but Yap Sing was firm. Said he: "Pickle
+slix bittie one bottle; no can standee."
+
+A great many other things were banteringly asked for, from cold tongue
+and horse-radish to blackberry jam; but the imperturbable face of the
+Mongolian never relaxed and his ears remained deaf to all entreaties.
+
+The potatoes were eaten with a decided relish, though there was no
+seasoning except salt, and when the repast was over the Club still sat
+at the table while the Colonel delivered a dissertation upon the virtues
+of the potato in general and upon the Nevada potato in particular. He
+insisted that the potato was the great modern mind food, and instanced
+the effect of potato diet upon the people of Ireland, pointing out that
+the failure of a crop there meant mental prostration and despair, while
+the news of a bountiful crop was a certain sign of a lively revolution
+within the year. From a scientific standpoint he demonstrated that no
+where else on the continent were the conditions absolutely perfect for
+producing potatoes that were potatoes, except upon the high, dry,
+slightly alkaline table lands between the Sierras and the Wasatch Range,
+and, giving his lively imagination full play, he pictured that region as
+it would be fifty years hence; when transportation shall be reduced;
+when artesian wells shall be plenty; when the rich men of the earth will
+not be able to give entertainments without presenting their guests with
+Nevada or Utah potatoes, and when to say that a man has a potato estate
+in the desert will be as it now is to say that a man has a wheat farm in
+Dakota, an orange orchard in Los Angeles, or a cotton plantation in
+Texas.
+
+While talking, the Colonel managed, between sentences, to dispose of a
+second potato.
+
+When the pipes were resumed, the joke of Yap Sing was fully discussed,
+and finally the Chinese question came up for consideration.
+
+Strong took up this latter theme and said:
+
+"The men of the Eastern States think that we of the West are a cruel,
+half-barbarous race, because we look with distrust upon the swelling
+hosts of Mongolians that are swarming like locusts upon this coast. They
+say: 'Our land has ever been open to the oppressed, no matter in what
+guise they come. The men of the West are the first to stretch bars
+across the Golden Gate to keep out a people. And this people are
+peaceable and industrious; all they petition for is to come in and work.
+Still, there is a cry which swells into passionate invective against
+them. It must be the cry of barbarism and ignorance. It surely fairly
+reeks with injustice and cruelty and sets aside a fundamental principle
+of our Government which dedicates our land to freedom and opens all its
+gates to honest endeavor.'
+
+"Those people will not stop to think that we came here from among
+themselves. We were no more ignorant, we were no worse than they when we
+came away. We have had better wages and better food since our coming
+than the ordinary men of the East obtain. Almost all of us have dreamed
+of homes, of wives and children that are men's right to possess, but
+which are not for us; and though they of the East do not know it, this
+experience has softened, not hardened our hearts, toward the weak and
+the oppressed. If they of the East would reflect they would have to
+conclude that it is not avarice that moves us; that there must be a less
+ungenerous and deeper reason.
+
+"Our only comfort is, that, by and by, maybe while some of us still
+live, those men and women who now upbraid us, will, with their souls on
+their knees, ask pardon for so misjudging us.
+
+"We quarantine ships when a contagion is raging among her crew; we frame
+protective laws to hold the price of labor up to living American rates;
+New England approves these precautions, but when we ask to have the same
+rules, in another form, enforced upon our coast, her people and her
+statesmen, in scorn and wrath, declare that we are monsters.
+
+"There is Yap Sing in the kitchen. You have just paid him forty dollars
+for a month's work. All the clothes that he wears were made in China. If
+he boarded himself, as nearly as possible, he would eat only the food
+sent here from China. Of his forty dollars just received, thirty at
+least will be returned to China and be absorbed there. There are one
+hundred thousand of his people in this State and California. We will
+suppose that they save only thirty cents each per day. That means, for
+all, nine hundred thousand dollars per month, or more than ten million
+dollars per annum that they send away. This is the drain which two
+States with less than one million inhabitants are annually subjected to.
+How long would Massachusetts bear a similar drain, before through all
+her length and breadth, her cities would blaze with riots, all her air
+grow black with murder? Ireland, with six times as many people, and with
+the richest of soils, on half that tax, has become so poor that around
+her is drawn the pity of the world.
+
+"'But,' say the Eastern people, 'you must receive them, Christianize
+them, and after awhile they will assimilate with you.'
+
+"Waiving the degradation to us, which that implies, they propose an
+impossibility. They might just as well go down to where the Atlantic
+beats against the shore, and shout across the waste to the Gulf stream,
+commanding it to assimilate with the 'common waters' of the sea. Not
+more mysterious is the law that holds that river of the deep within its
+liquid banks, than is the instinct which prevents the Chinaman from
+shaking off his second nature and becoming an American. He looks back
+through the halo of four thousand years, sees that without change, the
+nation of his forefathers has existed, and with him all other existing
+nations except Japan and India and Persia, are parvenues.
+
+"For thousands of years, he and his fathers before him, have been waging
+a hand-to-hand conflict with Want. He has stripped and disciplined
+himself until he is superior to all hardships except famine, and that he
+holds at bay longer than any other living creature could.
+
+"Through this training process from their forms everything has
+disappeared except a capacity to work; in their brains every attribute
+has died except the selfish ones; in their hearts nearly all generous
+emotions have been starved to death. The faces of the men have given up
+their beards, the women have surrendered their breasts and the ability
+to blush has faded from their faces.
+
+"Like all animals of fixed colors they change neither in habits nor
+disposition. In four thousand years they have changed no more than have
+the wolves that make their lairs in the foothills of the Ural mountains,
+except that they have learned to economize until they can even live upon
+half the air which the white man requires to exist in. They have trained
+their stomachs until they are no longer the stomachs of men; but such as
+are possessed by beasts of prey; they thrive on food from which the
+Caucasian turns with loathing, and on this dreadful fare work for
+sixteen hours out of the twenty-four.
+
+"The moral sentiments starved to death in their souls centuries ago.
+They hold woman as but an article of merchandise and delight to profit
+by her shame.
+
+"Other foreigners come to America to share the fortunes of Americans.
+Even the poor Italian, with organ and monkey, dreams while turning his
+organ's crank, that this year or next, or sometime, he will be able to
+procure a little home, have a garden of his own, and that his children
+will grow up--sanctified by citizenship--defenders of our flag.
+
+"But the Chinaman comes with no purpose except for plunder; the sole
+intention is to get from the land all that is possible, with the design
+of carrying it or sending it back to native land. The robbery is none
+the less direct and effective for being carried on with a non-combatant
+smile instead of by force.
+
+"It is such a race as this that we are asked to welcome and compete
+with, and when we explain that the food we each require--we, without
+wife or child to share with--costs more in the market daily than these
+creatures are willing to work for and board themselves; the question,
+with a lofty disdain, is asked: 'Are you afraid to compete with a
+Chinaman?'
+
+"It is an unworthy question, born of ignorance and a false
+sentimentality; for no mortal can overcome the impossible.
+
+"In the cities these creatures fill the places of domestics and absorb
+all the simpler trades. The natural results follow. Girls and boys grow
+up without ever being disciplined to labor. But girls and boys must have
+food and clothes. If their parents can not clothe and feed them other
+people must. If poor girls with heads and hands untrained have nothing
+but youth and beauty to offer for food, when hungry enough they will
+barter both for bread.
+
+"The vices and diseases which the Chinese have already scattered
+broadcast over the west, are maturing in a harvest of measureless and
+indescribable suffering.
+
+"The Chinese add no defense to the State. They have no patriotism except
+for native land; they are all children of degraded mothers, and as
+soldiers are worthless.
+
+"Moreover it is not a question of sharing our country with them; it is
+simply a question of whether we should surrender it to them or not. When
+the western nations thoroughly understand the Chinese they will realize
+that with their numbers, their imitative faculties, their capacity to
+live and to work on food which no white man can eat, with their
+appalling thrift and absence of moral faculties, they are, to-day, the
+terror of the earth.
+
+"The nations forced China to open her gates to them. It was one of the
+saddest mistakes of civilization.
+
+"To ask that their further coming be stopped, is simply making a
+plea for the future generations of Americans, a prayer for the
+preservation of our Republic. It springs from man's primal right of
+self-preservation, and when we are told that we should share our country
+and its blessings with the Chinese, the first answer is that they
+possess already one-tenth of the habitable globe; their empire has
+everything within it to support a nation; they have, besides, the
+hoarded wealth of a hundred generations, and if these were not enough,
+there are still left illimitable acres of savage lands. Let them go
+occupy and subdue them.
+
+"The civilization of China had been as perfect as it now is for two
+thousand years when our forefathers were still barbarians. While our
+race has been subduing itself and at the same time learning the lessons
+which lead up to submission to order and to law; while, moreover, it has
+been bringing under the ægis of freedom a savage continent, the
+Mongolian has remained stationary. To assert that we should now turn
+over this inheritance (of which we are but the trustees for the future),
+or any part of it, to 'the little brown men,' is to forget that a
+nation's first duty is like a father's, who, by instinct, watches over
+his own child with more solicitude than over the child of a stranger,
+and who, above all things, will not place his child under the influence
+of anything that will at once contaminate and despoil him.
+
+"Finally, by excluding these people no principle of our Government is
+set aside, and no vital practice which has grown up under our form of
+government. Ours is a land of perfect freedom, but we arrest robbers and
+close our doors to lewd women. While these precautions are right and
+necessary it is necessary and right to turn back from our shores the
+sinister hosts of the Orient."
+
+With this the whole Club except Brewster heartily agreed. Brewster
+merely said: "Maybe you are right, but your argument ignores the saving
+grace of Christianity, and maybe conflicts with God's plans."
+
+Then the good-nights were said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+The next evening when supper was prepared, Harding was not present. He
+had bruised one hand so badly in the mine the previous day, that he was
+forced to have it bound up and treated with liniments and had not worked
+that day. Thinking he would be home soon the rest ate their suppers, but
+it was an hour before he came. When he arrived he had a troubled look,
+and being pressed to tell what had gone wrong, he stated that he had met
+a group of five miners from the Sierra Nevada day shift, men whom they
+all knew, who, without provocation, had commenced abusing him; jeering
+him about joining with six or seven more miners, hiring a house and a
+cook, and putting on airs; that finally they dared him to fight, and
+when he offered to fight any one of them, they said it was a mere
+"bluff," that he would not fight a woman unless she were sick, and
+further declared their purpose at some future time to go up and "clean
+out" the whole outfit.
+
+Harding was the younger member of the Club; the rest knew about his
+former life; how his father, joining the reckless throng of the early
+days, lived fast, and suddenly died, just as the boy came from school;
+how the young man had put aside his hopes, learned mining, and with a
+brave purpose was working hard and dreaming of the time when he would
+wipe away every reproach which rested on his father's memory.
+
+To have him set upon by roughs, causelessly, was like a blow in the face
+to every other member of the Club. When Harding had told his story,
+Miller said: "Who did you say these men were, Harding?"
+
+Harding told their names.
+
+"Why, they are not miners at all," said Carlin. "They are a lot of
+outside bruisers who have come here because there is going to be an
+election this year, and they have got their names on a pay roll to keep
+from being arrested as vagrants. You did just right, Harding, to get
+away from them with your crippled hand without serious trouble."
+
+"Indeed you did, Harding," said Brewster. "One street fight at your age
+might ruin you for life."
+
+"That is quite true," said Miller; "I am glad you had no fight."
+
+Said Corrigan: "You offered to fight any one of the blackguards, and
+whin they refused, you came away? It was the proper thing to do."
+
+"Did you have any weapons with you, Harding?" asked Ashley.
+
+"Not a thing in the world," was the reply.
+
+"I am glad of that," said Ashley. "The temptation to wing one or two of
+the brutes, would have been very great had you been 'fixed.'"
+
+"I am glad it was no worse," said Wright. "You said it was down by the
+California Bank corner?"
+
+"No," replied Harding; "it was by the Fredericksburg Brewery corner, on
+Union Street, just below C."
+
+"You managed the matter first-rate, Harding," said Wright. "Do not think
+any more about it."
+
+Harding, thus reassured by his friends, felt better, but said if three
+of the Club would go with him he would undertake to do his part to bring
+hostilities to a successful close with the bullies.
+
+Ashley and Corrigan at once volunteered, but Wright and Carlin
+interfered and said it must not be, and Brewster expostulated against
+any such thing.
+
+Corrigan and Ashley caught a look and gesture from Wright which caused
+them to subside, and Harding at length went out to supper.
+
+When Harding came in from up town, Miller was making arrangements to go
+out, as he said, to meet a broker as per agreement. As Harding went to
+supper, Miller went out and Brewster resumed the reading of a book in
+which he was engaged. The Professor, Colonel and Alex had not yet come
+in.
+
+Significant glances passed between the others, and soon Wright arose and
+said: "Boys! the Emmetts drill to-night; suppose we go down to the
+armory and look on for half an hour."
+
+The rest all agreed that it would be good exercise, and quietly the four
+men went out, Wright saying as he started: "Brewster, if the others
+come, tell them we have just gone down to the Emmetts armory, and will
+be back in half an hour or so."
+
+The Professor and Alex shortly after came in, a little later the Colonel
+and Miller. It was nearly an hour before the others returned. When they
+did they were in the best possible humor; spoke of the perfectness of
+the Emmetts' drill; told of something they had heard down town which was
+droll, while Barney in particular was full of merriment over a speech
+that had that day been made by a countryman of his, Mr. Snow, in a
+Democratic convention, and insisted upon telling Brewster about it.
+
+Brewster laid down his book and assumed the attitude of a listener.
+
+"It was this way," said Barney. "The convintion had made all its
+nominations, when it was proposed that on Friday nixt a grand
+mass-ratification matin' should be hild at Carson City, the matin' to be
+intinded for the inauguratin' of the campaign, where all the faithful
+from surroundin' counties might mate and glorify, and thus intimidate
+the inemy from the viry commincement.
+
+"The proposition was carried by acclamation, and jist thin a mimber
+sprang up and moved that the matin' should be a barbecue. This motion
+likewise carried by an overwhilmin' vote. Whin the noise died away a
+bit, my ould friend Snow, he of the boardin' house, arose and made a
+motion. It was beautiful. Listen!
+
+"'Mr. Spaker! Bain that the hift of the Dimocratic party do not ate
+_mate_ of a Friday, I move yees, sir, that we make it a _fish_
+barbecue.'"
+
+A great laugh followed Barney's account of the motion, and then the
+usual comparison of notes on stocks took place. Miller was sure that
+Silver Hill was the best buy on the lode; Corrigan had been told by a
+Gold Hill miner that Justice was looking mighty encouraging; the Colonel
+had heard the superintendent of the Curry tell the superintendent of the
+Belcher that he was in wonderfully kindly ground on the two thousand
+foot level; the Professor had that day heard the superintendent of the
+Savage declare that the water was lowering four feet an hour, while all
+were wondering when the Sierra Nevada would break, as it was too high
+for the development. By all is meant all but Brewster and Harding; they
+never joined in any conversations about stocks.
+
+At length the stock talk slackened, when Corrigan again referred to the
+fish barbecue resolution. Naturally enough, the conversation drifted
+into a discussion of the humor of the coast, when the Colonel said:
+
+"There is not much pure humor on this coast. There is plenty of that
+material called humor, which has a bitter sting to it, but that is not
+the genuine article. The men here who think as Hood wrote, are not
+plenty. I suspect the bitter twang to all the humor here comes from the
+isolation of men from the society of women, from broken hopes, and it
+seems to me is generally an attempt to hurl contempt, not upon the
+individual at whom it is fired, but at the outrageous fortunes which
+hedge men around. The coast has been running over with that sort of
+thing, I guess since 'forty-nine.'
+
+"A man here, fond of his wife and children, said to a friend a day or
+two after they went away for a visit to California: 'Did you ever see a
+motherless colt?'
+
+"'Oh, yes,' was the reply.
+
+"'Then,' said the man, 'you know just how I feel.'
+
+"'Yes,' said the friend. 'I suppose you feel as though you are not worth
+a dam.'
+
+"I know a brother lawyer who is somewhat famous for getting the clients
+whom he defends convicted. One morning he met a brother attorney, a wary
+old lawyer, and said to him: 'I heard some men denouncing you this
+morning and I took up your defense.'
+
+"'What did you say?' the other asked.
+
+"'Those men were slandering you and I took it upon myself to defend
+you,' said the first lawyer.
+
+"The old lawyer took the other by the arm, led him aside, then putting
+his lips close to the ear of his friend, in a hoarse whisper said:
+'Don't do it any more.'
+
+"'I am going to lecture to-night at C----,' said a pompous man.
+
+"'I am glad of it,' was the quick answer. 'I have hated the people there
+for years. No punishment is too severe for them.'
+
+"'I am particular who I drink with,' said a man curtly to another.
+
+"'Yes?' was the answer. 'I outgrew that foolish pride long ago. I would
+as soon you would drink with me as not.'
+
+"'I do not require lecturing from you,' said a man. 'I am no reformed
+drunkard.'
+
+"'Then why do you not reform?' was the response.
+
+"This coast is full of the echoes of such things."
+
+The Professor spoke next. "I think," said he, "that there is more
+extravagance in figures of speech on this coast than in any other
+country. Marcus Shults had a difficulty in Eureka the other day, when I
+was there. He told me about it. Said he: 'I told him to keep away; that
+I was afraid of him. I wanted some good man to hear me say that, but I
+had my eye on him every minute, and had he come a step nearer, why--when
+the doctors would have been called in to dissect him they would have
+thought they had struck a new lead mine.'"
+
+Here Wright interrupted the Professor. "Marcus was from my State,
+Professor. Did you ever hear him explain why he did not become a
+fighter?"
+
+The Professor answered that he never had, when Wright continued:
+
+"Marcus never took kindly to hard work. Indeed, he seems to have
+constitutional objections to it. As he tells the story, while crossing
+the plains he made up his mind that, upon reaching California, he would
+declare himself and speedily develop into a fighter. His words, when he
+told me the story, were: 'They knew me back in Missouri, and I was a
+good deal too smart to attempt to practice any such profession there,
+but my idea was that California was filled with Yankees, and in that
+kind of a community I would have an easy going thing. Well, I crossed
+the Sierras and landed at Diamond Springs, outside of Placerville a few
+miles, and when I had been there a short time I changed my mind.'
+
+"Of course at this point some one asks him why he changed his mind,
+whereupon he answers solemnly:
+
+"'The first day I was there a State of Maine man cut the stomach out of
+a Texan.'
+
+"Marcus was with the boys during that first tough winter in Eureka. One
+fearfully cold day a man was telling about the cold he had experienced
+in Idaho. When the story was finished Marcus cast a look of sovereign
+contempt upon the man and said:
+
+"'You know nothing about cold weather, sir; you never saw any. You
+should go to Montana. In Montana I have seen plenty of mornings when
+were a man to have gone out of a warm room, crossed a street sixty feet
+wide and shaken his head, his ears would have snapped off like icicles.'
+
+"The stranger, overawed, retired."
+
+Alex spoke next: "The other day Dan Dennison asked me to go and look at
+a famous trotting horse that he has here. We went to the stable, and
+when the stepper was pointed out I started to go into the stall beside
+him, whereupon Dan caught me by the arm, drew me back, and said:
+
+"'Be careful! Sometimes he deals from the bottom.'
+
+"He stripped the covers from the horse and backed him out where I could
+look at him. The horse was not a beauty by any means and I intimated my
+belief of that fact to Dan.
+
+"'No,' said Dennison. The truth is--' He hesitated a moment and then the
+words came in a volley:
+
+"'He's deformed with speed.'
+
+"There is a lawyer down town, you all know him. He has a head as big as
+the old croppings of the Gould and Curry, but like some other lawyers
+that practice at the Virginia City bar (here he glanced significantly at
+the Colonel), he is not an exceedingly bright or profound man. He was
+passing a downtown office yesterday when a man, who chanced to be
+standing in the office, said to the bookkeeper of the establishment:
+
+"'Look at Judge ----. His head is bigger than Mount Davidson, but I am
+told that where his brains ought to be there is a howling wilderness.'
+
+"The bookkeeper stopped his writing, carefully wiped his pen, laid it
+down, came out from behind his desk, came close up to the man who had
+spoken to him, and said:
+
+"'Howling wilderness? I tell you, sir, that man's head is an unexplored
+mental Death Valley.'"
+
+"Yes," said the Colonel, "his is a queer family. He has a brother who is
+a journalist; he has made a fortune in the business. His great theme is
+sketching the lives and characters of people."
+
+"But has he made a fortune publishing sketches of that description?"
+asked Miller.
+
+"Oh, no," replied the Colonel; "he has made his money by refraining from
+publishing them. People have paid him to suppress them."
+
+"Colonel," asked Strong, "did it never occur to you that other fortunes
+might be made the same way by people just exactly adapted to that style
+of writing?"
+
+"If it had," was the reply. "I should have considered that the field
+here was fully occupied."
+
+"You might write a sketch of your own career," suggested the Professor.
+
+"Don't do it, Colonel," said Alex.
+
+"Why not?" asked Ashley.
+
+"There is a law which sadly interferes with the circulation of a certain
+character of literature," said Alex.
+
+"Alex," said the Colonel, "what a painstaking and delicate task it will
+be, under that law, to write your obituary."
+
+"There will be great risk in writing yours, Colonel," said Alex; "but it
+will be a labor of love, nevertheless; a labor of love, Colonel."
+
+"If you have it to do, Alex, don't forget my strongest characteristic,"
+said the Colonel; "that lofty generosity, blended with a self-contained
+dignity, which made me indifferent always to the slanders of bad men."
+
+It was always a delight to the Club to get these two to bantering each
+other.
+
+Ashley here interposed and said: "You all know Professor ----. One night
+in Elko, last summer, he was conversing with Judge F---- of Elko. Both
+had been indulging a little too much; the Professor was growing
+talkative and the Judge morose.
+
+"The Professor was telling about the battle of Buena Vista, in which he,
+a boy at the time, participated. In the midst of the description the
+Judge interrupted him with some remark which the Professor construed
+into an impeachment of his bravery.
+
+"He leaned back in his chair and sat looking at the Judge for a full
+minute, as if in an astonished study, and then in a tone most dangerous,
+said:
+
+"'I do not know how to classify you, sir. I do not know, sir, whether
+you are a wholly irresponsible idiot, or an unmitigated and infamous
+scoundrel, sir.'
+
+"He was conscientious and methodical even in his wrath. He would not
+pass upon the specimen of natural history before him until certain to
+what species it belonged."
+
+Said Miller: "Did you ever hear how Judge T---- of this city met a man
+who had been saying disrespectful things about him, but who came up to
+the Judge in a crowd and, with a smile, extended his hand? The Judge
+drew back quickly, thrust both hands in his side pockets and said:
+
+"'Excuse me, sir; I have just washed my hands.'"
+
+"I heard something yesterday of a rough man whom you all know, Zince
+Barnes," said the Professor, "which seemed to me as full of bitter humor
+as anything I have heard on this mountain side. You know that politics
+are running pretty high.
+
+"Well, an impecunious man--so the story goes--called upon a certain
+gentleman who is reported to be rich and to have political aspirations,
+and tried to convince him that the expenditure of a certain sum of money
+in a certain way would redound amazingly to the credit, political, of
+the millionaire. The man of dollars could not see the proposition
+through the poor man's magnifying glasses, and the patriot retired
+baffled.
+
+"A few minutes later, and while yet warm in his disappointment, he met
+Zince Barnes, told him of the interview and closed by expressing the
+belief that the millionaire was a tough, hard formation.
+
+"'Hard!' said Zince. 'I should think so. The tears of widows and orphans
+are water on his wheel.'"
+
+At this Corrigan 'roused up and said: "Speakin' of figures of spache, I
+heard some from a countrywoman of mine one bitter cowld mornin' last
+March. It was early; hardly light. John Mackay was comin' down from the
+Curry office on his way to the Con. Virginia office, and whin just
+opposite the Curry works, he met ould mother McGarrigle, who lives down
+by the freight depot. I was in the machane shop of the Curry works; they
+were just outside, and there being only an inch boord and about ten feet
+of space between us, I could hear ivery word plain, or rather I could
+not help but hear. The conversation ran about after this style:
+
+"'Mornin', Meester Mackay, and may the Lord love yees.'
+
+"'Good morning, madam.'
+
+"'How's the beautiful wife and the charmin' childers over the big
+wathers, Mr. Mackay?'
+
+"'They are all right.'
+
+"'God be thanked intirely. Does yees know, Mr. Mackay, that in the hull
+course of me life I niver laid eyes upon childer so beautiful loike
+yees. Often and often I've tould the ould man that same. And they're
+will, are they?'
+
+"'Yes, they are first-rate. I had a cable from them yesterday.'
+
+"'A tilligram, was it? Oh, but is not that wonderful, though! A missige
+under the say and over the land to this barbarous place. It must have
+come like the smile of the Good God to yees.'
+
+"'Oh, I get them every day.'
+
+"'Ivery day! And phat do they cost?'
+
+"'Oh, seven or eight dollars; sometimes more. It depends upon their
+length.'
+
+"'Sivin or eight dollars! Oh, murther! But yees desarve it, Mr. Mackay.
+What would the poor do without yees in this town, Mr. Mackay? Only
+yisterday I was sayin' to the ould man, says I: "Mike, it shows the
+mercy of God whin money is given to a mon like Mr. John Mackay. It's a
+Providence he is to the city. God bless him." I did, indade.'
+
+"By this time Mackay began to grow very ristless.
+
+"'What can I do for you this morning, Mrs. McGarrigle?'
+
+"'It's the ould mon, Lord love yees, Mr. Mackay. It's no work he's had
+for five wakes, and it's mighty little we have aither to ait or to wear.
+It's work I want for him.'
+
+"'I am sorry, but our mines are full. Indeed, we are employing more men
+than we are justified in doing.'
+
+"'But Mr. Mackay, it's so poor we are, and so hard it is getting along
+at all; put him on for a month and may all the saints bless yees.'
+
+"'The city is full of poor people, madam. To determine what to do to
+mitigate the distress here occupies half our time.'
+
+"'Yis, but ours is a particular hard case intirely. I am dilicate
+meself. I know I don't look so, but I am; and yees ought ter interpose
+to help a poor countryman of yees own in trouble.'
+
+"By this time Mackay was half frozen and thoroughly out of patience. In
+his quick, sharp way he said: 'Madam, we cannot give all the men in the
+country employment.'
+
+"The mask of the woman was off in an instant. With a scorn and hate
+unutterable she burst forth in almost a scrame.
+
+"'Oh, yees can't. Oh, no! Yees forgits fen yees was poor your ownsilf,
+ye blackguard. Refusin' a poor man work, and shakin the mountains and
+churnin' the ocean avery day wid your siven and eight dollar missages.
+Yees can't employ all the min in the counthry. Don't yees own the whole
+counthry? And do yees think we'd apply to yees at all if we could find a
+dacant mon in the worreld? May the divil fly away wid yees, and whin he
+does yees may tell him for me if he gives a short bit for yer soul he'll
+chate himself worse nor he's been chated since he bargained with Judas
+Iscariot. Thake that, sur, wid me compliments, yees purse-proud
+parvenu.'
+
+"When the woman began to rave, Mackay walked rapidly away, but she niver
+relaxed the scrame of her tirade until Mackay disappeared from sight.
+Thin she paused for a moment, thin to herself she muttered, 'But I got
+aven wid him oneway.' She thin turned and walked away toward her cabin.
+
+"It was a case where money was no assistance to a man."
+
+"There is a good deal of humor displayed in courts of justice at times,
+is there not, Colonel?" asked Wright.
+
+"Oh, yes," was the reply. "Anyone would think so who ever heard old
+Frank Dunn explain to a court that the reason of his being late was
+because he had no watch, and deploring meanwhile his inability to
+purchase a watch because of the multitude of unaccountable fines which
+His Honor had seen proper, from time to time, to impose upon him."
+
+"In that first winter in Eureka," said Wright, "I strolled into court
+one day when a trial was in progress.
+
+"Judge D---- was managing one side and a volunteer lawyer the other. The
+volunteer lawyer had the best side, and to confuse the court, Judge
+D----, in his argument, misquoted the testimony somewhat. His opponent
+interrupted and repeated exactly what the witness had testified to.
+
+"Turning to his opponent, Judge D----, with a sneer, said:
+
+"'I see, sir, you are very much interested in the result of this case.'
+
+"'Oh, no,' was the response. 'I am doing this for pure love. I do not
+make a cent in this case.'
+
+"Then Judge D----, with still more bitterness, said:
+
+"'That is like you. You try cases for nothing and cheat _good_ lawyers
+out of their fees.'
+
+"With a look of unfeigned astonishment the other lawyer said:
+
+"'Well, what are _you_ angry about? How does that interfere with
+_you_?'"
+
+Here Brewster, who had been reading, laid down his book and said:
+
+"I heard of a case as I came through Salt Lake City some years ago,
+which, if not particularly humorous, revealed wonderful presence of mind
+on the part of the presiding judge. It may be the story is not true, but
+it was told in Salt Lake City as one very liable to be true.
+
+"A miner, who had been working a placer claim in the hills all
+summer--so the story ran--and who had been his own cook, barber,
+chambermaid and tailor, came down to Salt Lake City to see the sights
+and purchase supplies. He had dough in his whiskers, grease upon his
+overalls, pine twigs in his hair, and altogether did not present the
+appearance of a dancing master or a millionaire. Hardly had he reached
+the city when he thought it necessary to take something in order to
+'brace up.' One drink gave him courage to take another, and in forty
+minutes he was dead drunk on the sidewalk.
+
+"The police picked him up and tossed him into a cell in the jail,
+disdaining to search him, so abject seemed his condition.
+
+"Next morning he was brought before the Police Judge and the charge of
+D. D. was preferred against him.
+
+"'You are fined ten dollars, sir,' was the brief sentence of the Court.
+The man unbuttoned two pairs of overalls and from some inner recess of
+his garments produced a roll of greenbacks as big as a man's fist. It
+was a trying moment for the Judge, but his presence of mind did not fail
+him. He raised up from his seat, leaned one elbow on his desk and, as if
+in continuation of what he had already said, thundered out: 'And one
+hundred dollars for contempt of court.'
+
+"The man paid the one hundred and ten dollars and hastily left the court
+and the city."
+
+Miller was the next to speak. Said he: "Once in Idaho I heard a specimen
+of grim humor which entertained me immensely. There was a man up there
+who owned a train of pack mules and made a living by packing in goods to
+the traders and packing out ore to be sent away to the reduction works.
+He was caught in a storm midway between Challis and Powder Flat. It was
+mid-winter; the thermometer at Challis marked thirty-four degrees below
+zero. He was out in the storm and cold two days and one night, and his
+sufferings must have been indescribable. When safely housed and
+ministered to at last a friend said to him: 'George, that was a tough
+experience, was it not?'
+
+"'Oh, regular business should never be called tough,' said he, 'but
+since I began to get warm I have been thinking that, if I make money
+enough, may be in three or four years I will get married, if I can
+deceive some woman into making the arrangement. If I should succeed, and
+if after a reasonable time a boy should be born to us, and if the
+youngster should "stand off" the colic, teething, measles, whooping
+cough, scarlet fever and falling down stairs, and grow to be ten or
+twelve years old, and have some sense, if I ever tell him the story of
+the past two days of my life and he don't cry his eyes out, I will beat
+him to death, sure.'"
+
+The Professor was reminded by the anecdote of something which transpired
+in Belmont, Nevada, the previous winter. Said he: "I went to Belmont to
+examine a property last winter and while there Judge ---- came in from a
+prospecting trip down into the upper edge of Death Valley. I saw him as
+he drove into town, and went to meet him. He was in no very good
+spirits. On the way to his office he said: 'I was persuaded against my
+better judgment to go on that trip. The thief who coaxed me away told a
+wonderful story. He had been there; he had seen the mine, but had been
+driven away by the Shoshones; he knew every spring and camping place. It
+would be just a pleasure trip. So, like an idiot, I went with him. It
+was twice as far as he said, and we got out of food; he could not find
+one particular spring, and we were forty hours without water. We had to
+camp in the snow, and the only pleasure I had in the whole journey was
+in seeing my companion slip and sit down squarely on a Spanish bayonet
+plant. It was a double pleasure, indeed; one pleasure to see him sit
+down and another pleasure to see him get right up again without resting
+at all, and with a look on his face as though a serious mistake had been
+made somewhere.'
+
+"By this time we had reached the Judge's office. On the desk lay a score
+of letters which had been accumulating during his absence. Begging me to
+excuse him for five minutes, he sat down and commenced to run through
+his mail.
+
+"Suddenly he stopped, seized a pen and wrote rapidly for two or three
+minutes. Then he threw down the pen and begged my attention. First he
+read a letter which was dated somewhere in Iowa. The writer stated that
+he had a few thousand dollars, but had determined to leave Iowa and seek
+some new field, and asked the Judge's advice about removing to Nevada. I
+asked the Judge if he knew the man.
+
+"'Of course not,' said he. 'He has found my name in some directory, and
+so has written at random. He has probably written similar letters to
+twenty other men. Possibly he is writing a book descriptive of the Far
+West by an actual observer,' continued the Judge.
+
+"'How are you going to reply?' I asked.
+
+"'That is just the point,' he answered. 'I have written and I want you
+to tell me if I have done about the right thing. Listen.'
+
+"At this he read his letter. It was in these identical words:
+
+     MY DEAR SIR:--Your esteemed favor is at hand and after careful
+     deliberation I have determined to write to you to come to
+     Nevada. I cannot, in the brief space to which a letter must
+     necessarily be confined, enter into details; but I can assure
+     you that if you will come here, settle and invest your means,
+     the final result will be most happy to you. A few brief years
+     of existence here will prepare you to enjoy all the rest and
+     all the beatitudes which the paradise of the blessed can
+     bestow, and if, perchance, your soul should take the other
+     track, hell itself can bring you no surprises. Respectfully,
+     etc.
+
+"He mailed the letter, but at last accounts the gentleman had not come
+West."
+
+"That," said Alex, "reminds me of Charley O----'s mining experience. An
+Eastern company purchased a series of mines at Austin and made Charley
+superintendent of the company at a handsome salary. Charley proceeded to
+his post of duty, built a fine office and drew his salary for a year. He
+did his best, too, to make something of the property, but it is a most
+difficult thing to make a mine yield when there is no ore in it. The
+result was nothing but 'Irish dividends' for the stockholders. It was in
+the old days, before the railway came along.
+
+"One morning, when the overland coach drove into Austin, a gentleman
+dismounted, asked where the office of the Lucknow Gold and Silver
+Consolidated Mining and Milling Company was, and being directed, went to
+the office and without knocking, opened the door and walked in. Charley
+was sitting with his feet on the desk, smoking a cigar and reading the
+morning paper.
+
+"'Is Mr. O---- in?' politely inquired the stranger.
+
+"'I am Mr. O----,' responded Charley. The stranger unbuttoned his coat,
+dived into a side pocket and drawing out a formidable envelope,
+presented it to O----.
+
+"Charley tore open the envelope and found that the letter within was a
+formal notice from the secretary of the company that the bearer had been
+appointed superintendent and resident manager of the L. G. and S. C. M.
+& M. Co., and requesting O----to surrender to him the books and all
+other property of the company. After reading the letter Charley looked
+up and said to the stranger:
+
+"'And so you have come to take my place?'
+
+"'It seems so,' was the reply.
+
+"'On your account I am awfully sorry,' said Charley.
+
+"The stranger did not believe that he was in any particular need of
+sympathy.
+
+"'But you will not live six months here,' said Charley.
+
+"The stranger was disposed to take his chances.
+
+"This happened in August. Charley took the first stage and came in to
+Virginia City. In the following December the morning papers here
+contained a dispatch announcing that Mr. ----, superintendent of the
+Lucknow Gold and Silver Consolidated Mining and Milling Company, was
+dangerously ill of pneumonia. On the succeeding morning there was
+another dispatch from Austin saying that Mr. ----, late superintendent
+of the Lucknow Gold and Silver Consolidated Mining and Milling Company,
+died the previous evening and that the body would be sent overland to
+San Francisco, to be shipped from there to the East. Two days after
+that, about the time the overland coaches were due, Charley was seen
+wading through the mud down to the Overland barn. He went in and saw two
+coaches with fresh mud upon them. The curtains of the first were rolled
+up. The curtains of the second were buckled down close. O---- went to
+the second coach, loosened one of the curtains and threw it back; then
+reaching in and tapping the coffin with his knuckles, said: 'Didn't I
+tell you? Didn't I tell you? You thought you could stop my salary and
+still live. See what a fix it has brought you to!' And then he went
+away. No one would ever have known that he had been there had not an
+'ostler overheard him.
+
+"Speaking of Austin, I think the remark made by Lawyer J. B. Felton of
+Oakland, California, regarding the mines of Austin, was as cute as
+anything I ever heard. When the mines were first discovered Felton was
+induced to invest a good deal of money in them.
+
+"The mines were three hundred and fifty miles from civilization, there
+being no reduction works of any kind, and pure silver would hardly have
+paid. So Felton did not realize readily from his investment. After some
+months had gone by Felton was standing on Montgomery street, San
+Francisco, one day when a long procession, celebrating St. Patrick's
+day, filed past. Of course Erin's flag was 'full high advanced' in the
+procession. Turning to a friend, Felton said: 'Can you tell why that
+flag is like a Reese River mine?'
+
+"The friend could not.
+
+"Said Felton: 'It's composed mostly of sham rock and a blasted lyre!'"
+
+Ashley was next to speak.
+
+"After all," said he, "the funniest things are sometimes those which are
+not meant to be funny at all. Steve Gillis, in a newspaper office down
+town, perpetrated one the other day. An Eastern editor was here, and
+when he found out how some of the men in the office were working he was
+paralyzed, and said to Gillis:
+
+"'There's ----, you will go into his room some day and find him dead. He
+will go like a flash some time. No man can do what he is doing and stand
+it.'
+
+"'Do you think so?' asked Gillis.
+
+"'Indeed I do; I know it,' said the man.
+
+"'Then,' said Gillis, 'you ought to be here. You would see the most
+magnificent funeral ever had in Virginia City.'"
+
+By this time it was very late and the Club dispersed for the night.
+
+Next morning Harding, who was reading the morning paper, came upon this
+item:
+
+                         A LIVELY SCRIMMAGE.
+
+     Last evening, about seven-thirty o'clock, there was a terrific
+     fight on Union Street, near the depot; four men against five.
+     It lasted but a few minutes, but the five men were dreadfully
+     beaten. No one seemed to know the origin of the fight. A boy
+     who was standing across the street says the men met, a few low
+     words passed between them, and then the fight ensued. The four
+     men, who seem to have been the assailants, hardly suffered any
+     damage, but the five others were so badly beaten that two of
+     them had to be carried home, while the other three had fearful
+     mansard roofs put upon them.
+
+     There were no arrests; indeed little sympathy was felt for the
+     injured men, for though at present at work in the mines, they
+     are known as bullies and roughs by trade.
+
+     No one seems to know who the victors were, except that they
+     were miners. One man told our reporter that he knew one of the
+     men by sight; that he was, he thought, a Gold Hill miner. No
+     weapons were drawn on either side, and no loud words were
+     spoken, but it was as fierce an encounter as has been seen here
+     since the old fighting days.
+
+Harding looked up from the paper and said:
+
+"Wright, what was it you said about the drill of the Emmett Guards, last
+night?"
+
+"They are splendid, those Emmetts," was the reply, with an imperturbable
+face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Pay day was on the fifth of the month. On the night of the thirteenth,
+when the Club met at the usual hour for supper, Miller was not present.
+He was never as regular as the others, so the rest did not wait supper
+for him. After supper the Club settled down to their pipes, the
+Professor, the Colonel and Alex came in, and the usual discussion about
+stocks was indulged in for some minutes, the chief matter dwelt upon
+being the steady and unaccountable rise in Sierra Nevada. At length it
+was noticed that Carlin did not join as usual in the conversation, and
+Ashley asked him what he seemed so cast down about.
+
+At this Carlin shook himself together and said: "I will be glad if you
+will all give me your attention for a moment." He took a letter from his
+pocket and read as follows:
+
+     CARLIN: When you receive this I shall be on my way, by
+     horseback (overland), to Eastern Nevada. I am going to Austin,
+     and if I do not obtain employment there, shall continue on to
+     Eureka. You can find me in one place or the other by Sunday.
+
+     The evening of pay day, with the money which the Club had
+     placed in my hands to pay the bills, I went down town to carry
+     out the wishes of the Club, when I met a friend, who is in the
+     close confidence of the "big ring" of operators. He called me
+     aside and told me that he had inside information that within
+     three days Silver Hill would commence to jump, that within a
+     week the present value would be multiplied by five or six and
+     more likely by ten. That there would be an immediate and great
+     advance he assured me was absolutely certain. He told me how he
+     had received his information, and it seemed to me to be
+     conclusive.
+
+     I found a broker, unloaded my pockets, and bade him buy Silver
+     Hill; to buy on a margin all he could afford to. The stock has
+     fallen thirty per cent., and the indications are that it will
+     go still lower. Yesterday I suppose it was sold out, for on the
+     previous day I received a notice from the broker to please call
+     at his office at once. My courage, that never failed me before,
+     broke down. I could not go. The amount of money belonging to
+     the Club which I had was altogether $575.00. Of course it in
+     lost. It is a clear case of breach of trust, if not of
+     embezzlement. You can make me smart for it, if you feel
+     disposed to, or if you can give me the time, I can pay the
+     money in about eight months after I get to work. That is, I can
+     send you about eighty dollars per month. If wanted I will be in
+     Austin or Eureka.
+
+     I might make this letter much longer, but I suspect by the time
+     you will have read this much, you will think it long enough.
+     Believe me none of you can think meaner of me than I do of
+     myself.
+
+     JOE MILLER.
+
+After the reading of the letter, Wright was the first to find his voice.
+Said he: "It is too bad. I knew Miller was reckless, but I believed his
+recklessness never could go beyond his own affairs. I had implicit faith
+in him."
+
+"Had he only told us," said Ashley, "that he wanted to use the money, he
+could have had five times the sum."
+
+"What I hate about it, is the want of courage and the lack of faith in
+the rist of us," said Corrigan. "Why did he not come loike a mon and
+say, 'Boys, I have lost a trifle of your money in the malstroom of
+stocks; be patient and I will work out?'"
+
+"It is a pitiable business," said Carlin. "The money--that is the loss
+of it--does not hurt at all. But it was Miller who proposed the forming
+of this Club, and he is the one who first betrays us, and then lacks the
+sand to tell us about it frankly. But no matter. Jesus Christ failed to
+secure twelve men who were all true. What do you think of it, Brewster?"
+
+"What Miller has done," said Brewster, "is but a natural result when a
+working man goes down into the pit of stock gambling. The hope in that
+business is to obtain money without earning it. It is a kind of lunacy.
+In a few months, men so engaged lose everything like a steady poise to
+their minds. They take on all the attributes which distinguish the
+gambler. Their ideas are either up in the clouds or down in the depths.
+Worst of all, they forget that a dollar means so many blows, so many
+drops of sweat, that a dollar, when we see it, means that sometime,
+somewhere, to produce that dollar, an honest dollar's worth of work was
+performed, that when that dollar is transferred to another, another
+dollar's worth of work in some form must be given in return, or the
+eternal balance of Justice will be disarranged. Miller reached the point
+where he did not prize his own dollars at their true value. It ought not
+to be expected that he would be more careful of ours."
+
+"Colonel, what is your judgment about the business?" Carlin asked.
+
+"It seems to me," was the reply, "that when he went away Miller insulted
+all of you--all of us, for that matter. His conduct assumes that we are
+all pawnbrokers who would go into mourning over a few dollars lost."
+
+"Oh, no, I think not," said Strong. "Miller is a sensitive, high-strung
+man. He has been in all sorts of dangers and difficulties and has never
+faltered. At last he found himself in a place where, for the first time,
+he felt his honor wounded, and his courage failed him. He is not running
+away from us, he is trying to run away from himself."
+
+"What is your judgment, Professor?" asked Carlin.
+
+"As they say out here, Miller got off wrong," said the Professor; "and
+he seems blinded by the mistake so much that he cannot see his best way
+back."
+
+"Harding, why are you so still?" asked Carlin.
+
+"I am sorry for Miller," said Harding. "He is the best-hearted man in
+the world."
+
+"It is a most unpleasant business. What shall we do about it?" asked
+Carlin. "I wish all would express an opinion."
+
+"What ought to be done, Carlin?" asked Wright.
+
+Carlin answered: "The business way would be to formally expel him from
+the Club, and to write him that, without waiving any legal rights, we
+will give him the time he requires in which to settle."
+
+"That would no doubt be just," said Wright.
+
+"There would be no injustice in it, from a business standpoint," said
+Ashley.
+
+"He certainly," said Brewster, "would have no right to complain of such
+treatment."
+
+Said Corrigan: "The verdict of the worreld would be that we had acted
+fairly."
+
+"No one," said the Colonel, "could blame you for firing him out. He has
+not only wronged you directly, but at the same moment has attacked your
+credit in the city where you are owing bills."
+
+"That is true," said the Professor.
+
+"It is only a matter of discretion what to do," said Alex. "All the
+direct equities are against Miller."
+
+"There is no decision so fair as by a secret ballot," said Harding. "Let
+us take a vote on the proposition of Miller's expulsion, and all must
+take part."
+
+This was agreed to. Nine slips of paper were prepared, all of one size
+and length, one was given to each man to write "expulsion, yes," or
+"expulsion, no," as he pleased. A hat was placed on the table for a
+ballot-box; each in turn deposited his ballot and resumed his seat.
+
+The silence was growing painful when Brewster said: "Carlin, Miller
+wrote back to you; you will have to write to him. Suppose you be the
+returning board to count the votes and make up the returns."
+
+Carlin arose and went to the table. There he paused, and his face wore a
+look of extreme trouble; but he shook off the influence, whatever it
+was, stretched out his hand in an absent-minded way, picked up a ballot
+and slowly brought it before his eyes. He looked at it, turned it over
+and looked on the other side, then with a foolish laugh he said: "Why,
+the ballot is blank."
+
+He transferred it to his left hand, picked up another ballot with his
+right hand; looked at it; it, too, was blank.
+
+So in turn he took up one after another. They all were blank.
+
+As he called the last one and started to resume his seat, Harding, in a
+low voice, as to himself, said: "Thank God!"
+
+All looked a little foolish for a moment, and then the Colonel said:
+"Why, Carlin, you are not much of a returning board, after all."
+
+Said Corrigan: "It sames the convintion moved to make it unanimous."
+
+Said Carlin: "I could not vote to expel Miller. He has long been my
+friend. I know how sensitive he is. He wronged us a little, but I just
+could not do it."
+
+Said Brewster: "I could not do it, because that would be the quickest
+way to cause a man, when on the down grade, to keep on. To make him feel
+that those who have been most intimate with him, despise him, may be
+exact justice, but it seldom brings reformation."
+
+Said the Colonel: "I could not do it in his absence. It would have had a
+look of assassination from behind."
+
+"I could not do it," said the Professor. "The news would have got out
+and the Club would have been disgraced."
+
+"It was not much more than an error of judgment, on Miller's part," said
+Wright. "He never intended to wrong us out of a penny. Crime is measured
+only by the intention."
+
+"That is the true inwardness of the whole business, Wright, and that
+thought kept my ballot blank," was Alex's suggestion.
+
+"I could not do it," said Ashley. "His expulsion would have looked as
+though we measured friendship by dollars. If a man ever needs friends,
+it is when he is in trouble."
+
+"I could not do it," chimed in Corrigan. "Suppose all our mistakes shall
+be remimbered against us, how will we iver git admitted to the great
+Club above?"
+
+"I could not do it, because I love him," said Harding.
+
+"I feared," said Brewster, "that things were going wrong with Miller a
+week ago, when I noticed that in lieu of the costly chair which he first
+brought to the Club, he was using that old, second-hand cheap affair."
+
+"I think," said Harding, "that I have a right to tell now what has been
+a secret. You know Miller and myself worked together. We were coming up
+from the mine one evening, ten days ago, when we chanced to pass old man
+Arnold's cabin--Arnold, who was crippled by a fall in the Curry some
+months ago. The old man was sitting outside his cabin and resting his
+crippled limb on a crutch. Miller stopped and asked him how he was
+getting on, and talked pleasantly with him for a few minutes, when an
+express wagon came by. Miller left the old man with a pleasant word,
+asked me if I would not wait there a few minutes, hailed the expressman,
+jumped upon his wagon, said something to the man which I did not
+understand, and the wagon was driven rapidly away.
+
+"In a few minutes it returned; Miller sprang down; the expressman handed
+him the great easy chair; he carried it into the door of the cabin,
+setting it just inside; then lifted the old man in his arms from his
+hard chair, placed him in the soft cushions of the other, moved it
+gently until it was in just the position where the old man could best
+enjoy looking at the descending night; then, picking up the old battered
+chair, he said, cheerily: 'Arnold, I want to trade chairs with you,' and
+walked so rapidly away that the old man could not recover from his
+surprise enough to thank him. This old chair is the one he brought away.
+
+"Coming home he said to me: 'Harding, don't give me away on this
+business, please. We are all liable to be crippled some time, and to
+need comforts which we do not half appreciate now. I would have given
+the old man the chair two weeks ago, but I did not have it quite paid
+for at that time.'
+
+"I tell you the story now because I do not think there is any obligation
+to keep it a secret any longer."
+
+When Harding had finished there was not one man present who was not glad
+that the vote had resulted unanimously against the generous man's
+expulsion.
+
+The next question was as to the form of the letter that should be sent
+Miller. This awakened a good deal of discussion. It was finally decided
+that each should write a letter, and that the one which should strike
+the Club most favorably should be sent, or that from the whole a new
+letter should be prepared. Writing materials were brought out and all
+went to work on their letters. For several minutes nothing but the
+scratching of pens broke the silence.
+
+When the letters were all completed, Carlin was called upon to read
+first. He proceeded as follows:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     Friend Miller:--The Club has talked everything over. All think
+     you made a great mistake in going away, and that it would be
+     better for you to return to your work. Your old place in the
+     Club will be kept open for you.
+
+     Sincerely yours,
+
+     TOM CARLIN.
+
+Wright read next as follows:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     JOE:--I make a poor hand at writing. I have been banging
+     hammers too many years. But what I want to say is, you had
+     better, so soon as your visit is over, come along back. There
+     wasn't a bit of sense in your going away. Your absence breaks
+     up the equilibrium of the Club amazingly. The whole outfit is
+     becoming demoralized, and the members are growing more
+     garrulous than so many magpies. We shall look for you within a
+     week. We all want to see you.
+
+     Your sincere friend,
+
+     ADRIAN WRIGHT.
+
+The Colonel responded next.
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     MILLER:--You made a precious old fool of yourself, rushing off
+     as you did. Are you the first man who has ever been deceived by
+     Comstock "dead points?" If you think you are, try and explain
+     how it is that while some thousands of bright fellows have
+     devotedly pursued the business during the past fifteen years,
+     you can, in five minutes, count on your fingers all that have
+     saved a quarter of a dollar at the business.
+
+     The whole Club join me in saying that you ought to return
+     without delay.
+
+     Yours truly,
+
+     SAVAGE.
+
+The Professor's letter, which was next read, was as follows:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     DEAR MILLER:--We do not like your going away. The act was
+     deficient in candor, and seems to have a look as though you
+     estimated yourself or the Club at too low a figure. Suppose you
+     did get a little off; the true business would have been to have
+     told us all about it. We would have "put up the mud" and
+     carried the thing along until it came your way. But what is
+     done is done. The thing to decide now is what it is best for
+     you to do. Austin is no place for you. The mines there are
+     rich, but the veins are small and the district restricted. In
+     that camp the formation makes impossible the creation of a big
+     body of ore; the fissures are necessarily small. You would die
+     of asphyxia within a month or go blind searching for a place
+     where an ore body "could make." Eureka is open to other
+     objections. It would require six months for you to become
+     acclimated there, and the chances are that within that time you
+     would be tied up in a knot with lead colic. The proper course
+     to pursue is to come back. The Club are all agreed on that
+     proposition.
+
+     Yours truly,
+
+     STONEMAN.
+
+Ashley's letter, in these words, followed:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     DEAR FRIEND JOE:--Your going away has caused us ever so much
+     trouble. It was foolish and cruel of you to imagine--even when
+     you were in trouble--that any of the Club weighed friendship on
+     old-fashioned placer diggings gold scales. We are sorry for
+     your misfortune, but it is on _your_ account that we are sorry.
+     It is not so serious that it cannot be made up in a little
+     while, if you do not persist in remaining in some place where
+     there are no opportunities to do any good for yourself. It may
+     be a long time, among strangers, before you can obtain
+     employment. Because you have made one mistake, do not make
+     another, but without delay come back. This is Tuesday. It will
+     take you until about Saturday next to get to Austin. You will
+     be pretty badly used up and will have to rest a day. But on
+     Sunday evening you ought to start back by stage and rail. That
+     will bring you home a week from to-day. A week from to-night
+     then, we shall expect your account of how big the mosquitoes
+     are at the sink of the Carson, and what your opinion is of
+     Churchill County as a location for a country residence.
+
+     Yours fraternally,
+
+     HERBERT ASHLEY.
+
+Alex's letter was very brief, as follows:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     Come back, Joe. Were your precedent to be strictly followed, we
+     should suddenly lose a majority of our most respected citizens.
+     In the interest of society and of the Club come.
+
+     ALEX.
+
+     TO MR. JOE MILLER, Austin.
+
+Corrigan did not like to read his letter, but the Club insisted, and
+after declaring that the Club would get "a dale the worst of it," he
+proceeded as follows:
+
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, Nevada, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     DEAR AULD JO:--It's murthered yees ought to be for doing
+     onything phat compills me to write you a lether. Whin I
+     commince to write I fale as though all the air pipes were shut
+     off intirely. I would sooner pick up a thousand dollars in the
+     strate, ony day, than to have to hould a pin in me hand and
+     make sinse in my head at the same moment. You know that same,
+     too, and hince phy did yees go away and force all this work
+     upon me? Is it in love wid horseback exercise that ye are? We
+     have been talkin' your case over, quiet loike, in the Club, and
+     we have unanimously rached the irresistible conclusion that it
+     was an unpatriotic thing for yees to do--to propose this Club
+     business and thin dezart it just whin our habits had become
+     fixed, so to spake; and it would become a mather of sarious
+     inconvanience for us to change. In this wurreld a man can shirk
+     onything excipt his duty, and it is a plain proposition that it
+     is your duty immejitely to come back. My poor fingers are
+     cramped to near brakin' by this writin', and it is your falt,
+     the whole of it, ond I pray yees don't let it happen ony more.
+
+     Faithfully,
+
+     B. CORRIGAN.
+
+     P. S.--Should you nade a bit of coin to return comfortably draw
+     on me through W. F. & Co.
+
+     BARNEY.
+
+Harding read next.
+
+     VIRGINIA, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     DEAR FRIEND MILLER:--Enclosed I send certificate of deposit for
+     $100. The Club desire, unanimously, that you return without a
+     moment's unnecessary delay. All agree that this is the best
+     field for you. I will see the foreman in the morning, tell him
+     you have been called away for a week and get him to hold your
+     place for you. It was very wicked of you to go away. You can
+     only get forgiveness by hurrying back.
+
+     Lovingly,
+
+     HARDING.
+
+
+Brewster's was the final letter, and was in these words:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, Nevada. }
+
+     8th month, 13th day, A. D. 1878. }
+
+     MR. JOSEPH MILLER:
+
+     DEAR SIR AND FRIEND:--I have this evening, with great pain,
+     learned that you have left this place, and, moreover, have
+     heard explained the reasons which prompted that course on your
+     part. It would be a lack of candor on my part not to inform you
+     that I sincerely deplore the wrong which you have done yourself
+     and us. At the same time I believe that the real date of the
+     wrong was when you permitted yourself first to engage in stock
+     gambling. This world is framed on a foundation of perfect
+     justice. The books of the Infinite always exactly balance. In
+     the beginning it was decreed that man should have nothing
+     except what he earned. It was meant that the world's
+     accumulations of treasures--in money, in brain, in love, or in
+     any other material that man holds dear--should, from day to
+     day, and from year to year, represent simply the honest effort
+     put forth to produce the treasure.
+
+     Men have changed this in form. Some men get what they have not
+     earned; but the rule is inexorable and cannot be changed. The
+     books must balance.
+
+     So when one man gets more than his share, the amount has to be
+     made up by the toil of some other man or men. This last is what
+     you have been called upon to do, and, naturally, you suffer.
+
+     But I acquit you of any sinister intention toward us. So do we
+     all. Your fault was when you first attempted to set aside God's
+     law. You may recall what was said a few nights ago. "The decree
+     which was read at Eden's gate is still in full force, and
+     behind it, just as of old, flashes the flaming sword."
+
+     We have thoughtfully considered your case. The unanimous
+     conclusion is that you should at once return; that here among
+     friends and acquaintances, with the heavy work which is going
+     on, you have a far better opportunity to recover your lost
+     ground than you possibly could among strangers.
+
+     Moreover, you are familiar with this lode and the manner of
+     working these mines. You are likewise accustomed to this
+     climate, hence I conclude that your chances against accident or
+     disease would be from fifteen to twenty per cent. in favor of
+     your returning.
+
+     In conclusion, I beg, without meaning any offense, but on the
+     other hand, with a sincere desire to serve you, to say that I
+     have a few hundred dollars on hand, enough perhaps to cover all
+     your indebtedness here. If you would care to use it, it shall
+     be yours, _in hearty welcome_, until such time as you can
+     conveniently return it.
+
+     I beg, sir, to subscribe myself your friend and servant,
+
+     JAMES BREWSTER.
+
+"God bless you, Brewster," said Harding impetuously.
+
+"That is a boss lether," said Corrigan.
+
+"I could not do better than that myself," was Ashley's comment.
+
+"It is a diamond drill, and strikes a bonanza on the lower level," said
+Carlin.
+
+"The formation is good, the pay chute large, the trend of the lode most
+regular, the grade of the ore splendid," said the Professor.
+
+Wright said: "It is a good letter, sure."
+
+"It reads as I fancy the photographs of the Angels of Mercy and Justice
+look when taken together," suggested Alex.
+
+The Colonel remarked that the letter established the fact that Brewster
+was not so bad a man as he looked to be.
+
+What should be sent to Miller was next discussed again. It was finally
+determined that all the letters should be sent except Harding's; that he
+should rewrite his, and instead of sending the certificate of deposit,
+should, like Corrigan, instruct Miller to draw on him if he needed
+money, and that any such drafts should be shared by the whole Club.
+
+Then the money to pay the bills was raised among the old members of the
+Club, and placed in Carlin's hands to be paid out next day.
+
+When all was finished a sort of heaviness came upon the company. There
+was an impression of sorrow upon them. They had been happy in their
+innocent enjoyment, but suddenly one who was a favorite, who was at
+heart the most generous one of the company, had failed them, and they
+brooded over the change.
+
+At length Harding roused himself and said: "Miller must be sleeping
+somewhere down in the desert to-night. I wish I could call to him by
+telephone and bring him back."
+
+"That reminds me," said Alex, "of something that I heard of yesterday.
+Down at the Sisters' Academy there is a telephone. There is a little
+miss attending that school, and every morning at a certain hour there is
+a ring at a certain house down town. The response goes back, 'Who is
+it?' and then the conversation goes on as follows: 'Is that you, papa?'
+'Yes!' 'Good morning, papa!' 'Good morning, little one.' 'Is mamma
+there?' 'Yes.' 'Say good morning and give my love to mamma.' 'Yes.'
+'Goodbye.' 'Good bye.'
+
+"In the evening the same call is made; the same answer; and then from
+the still convent on noiseless pinions these words go out through the
+night, and pulsate on the father's ear: 'Good night, papa! Good night,
+mamma! a kiss for each of you!' and then the weird instrument
+materializes two kisses for the father's ear.
+
+"He is a rough fellow, but he declares that since he commenced to
+receive those kisses, he knows that an answer to prayer is not
+impossible; that if that child's voice can come to him, stealing past
+the night patrol unheard, stealing in clear and distinct and like a
+benediction, while the winds and the city are roaring outside, there is
+nothing wonderful in believing that on the invisible wire of faith the
+same voice could send its music to the furthest star, and that the Great
+Father would bend His ear to listen."
+
+"It is a pretty story," said Brewster. "The telephone is the most
+poetical of inventions. There is a metallic sound to the click of the
+telegraph, as though its chief use was to further the work and the worry
+of mankind. There is something like a sob to the perfecting press, as
+though saddened by the very thought of the abuses it must reform. There
+is a something about a steam engine which reminds one of the heavy
+respirations of the slave, toiling on his chain, but the telephone has a
+voice for but one ear at a time, and when it is a voice that we love its
+messages come like caresses.
+
+"Not the least of its triumphs is that it has broken the silence of the
+convent.
+
+"At last voices from the outer world thrill through the thick walls, and
+the patient women who are immured there hear the good nights and the
+kisses which by loving lips are sent away to loving homes. How their
+starved hearts must be thrilled by those messages! Sometimes, too, they
+must realize that the course of Nature cannot be changed; that the
+beginning of heaven is in the love which canopies true homes on earth.
+But with that thought there comes another, that from the Infinite, to
+palace, convent and humble homes alike, celestial wires, too fine for
+mortal eyes to discern, stretch down, and all alike are held in one
+sheltering hand. Sometime all these wires will work in accord, and the
+good-nights and the kisses in the souls of men will materialize into
+harmony and fill the world with music."
+
+"That is, Brewster," said Corrigan, "supposin' the wires do not get
+crossed and the girls do not kiss the wrong papas."
+
+"Suppose, Brewster," said the Colonel, "that at the final concert it
+shall be discovered that certain gentlemen have not settled their
+monthly rents for a long time, and their connection has been cut off?"
+
+"There is no music where there are no ears to hear," said Wright. "What
+if some souls are born deaf and dumb?"
+
+"Suppose," said the Professor, "that there are souls which have no ear
+for music?"
+
+"I do not know," said Brewster, "but I fancy that the fairest final
+prizes may not be to the best musicians, but to those who made the
+sorest sacrifices in order to get a ticket to the concert."
+
+With this the good nights were repeated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+At length there came a day when there was real trouble in the Club. The
+foreman of the mine in which Wright was at work ordered Wright and a
+fellow miner to go to the surface to assist in handling some machinery
+which was to be sent down into the mine.
+
+The two men stepped upon the cage and three bells were sounded--the
+signal to the engineer at the surface that men were to be hoisted and
+all care used.
+
+The cage started from the 2,400-foot level. Nothing unusual happened
+until, as they neared the surface, Wright said to his comrade: "By the
+way we are passing the levels, it seems to me they must be in a hurry on
+top."
+
+The other miner answered: "I guess it is all right;" but hardly were the
+words spoken, when they shot up into the light; in an instant the cage
+went crashing into the sheaves and was crushed, the men being thrown
+violently out.
+
+Wright's companion, as he fell, struck partly on the curbing of the
+shaft, rolled in and was of course dashed to pieces.
+
+Wright was thrown outside the shaft, and though not killed outright, two
+or three ribs were broken, one lung was badly injured, besides he was
+otherwise terribly bruised.
+
+People unfamiliar with mining may not understand the above. On the
+Comstock the hoisting engines are set from forty to eighty feet from the
+mouths of the shafts. Directly over the shafts are frames from thirty to
+fifty feet in height, on which pulleys (rimmed iron wheels) are
+fastened. The cages are lowered and raised by flat, plaited, steel wire
+cables, which are generally four or five inches wide and about
+three-eighths of an inch in thickness.
+
+This cable is first coiled on the reel of the engine, then the loose end
+is drawn over the pulley, then down to the cage, to which it is made
+fast. The wheel of a pulley is called a sheave, and by habit it has
+grown to be a common expression to call the block and wheel in hoisting
+works "the sheaves." At intervals of one or two hundred feet on the
+cables they are wound with white cloth, as a guide to the engineer, as
+the cable is uncoiled in lowering or coiled in hoisting. Also, on the
+outer rim of the reel, is a dial with figures or marks at regular
+intervals, and a hand (like the hand of a clock) which perpetually
+indicates to the engineer about where the cage is in all stages of
+lowering or hoisting.
+
+These engineers work eight hour shifts, and sometimes twelve. Of the
+nature of their work an idea can be formed by the statement that during
+the two or three years when the great Bonanza in the California
+and Con. Virginia mines was giving up its treasure, through two
+double-compartment shafts, all the work of those two mines was carried
+on. The main ore body was between the 1,300-foot and 1,700-foot levels.
+Every day from six hundred to eight hundred men were lowered into and
+hoisted out of the mine. One hundred thousand feet (square measure) of
+timbers were lowered daily (three million feet per month); nearly or
+quite one thousand tons of ore was hoisted daily; the picks, drills and
+gads were sent up to be sharpened and returned; the powder used and five
+tons of ice daily were lowered, and besides this work, there was
+machinery to lower and hoist; the waste rock to be handled and visitors
+and officers of the mine to be lowered and hoisted. The cages are about
+four feet six inches in length and three feet in width, and are simply
+iron frames with a wooden floor and iron bonnet over the top and made to
+exactly fit the size of the shaft. Three of these compartments had
+double cages--one above the other, and one had three cages. A
+three-decker carries three tons of ore or twenty-seven men at a time.
+
+Of course when such work is being driven, the eyes of an engineer have
+to be every moment on their work. Men follow the occupation for months
+and years without an accident or mistake, but now and then, through the
+ceaseless strain, their nerves break down; something like an aberration
+of the mind comes over them and they watch, dazed like sleep-walkers, as
+the cage shoots out of the shaft and mounts up into the sheaves and
+cannot command themselves enough to move the lever of the engine which
+is in their hand.
+
+Such an accident as this overtook Wright and his companion. Poor Wright
+was carried home by brother miners. The accident happened only about an
+hour before the time for changing shifts and hardly was Wright laid in
+his bed before the other members of the Club met at their home.
+
+The best surgical talent of the city was called; the members of the Club
+took turns in watching; there was not a moment that one or the other was
+not bending over their friend.
+
+At first, when he rallied from the shock of the injury, Wright told all
+about the accident. He further told his friends that he had no near
+relatives, instructed the Club, in the event of his death, to open his
+trunk, burn the papers and divide the little money there among
+themselves, designated little presents for each one and said: "Miller
+will be grieved if I die, and may think my heart was not altogether warm
+toward him, so give him my watch; it is the most valuable trinket that I
+have."
+
+When the first reaction from the shock came, his friends were encouraged
+to believe he would recover; but it was a vain hope. He soon went into a
+half unconscious, half delirious state, from which it was hard to 'rouse
+him for even a few minutes at a time.
+
+He lay that way for two days and nights and then died.
+
+On the afternoon of the second day it was clear that he was almost
+gone--the spray began to splash upon his brow from the dark river--and
+all the Club grouped around him.
+
+Out of the shadow of death his mind cleared for a moment. In almost his
+old natural tones, but weak, like the voices heard through a telephone,
+he said:
+
+"I have seen another mirage, boys. It was the old home under the Osage
+shadows. It was all plain; the old house, the orchard, the maples were
+red in the autumn sun, and my mother, who died long ago, seemed to be
+there, smiling and holding out her arms to me.
+
+"It was all real, but you don't know how tired I am. Carlin, old friend,
+turn me a little on my side and let me sleep."
+
+Gently as mothers move their helpless babes, the strong miner turned his
+friend upon his pillows.
+
+He breathed shorter and shorter for a few minutes, then one long sigh
+came from his mangled breast, and all was still.
+
+There was perfect silence in the room for perhaps five minutes. Then
+Brewster, with a voice full of tears, said: "God grant that the mirage
+is now to him a delicious reality," and all the rest responded, "Amen."
+
+The undertaker came, the body was dressed for the grave and placed in a
+casket, and the Club took up their watch around it.
+
+Now and then a subdued word was spoken, but they were very few. The
+hearts of the watchers were all full, and conversation seemed out of
+place. Wright was one of the most manly of men, and the hearts of the
+friends were very sore. The evening wore on until ten o'clock came, when
+there fell a gentle knock on the outer door. The door was opened and by
+the moonlight four men could be seen outside. One of them spoke:
+
+"We 'eard as 'ow Hadrian wur gone, and thot to sing a wee bit to he as
+'ow the lad might be glad."
+
+They were the famous quartette of Cornish miners and were at once
+invited in.
+
+They filed softly into the room--the Club rising as they entered--and
+circled around the casket. After a long look upon the face of the
+sleeper they stood up and sang a Cornish lament. Their voices were
+simply glorious. The words, simple but most pathetic, were set to a
+plaintive air, the refrain of each stanza ending in some minor notes,
+which gave the impression that tears of pity, as they were falling, had
+been caught and converted into music.
+
+The effect was profound. The stoicism of the
+
+Club was completely broken down by it. When the lament ceased all were
+weeping, while warm-hearted and impetuous Corrigan was sobbing like a
+grieved child.
+
+The quartette waited a moment and then sang a Cornish farewell, the
+music of which, though mostly very sad, had, here and there, a bar or
+two such as might be sung around the cradle of Hope, leaving a thought
+that there might be a victory even over death, and which made the hymn
+ring half like the _Miserere_ and half like a benediction.
+
+When this was finished and the quartette had waited a moment more, with
+their magnificent voices at full volume, they sang again--a requiem,
+which was almost a triumph song, beginning:
+
+    Whatever burdens may be sent
+        For mortals here to bear,
+    It matters not while faith survives
+        And God still answers prayer.
+    I will not falter, though my path
+        Leads down unto the grave;
+    The brave man will accept his fate,
+        And God accepts the brave.
+
+Then with a gentle "Good noight, lads," they were gone.
+
+It was still in the room again until Corrigan said: "I hope Wright heard
+that singin'; the last song in particular."
+
+"Who knows?" said Ashley. "It was all silence here; those men came and
+filled the place with music. Who knows that it will not, in swelling
+waves, roll on until it breaks upon the upper shore?"
+
+"Who knows," said Harding, "that he did not hear it sung first and have
+it sent this way to comfort us? I thought of that when the music was
+around us, and I fancied that some of the tones were like those that
+fell from Wright's lips, when, in extenuation of Miller's fault, he was
+reminding us that it was the intent that measured the wrong, and that
+Miller never intended any wrong. Music is born above and comes down; its
+native place is not here."
+
+"He does not care for music," said the Colonel. "See how softly he
+sleeps. All the weariness that so oppressed him has passed away. The
+hush of eternity is upon him, and after his hard life that is sweeter
+than all else could be."
+
+"Oh, cease, Colonel," said Brewster. "Out of this darkened chamber how
+can we speak as by authority of what is beyond. As well might the mole
+in his hole attempt to tell of the eagle's flight.
+
+"We only know that God rules. We watched while the great transition came
+to our friend. One moment in the old voice he was conversing with us;
+the next that voice was gone, but we do not believe that it is lost. As
+we were saying of the telephone, when we speak those only a few feet
+away hear nothing. The words die upon the air, and we explain to
+ourselves that they are no more. But thirty miles away, up on the side
+of the Sierras, an ear is listening, and every tone and syllable is
+distinct to that ear. Who knows what connections can be made with those
+other heights where Peace rules with Love?
+
+"Our friend whose dust lies here was not called from nothing simply to
+buffet through some years of toil and then to return to nothing through
+the pitiless gates of Death. To believe such a thing would be to impeach
+the love, the mercy and the wisdom of God. Wright is safe somewhere and
+happier than he was with us. I should not wonder if Harding's theory
+were true, and that it was to comfort us that he impelled those singers
+to come here."
+
+"Brewster," said Alex, "your balance is disturbed to-night. You say
+'from out our darkened chamber we cannot see the light,' and then go on
+to assert that Wright is happier than when here. You do not know; you
+hope so, that is all. So do I, and by the calm that has pressed its
+signet on his lips, I am willing to believe that all that was of him is
+as much at rest as is his throbless heart, and that the mystery which so
+perplexes us--this something which one moment greets us with smiles and
+loving words, but which a moment later is frozen into everlasting
+silence--is all clear to him now. I hope so, else the worlds were made
+in vain, and the sun in heaven, and all the stars whose white fires fill
+the night, are worthy of as little reverence as a sage brush flame; and
+it was but a cruel plan which permitted men to have life, to kindle in
+their brains glorious longings and in their hearts to awaken affections
+more dear than life itself."
+
+Then Harding, as if to himself repeated: "It matters not while Faith
+survives, and God still answers prayer."
+
+Half an hour more passed, then the Colonel arose, looked long on the
+face in the casket and said:
+
+"How peaceful is his sleep. The mystery of the unseen brings no look of
+surprise to his face. Around him is the calm of the dreamless bivouac:
+the brooding wings of eternal rest have spread their hush above him.
+To-morrow the merciful earth will open her robes of serge to receive
+him; in her ample bosom will fold his weary limbs, and while he sleeps
+will shade his eyes from the light. In a brief time, save to the few of
+us who love him, he will be forgotten among men. Days will dawn and set;
+the seasons will advance and recede; the years will ebb and flow; the
+tempest and the sunshine will alternately beat upon his lonely couch,
+until ere long it will be leveled with the surrounding earth; his body
+will dissolve into its original elements and it will be as though he had
+never lived. The great ocean of life will heave and swell, and there
+will be no one to remember this drop that fell upon the earth in spray
+and was lost.
+
+"This is as it seems to us, straining our dull eyes out upon the
+profound beyond our petty horizon. But who knows? We can trace the
+thread of this life as it was until it passed beyond the range of our
+visions, but who of us knows whether it was all unwound or whether in
+the 'beyond' it became a golden chain so strong that even Death can not
+break it, and thrilled with harmonies which could never vibrate on this
+frail thread that broke to-day?"
+
+Then the Colonel sat down and the Professor stood up, and with his left
+hand resting on the casket, said:
+
+"Three days ago this piece of crumbling dust was a brave soldier of
+peace. I mean the words in their fullest sense. Just now our brothers in
+the East are fearful lest so much silver will be produced that it will
+become, because of its plentifulness, unfit to be a measure of values.
+They do not realize what it costs or they would change their minds. They
+do not know how the gnomes guard their treasures, or what defense Nature
+uprears around her jewels. They revile the stamp which the Government
+has placed upon the white dollar. Could they see deeper they would
+perceive other stamps still. There would be blood blotches and seams
+made by the trickling of the tears of widows and orphans, for before the
+dollar issues bright from the mint, it has to be sought for through
+perils which make unconscious heroes of those who prosecute the search.
+For nearly twenty years now, on this lode, tragedies like this have been
+going on. We hear it said: 'A man was killed to-day in the Ophir,' or 'a
+man was dashed to pieces last night in the Justice,' and we listen to it
+as merely the rehearsal of not unexpected news. Could a list of the men
+who have been killed in this lode be published, it would be an appalling
+showing. It would outnumber the slain of some great battle.
+
+"Besides the deaths by violence, hundreds more, worn out by the heat and
+by the sudden changes of temperature between the deep mines and the
+outer air, have drooped and died.
+
+"The effect is apparent upon our miners. Their bearing perplexes
+strangers who come here. They do not know that in the conquests of labor
+there are fields to be fought over which turn volunteers into veteran
+soldiers quite as rapidly as real battle fields. They know nothing about
+storming the depths; of breaking down the defences of the deep hills.
+They can not comprehend that the quiet men whom they meet here on the
+streets are in the habit of shaking hands with Death daily until they
+have learned to follow without emotion the path of duty, let it lead
+where it may, and to accept whatever may come as a matter of course.
+
+"Such an one was this our friend, who fell at his post; fell in the
+strength of his manhood, and when his great heart was throbbing only in
+kindness to all the world.
+
+"One moment he exulted in his splendid life, the next he was mangled and
+crushed beyond recovery.
+
+"Still there was no repining, no spoken regrets. For years the
+possibility of such a fate as this had been before his eyes steadily; it
+brought much anguish to him, but no surprise.
+
+"He had lived a blameless life. As it drew near its close the vision of
+his mother was mercifully sent to him, and so in his second birth the
+same arms received him that cradled him when before he was as helpless
+as he is now.
+
+"By the peace that is upon him, I believe those arms are around his soul
+to-night; I believe he would not be back among us if he could.
+
+"We have a right on our own account to grieve that he is gone, but not
+on his. He filled on earth the full measure of an honest, honorable,
+brave and true life. That record went before him to Summer Land. I
+believe it is enough and that he needs neither tears nor regrets."
+
+The Professor sat down and Corrigan then arose and went and looked long
+and fondly upon the upturned face. At last in a low voice he said:
+
+"Auld frind, if yees can, give me a sign some time that something was
+saved from this mighty wrick. I will listen for the call in the dape
+night. I will listen by the timbers in the dape drifts; come back if
+yees can and give us a hope that there will be hand clasps and wilcomes
+for us whin the last shift shall be worked out."
+
+So one after the other talked until the night stole away before the
+smile of the dawn. Harding pulled aside the curtains, and at that moment
+the sun, panoplied in glory, shed rosy tints all over the desert to the
+eastward.
+
+"See," said Harding. "It was on such a morning as this that on the
+desert was painted the mirage which troubled poor Wright so much, until
+the clearer light drove it away. Let us hope that there are no
+refractions of the rays to bring fear to him where he is."
+
+There was the usual inquest, and on the second day after his death,
+Wright was buried. After the funeral his effects were looked over; the
+bills were paid, a simple stone was ordered to be placed over his grave,
+and his money, some few hundred dollars, was divided among the hospitals
+of the city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+A few days more went by, but the old joy of the Club was no more.
+
+Wright was gone, and all that had been heard from Miller was a brief
+note thanking the Club for their kindness, but giving no intimation that
+he contemplated returning.
+
+One morning about the twenty-fifth of the month the five miners who were
+left went away to their work as usual, but all were unusually depressed,
+as though a sense of sorrow or of approaching sorrow was upon them.
+
+As said before, Brewster was working in the Bullion. Toward noon of this
+day word was passed down into the other mines that an accident was
+reported in the Bullion; some said it was a cave and some that it was a
+fire, but it was not certainly known.
+
+Each underground foreman and boss was instructed to see that the
+bulkheads, which, when closed, shut off the underground connections
+between the several mines, were made ready to be closed at a moment's
+notice, in case the accident proved to be a fire. The whisper of "fire
+in the mine" is a terrible one on the Comstock, for in the deeps there
+are dried timbers sufficient to build a great city, and once on fire
+they would make a roaring hell.
+
+When the news of an accident in the Bullion was circulated in the other
+mines, but one thought took form in the minds of the other four members
+of the Club. Brewster was working in the Bullion, and it might be that
+he was in peril.
+
+Within half an hour, and almost at the same moment, Carlin, Corrigan,
+Ashley and Harding appeared at the Bullion hoisting works.
+
+The superintendent stood at the shaft, and though perfectly
+self-contained, he was very pale and it needed but a glance at his face
+to know that he was either suffering physically or was greatly troubled.
+By this time, too, the wives of the miners at work in the Bullion had
+commenced to gather around the works.
+
+Mingled with the condensing vapors at the mouth of the shaft, there was
+the ominous odor of burning timbers.
+
+Just as the Club miners entered the Bullion works, the bell struck and
+the cage came rapidly to the surface. There was nothing on the cage, but
+tied to one of the iron braces was a slip of paper. This the
+superintendent seized and eagerly scanned.
+
+Turning to a miner who stood near, he said: "Sandy, go outside and tell
+those women to go home. Say to them that the accident involves only one
+man, and he has no family here. His name is Brewster, and we hope to
+save him yet."
+
+At this the four members of the Club sprang to the shaft and demanded to
+be let down.
+
+They were sternly ordered back by the superintendent.
+
+"But," said Carlin, fiercely, "this man whom you have named is like a
+brother to us; if he is in danger we must go to his rescue."
+
+The rest were quite as eager in their demands. Seeing how earnest they
+were, the superintendent said: "You are strangers to the mine. The whole
+working force from all the levels has been sent to the point of the
+accident. You would only be in the way."
+
+But they still insisted, vehemently. Said Ashley: "Your men are working
+for money, and will take no risks; it is different with us."
+
+"You do not know what you are doing in refusing us," said Harding; "that
+man's life is worth a thousand ordinary lives."
+
+"Suppose your brother were in danger and some man stood in the way
+forbidding you to go to him, what would you think?" asked Carlin.
+
+"Yees are superintindint and rule this mine," said Corrigan, "but you
+have no rule over min's lives, and this is a matter of the grandest life
+upon the lode, and yees have no right to refuse us."
+
+"Very well," said the superintendent; "if you men can be of any possible
+use you shall be sent down."
+
+On a bit of paper he wrote a brief note, tied it to the frame of the
+cage and sent it down. When the cage disappeared in the shaft, he turned
+to the men and explained that he had been upon the surface but a few
+minutes; that long before a drift had been run off from the main gallery
+at the twenty-one hundred-foot level some fifty feet through ground so
+hard that it had never required timbering. At the farther end soft
+ground had been encountered and a stringer of ore. Following this
+stringer a lateral drift had been run some fifty feet each way. This
+lateral drift was timbered when it was run. No ore of any value having
+been uncovered the work was abandoned, and since then the drift had been
+used as a storage place for powder and candles. That morning the foreman
+had gone into this drift with a surveyor to establish some point which
+the engineer required. To assist the surveyor the foreman had stuck his
+candlestick into a timber and had gone with the surveyor to one end of
+this lateral drift.
+
+Looking back they saw that the candle had fallen against the timber,
+which was dry as tinder.
+
+It had caught on fire and the flame had already run up and was in the
+logging.
+
+They rushed back, and though not seriously injured, were pretty badly
+scorched. All the miners in the mine were called to that point, and the
+work of putting out the fire, or of keeping it from connecting with the
+main drift, was begun. The superintendent was at the time on the
+twenty-four hundred-foot level. He had hastened to the spot at the first
+alarm. A donkey pump was at the twenty-one hundred-foot station, with
+plenty of hose. This was running within fifteen minutes. The fire, after
+burning a little way in each direction along the lateral drift,
+exhausting the oxygen in the air, ceased to flame and just burrowed its
+way through the timbers. This produced a dense and sifting smoke.
+
+A heavy stream of water was turned into this drift, the superintendent
+directing the work until, under the heat and smoke, he had fainted and
+been brought to the surface.
+
+Holding up the note which had come up on the cage, he said the man
+Brewster who was holding the nozzle of the hose had gone too far into
+the drift, under where the logging had burned away and had been caught
+in a cave, but the rest were working to release him.
+
+The bell sounded again and in three minutes the cage shot out of the
+shaft. The paper which it brought had only these few words: "If you can
+send two (2) first-class miners, all right, but not more. Any others
+would only be in the way. It is a very dangerous place, don't send any
+but thorough men." This was signed by the foreman.
+
+When the superintendent read the note the four men rushed forward, and
+for a moment their clamors were indescribable.
+
+"It is my place to go," said Ashley. "I have as little to live for as
+any of you. Do not hold me back."
+
+"Stand back," said Harding. "I would rather never go home than not to go
+with Brewster."
+
+Seizing Harding by the arm, Carlin hurled him back, exclaiming: "Art
+crazy, boy? Your bark is but just launched; this is work for old hulks
+that are used to rocks and storms."
+
+Over all the voice of Corrigan rang out: "Hould, men! This is me place.
+Me life has been but a failure. I will make what amind I can," and he
+sprang upon the cage, and, seizing a brace with either hand, turned his
+glittering eyes upon his friends.
+
+At length over the Babel the voice of the superintendent was heard
+commanding "Silence!"
+
+"You all alike seem determined," he said, "but only two can go. You will
+have to draw lots to decide." This proposition was with many murmurs
+agreed to. The superintendent prepared four bits of paper, two long and
+two short ones. He placed the slips in his hat, and, holding it above
+the level of the men's eyes, said: "You will each draw a slip of paper;
+the two who draw the long slips will go, the others will remain. Go on
+with the drawing!"
+
+The long slips were drawn by Corrigan and Carlin. With smiles of triumph
+these two shook hands with the others, who were weeping. Said Corrigan:
+
+"Whativer may happen, do not grave, boys. I will see yees again before
+night, or--I will see me mither."
+
+The two men stepped upon the cage. In his old careless way, Carlin said:
+"Don't worry about me, boys! I will come back by and by and bring
+Brewster, or I will know as much as Wright does before night."
+
+With these words the two devoted men disappeared with the cage into the
+dreadful depths.
+
+With bitter self-reproaches the two remaining men sat down and waited. A
+half hour went by, when the bell struck and the engine began to hoist.
+The cage again bore only a slip of paper. This the superintendent read
+as follows:
+
+"We have had another cave; another man is hurt; all the miners are much
+exhausted. Send a couple more men if possible."
+
+The two men sprang upon the cage, the superintendent joined them, and
+they were rapidly lowered into the depths. Reaching the fatal level,
+they learned that Corrigan and Carlin, on going down, had insisted on
+taking the lead; that they had partly uncovered Brewster when another
+cave had come. It had caught and buried Corrigan, but Carlin, though
+stunned and bruised somewhat, had escaped. By this time the smoke had
+partially cleared, but the drift was intensely hot.
+
+The superintendent again took charge. Timbers and heavy plank were
+brought. The drift was rapidly shored up, and within an hour Harding and
+Ashley recovered the body of Corrigan.
+
+There was very little rock over him, but he was quite dead. He had been
+struck and crushed by a boulder from the roof of the drift. He was
+bending down at the time, the boulder struck him fairly in the back of
+the neck and he must have died instantly.
+
+Very soon Brewster's body, too, was uncovered. He also was dead. He had
+been buried by decomposed rock, and had died from asphyxia.
+
+The bodies were carried to the shaft; each was wrapped in a blanket, and
+that of Corrigan was placed upon the cage. The superintendent, with
+Carlin and two other miners, stepped on the cage and it was hoisted to
+the surface. It returned in a few minutes, and this time Brewster's body
+was placed upon it, and Harding and Ashley, with two other miners,
+accompanied it to the surface.
+
+In the daylight the faces of the dead were both peaceful, as though in
+sleep. The bodies were sent away to an undertaker, and as Brewster had
+been heard to say, at Wright's funeral, that if he should die in the
+West, he would want his body sent East to be buried beside that of his
+wife, word was sent to the undertaker to try and get the coroner's
+permission and then to embalm the body of Brewster.
+
+The three remaining members of the Club were carried to their dreary
+home. Besides their sorrow, they were terribly exhausted. Harding had
+fainted once in the drift; Carlin was, besides being worn out, badly
+bruised, and Ashley was so exhausted that upon reaching the surface he
+was seized with chills and vomiting. The Professor, the Colonel and Alex
+were at the hoisting works when they were hoisted to the surface. They
+accompanied them home and remained, ministering to them until late in
+the night, when at last all were sleeping peacefully.
+
+With the morning the desolateness of their situation seemed more
+oppressive than ever. Yap Sing had prepared a dainty breakfast, but when
+they entered the dining room and saw only three plates where a few days
+before there had been seven, it was impossible for them to eat a
+mouthful. Each drank a cup of black coffee, but neither tasted food.
+
+Returned to the sitting room, it was determined to examine the effects
+of their dead friends. There was little in Corrigan's bundles except
+clothing and a memorandum book. This book had $150 in greenbacks, and a
+great many memorandums of stocks purchased, extending over a period of
+three years. These, a few words at the bottom of the pages showed, had
+almost all been sold either on too short margins or for assessments.
+Corrigan's humor ran all through the book in penciled remarks. The
+following are samples:
+
+"I had a sure thing; was the only mon in the sacret. I was but one and I
+caught it."
+
+"I bate Mr. Broker mon. He bought for me on a fifty per cint margin, and
+it broke that fast he could not get out from below it."
+
+"This was a certain sure point. Bedad, I found it that same."
+
+"I took the Scorpion to my bosom and, the blackguard, he stung me."
+
+"I stuck to Jacket until I had not a ghoust of a jacket to me back."
+
+"I made love to Julia. She was more ungrateful than Maggie Murphy."
+
+But between these same pages was found the letter Corrigan had received
+announcing his mother's death, and this was almost illegible because of
+the tear stains upon it.
+
+In Brewster's trunk everything was found in the perfect order which had
+marked all his ways.
+
+A book showed every dollar that he had received since coming to the
+Comstock; his monthly expenses, the sums he had sent his sister for his
+children, and his bank book showed exactly how much was to his credit.
+
+Another paper was found giving directions that if anything fatal should
+happen to him, his body should be returned to Taunton, Massachusetts,
+and if anything should be left above the necessary expenses of
+forwarding his body, the amount should be sent to his sister, Mrs.
+Martha Wolcott, of Taunton, for his children. The paper also contained
+an order on his banker for whatever money might be to his credit, and a
+statement that he owed no debts. There were also sealed letters directed
+to each of his children. Another large package was tied up carefully and
+endorsed, "My children's letters. Please return them to Taunton without
+breaking the package."
+
+The bank book showed that there was eleven hundred and sixty-three
+dollars to his credit.
+
+Brewster was a man that even death could not surprise. He was always
+ready.
+
+When the examination was completed, Carlin suggested to Ashley that he
+take the book, call at the bank, see if the amount was correct and if
+the bank would pay it on the order found in the book.
+
+Ashley hesitated. "There is something else, Carlin, that should be done,
+but I do not know how to go about it. That sister should be advised of
+her brother's death, that she may communicate the news to Brewster's
+children."
+
+"I have been thinking of that ever since yesterday," said Carlin, "but I
+can not do it."
+
+"I have been thinking of it, too," said Harding, "but by evening we can
+determine when the body will be sent and can include everything in one
+dispatch."
+
+Ashley went away, leaving Carlin and Harding together.
+
+"I am not sure," said Harding, "but I begin to believe that the man who
+invented dealing in stocks was an enemy to his race. Look at the result
+of Corrigan's life; think what poor Wright had to show for all his years
+of toil. They could not have fared much worse had they dealt in poker or
+faro straight."
+
+"And they are only two," responded Carlin. "There are three thousand
+more miners like them here and a hundred times three thousand other
+people scattered up and down this coast, trying to get rich in the same
+way, while here and in San Francisco a dozen men sit behind their
+counters and draw in the earnings of the coast. It is worse than folly,
+Harding. It is a kind of lunacy, a sort of an every day financial
+hari-kari."
+
+By this time it was past eleven o'clock in the forenoon. Suddenly,
+without a preliminary knock, the door opened and Miller stood before the
+two men. They sprang to their feet and welcomed him, the tears starting
+to all their eyes as they shook hands.
+
+"Oh, Miller!" said Harding, "why did you go away? We have had only
+trouble and sorrow since."
+
+"It was not fair of you, Miller," said Carlin, "You held our friendship
+at a miserably low price."
+
+"You are awfully good," said Miller; "but you are looking from your
+standpoint. I looked from mine, and I could not do differently. But tell
+me about this dreadful business. I saw about Wright, and read the
+account of this fearful accident of yesterday as I was coming up in the
+train, but still, there must have been some blundering somewhere."
+
+Everything was explained, and also what had been discovered of the
+effects of the dead miners.
+
+"Poor grand souls," said Miller. "It was a tough ending. Never before
+did three such royal hearts stop beating in a single fortnight on the
+Comstock."
+
+Ashley returned, and, with words full of affectionate reproach, greeted
+Miller.
+
+Ashley had found everything at the bank as the book indicated, and the
+undertaker had promised that Brewster's remains should be ready for
+shipment on the evening of the next day.
+
+Then the question of the dispatch to the family came up again.
+
+"Before deciding upon that," said Miller, "let me tell you something:
+
+"When I took the money to pay the bills, I had, with a little of my own,
+something over seven hundred dollars. I bought on a margin of only
+twenty-five per cent.--the broker was my friend--all the Silver Hill
+that the money would purchase. I thought I had a sure thing. My
+informant was a Silver Hill miner. I believed I could multiply the money
+by three within as many days. In five days it fell thirty per cent. What
+could I do? A note from the broker asking me to call, received the
+evening before I went away, decided me. I went away, but when I saw by
+dispatches that Wright had been killed, and I could get nothing to do, I
+determined to come back.
+
+"Well, I met my broker this morning. He asked me to call at his place.
+There he informed me that the day he purchased Silver Hill he met the
+superintendent and learned from him that there was not yet a
+development; that the stock was more liable to fall than to rise for two
+or three weeks to come, the rage being just then for north end stocks.
+He could not find me, and accordingly, on his own responsibility, he
+sold the stock, losing nothing but commissions and cost of dispatches.
+
+"There was a little lull in Sierra Nevada that day, and, believing it
+was good, he bought with my money and on my account. As it shot up he
+kept buying. At last, a week ago, he had two thousand shares and sold
+five hundred, and by the sale paid himself all up except $21,000.
+
+"Hearing day before yesterday that I had left the city, he sold the
+other fifteen hundred shares at $157. This morning he handed me a
+certificate of deposit in my favor for $213,000, and here it is."
+
+Most heartily did the others congratulate Miller on his good fortune.
+
+But Miller said: "Congratulate yourselves! I used the money of the Club.
+The profit I always intended should be the Club's. Wright and Corrigan
+and Brewster are gone, but you are left and Brewster's children are
+left. If I am correct, $213,000 divided by five, makes exactly $42,600.
+That is, you each have $42,600 on deposit in the bank, and a like sum is
+there for two fatherless and motherless children in Massachusetts."
+
+It was useless to try to reason the matter with Miller. He merely said:
+"It shall be my way. It was a square deal. I meant it so from the first;
+only," he added, sadly, "I wish Wright and Corrigan and Brewster could
+have lived to know it." Then turning quickly to Harding, he said:
+"Harding, how much is that indebtedness which has worried you so long?"
+
+Harding replied that the mortgage was $8,000, while the personal debts
+amounted to $3,000 more.
+
+"Then," said Miller, "you can pay the debts and have nearly $30,000 more
+with which to build your house and barns, to stock and fix your place
+for a home."
+
+The tears came to Harding's eyes, but he could not answer.
+
+"Never mind, old boy," said Miller; "did I not tell you I would make
+things all right for you?"
+
+Then Carlin got up, went into the adjoining room, brought out the watch
+which had been Wright's and told Miller how Wright, under the shadow of
+death, had bequeathed the watch to him.
+
+For the first time Miller broke down and burst into tears.
+
+When he recovered somewhat the command of himself, he said:
+
+"Now, I have a proposition to make. Let us all give up this mining. It
+is a hard life, and generally ends either in poverty or in a fatal
+accident. I am going to San Francisco. The place to make money is where
+there is money, and I am going to try my skill at the other end of the
+line."
+
+"You are right," said Carlin. "I am never going down into the Comstock
+again. I made up my mind to that yesterday. I am going back to
+Illinois."
+
+"And I am going to Pennsylvania," said Ashley.
+
+"I gave up mining yesterday, also," said Harding; "at least on the
+Comstock. I do not mind the labor or the danger, but it is not a life
+that fits a man for a contented old age."
+
+Suddenly Miller said: "Harding, were you ever in the Eastern States?"
+
+"No," said Harding; "the present boundary of my life is limited to
+California and Nevada."
+
+"Well," said Miller, "if we all give ourselves credit for all the good
+we ever dreamed of doing, still neither of us, indeed, all of us
+together, are not worthy to be named on the same day with James
+Brewster. His body must go East, and on its arrival there only an aged
+woman and two little orphan children await to receive it. I think it
+would be shabby to send the dust of the great-hearted and great-souled
+man there unattended. What say you, Ashley and Harding, will you not
+escort the body to its old home?"
+
+Both at once assented. A dispatch was prepared announcing Brewster's
+death, and adding that his body would be shipped the next evening
+escorted by two brother miners, Herbert Ashley and Samuel Harding. This
+was signed by the superintendent of the Bullion company.
+
+The superintendent also made a written statement that he had examined
+the effects of Brewster and found that, less the expenses of embalming,
+transportation, etc., together with $80 due Brewster from the Bullion
+company, there was left the sum of $840.25. With this statement a bill
+of exchange on Boston for the $840.25 was enclosed, and Ashley took
+charge of it.
+
+The bills were all paid. The money due Brewster's orphans, according to
+Miller's calculation, was also converted into a bill of exchange payable
+to Mabel and Mildred Brewster. Ashley and Harding took charge of the
+first and left the second of exchange to be forwarded by Colonel Savage,
+and before night all preparations for leaving the next day were made.
+
+The next morning Corrigan's funeral took place with all the ostentatious
+parade which Virginia City was famous for in the flush times when some
+one who had been a favorite had passed away. At the hall of the Miners'
+Union Colonel Savage delivered a eulogy which was infinitely more
+beautiful than some of the orations which have been treasured among the
+gems of the century.
+
+He was followed by Strong in a eulogy that touched every heart. Here is
+a sample:
+
+"Gentle and unpretentious was Barney Corrigan. There was no disguise in
+his nature. Could his heart have been worn outside his breast, and could
+it, every moment, have thrown off pictures of the emotions that warmed
+it, to those who knew him well, those pictures would have thrown no new
+light on his nature.
+
+"Generous and true was he; true as a man, a friend a citizen. His walk
+through life was an humble one, but it was, nevertheless, grand. So
+brave was he that he performed heroic acts as a matter of course, and
+all unconscious that he was a hero.
+
+"So he toiled on, his path lighted by his own genial eyes, and strewn
+behind him with generous deeds.
+
+"When death came to him the blessed anæsthetic which made him
+indifferent to his sufferings was the thought that in a little while he
+would rescue a friend in peril, or feel the grasp of the spirit hand of
+his mother.
+
+"Noble was his life; consecrated will be the ground that receives his
+mortal part. The world was better that he lived; it is sadder that he
+has died.
+
+"With tears we part with him; our souls send tender 'all hails and
+farewells' out to his soul that has fled, and we pray that his sleep may
+be sweet."
+
+The Colonel, Professor and Alex, with Miller, Carlin, Ashley and
+Harding, rode in the mourning carriages. These were followed by a long
+line of carriages and quite one thousand miners on foot. At the grave
+the services were simply a prayer and a hymn sung by the Cornish
+quartette. They made his grave close beside that of Wright's; they
+ordered a duplicate stone to be placed above it, and left him to his
+long sleep.
+
+Yap Sing was paid off and a handsome present made him, the furniture and
+food in the Club house was distributed among poor families in the
+neighborhood, and on the evening train the four living men, with the
+body of their dead friend, moved out of Virginia City.
+
+A great crowd was at the depot to see them off, and the last hands wrung
+were those of the Professor, the Colonel and Alex.
+
+On the way to Reno, Carlin said to Miller: "One thing I cannot
+understand, Miller; whatever possessed that broker to turn over that
+money to you when he was not compelled to?"
+
+"I have no idea in the world," said Miller, "except that we are old
+friends."
+
+"But did you never do him any great favor, Miller--any particularly
+great favor?" asked Carlin.
+
+"No," said Miller, "I cannot think of any." But after a moment's silence
+he added: "By the way, come to think of it, I did do him a little favor
+once. I saved his life."
+
+"How was it?" asked Carlin. "Why," answered Miller, "he and myself had a
+running fight with a band of renegade Indians. There were seven or eight
+of them at first, and we got them reduced to four, when one of them
+killed the broker's horse. It was a very close game then. It required
+the promptest kind of work. When the horse fell the broker was thrown
+violently on his shoulder and the side of his head and was too stunned
+to gather his wits together for a few minutes. I had a gentle horse, so
+sprang down from him and let him go. I got behind a low rock and
+succeeded in stopping two of the Indians, when the others concluded it
+was no even thing and took the back track. But the broker was "powerful"
+nervous when I got up to him. The worst of all was, I had to ride and
+tie with him for seventeen miles, and he was so badly demoralized that I
+had to do all the walking."
+
+At Reno Miller bade the others good-bye and took the west-bound train.
+Carlin sent a dispatch to an Illinois town. Late in the night the
+east-bound Overland express came in; the body of Brewster was put on
+board, the three friends entered a sleeper and the long ride began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Following a long established habit our three travelers were up next
+morning shortly after dawn.
+
+The train was then thundering over the desert northeast of Wadsworth.
+Carlin noticed the country and said:
+
+"This must be almost on the spot where poor Wright saw his wonderful
+mirage."
+
+As he spoke the bending rays of the rising sun swept along the sterile
+earth, and a shimmer in the air close to the ground revealed how swiftly
+the heat waves were advancing.
+
+"It is as Wright said; the desert grows warm at once, so soon as the
+morning sun strikes it," said Harding. "Heavens, how awful a desolation.
+It is as though the face-cloth had been lifted from a dead world."
+
+"Do you remember what Wright told us, about the appalling stillness of
+this region?" asked Ashley. "One can realize a little of it by looking
+out. Were the train not here what would there be for sound to act upon?"
+
+"Is it not pitiful," said Harding, "to think of a grand life like
+Wright's being worn out as his was? He met the terrors here when but a
+boy. From that time on there was but blow after blow of this merciless
+world's buffetings until the struggle closed in a violent and untimely
+death."
+
+"You forget," said Ashley, "that a self-contained soul and royal heart
+like his, are their own comforters. He had joys that the selfish men of
+this world never know."
+
+All that day the conversation was only awakened at intervals and then
+was not long continued. Not only the sorrow in their hearts was claiming
+their thoughts and imposing the silence which real sorrow covets; but
+the swift changes wrought in the week just passed, had really resulted
+in an entire revolution in all their thoughts and plans.
+
+It was to them an epoch. The breakfast station came, later the dinner,
+later the supper station. All the day the train swept on up the Humboldt
+valley. Along the river bottom were meadows, but about the only change
+in the monotonous scenery, was from desert plains to desert mountains
+and back again to the plains.
+
+Night came down in Eastern Nevada. When they awoke next morning the
+train was skirting the northwest shore of Great Salt Lake and the rising
+sun was painting the splendors that, with lavish extravagance, the dawn
+always pictures there on clear days, and no spot has more clear days
+during the year.
+
+Ogden was reached at nine o'clock in the morning, the transfer to the
+Union Pacific train was made; breakfast eaten, and toward noon, the
+beauties of Echo Canyon began to unfold. Green River was crossed in the
+gloaming; in the morning Laramie was passed, at noon Cheyenne, and the
+train was now on a down grade toward the East. With the next morning men
+were seen gathering their crops; the desert had been left behind and the
+travelers were now entering the granary of the Republic.
+
+Late that night the train entered Omaha. The usual delay was made; the
+transfers effected and early next morning the journey across Iowa, so
+wonderful to one who has been long in the desert, began. Ashley darted
+from side to side of the coach that he might not lose one bit of the
+view; but Harding sat still, by the window, hardly moving, but straining
+his eyes over the low waves of green, which, in the stillness of the
+summer day, seemed like a sea transfixed.
+
+Carlin was strangely restless. He did not seem to heed the scenery
+around him. He studied his guidebook and every quarter of an hour looked
+at his watch. When spoken to, he answered in an absent-minded way; it
+was plain that he was absorbed by some overmastering thought.
+
+Noon came at length, then one o'clock, then two; the train gave a long
+whistle, slackened speed, and in a moment was brought to a standstill in
+front of a station.
+
+With the first signal Carlin had sprang from his seat and walked rapidly
+toward the end of the car.
+
+"What can the matter be with Carlin?" asked Harding. "He has been half
+wild all day and altogether different from his usual self."
+
+"He will be home sometime to-night," replied Ashley. "He has been absent
+a long time, and I do not wonder at his unrest. I expect to have my
+attack next week when the southern hills of Pennsylvania lift up their
+crests, and the old familiar haunts begin to take form."
+
+"Look! Look!" said Harding. "Carlin's unrest is taking a delicious form,
+truly."
+
+Two ladies were standing on the platform. Carlin had leaped from the
+train while yet it was moving quite rapidly. He bent and kissed the
+first lady, but the second one he caught in his arms, held her in a long
+embrace and kissed her over and over again.
+
+"He has struck a bonanza," said Ashley.
+
+"And the formation is kindly," said Harding.
+
+"The indications are splendid," said Ashley. "Mark the trend of the
+vein; it is exquisite."
+
+"It does not seem to be rebellious or obstinate ore to manipulate
+either. Carlin's process seems to work like a fire assay," said Harding.
+
+"Just by the surface showing the claim is worth a thousand dollars a
+share," said Ashley. "I wonder if Carlin has secured a patent yet?"
+
+"And I wonder," said Harding, "if we are not a pair of blackguards to be
+talking this way. Let us go and meet them."
+
+The friends arose and started for the platform, but were met half way by
+Carlin and the ladies. There were formal introductions to Mrs. and Miss
+Richards. Under the blushes of the young lady could be traced the
+lineaments of the "Susie Dick" that Carlin had shown to the Club in the
+photograph.
+
+Crimson, but still smiling, the young lady said: "Gentlemen, did you see
+Mr. Carlin at the station, before a whole depot of giggling ninnies,
+too? Was ever anything half so ridiculous?" Then glancing up at Carlin
+with a forgiving look, but still in a delicious scolding tone, she
+added: "I really had hoped that the West had partly civilized him."
+
+Harding and Ashley glanced at each other with a look which said plainly
+enough, "Carlin has proved up without any contest; even if the patent is
+not already issued, his title is secure."
+
+The friends had the drawing room and a section outside. With a quick
+instinct Ashley seated the elder lady in the section, bade Harding
+entertain her, then swinging back the drawing room door, said: "Miss
+Richards, I know that you want to scold Carlin for the next hour, and he
+deserves it. Right in here is the best place on the car for the purpose.
+Please walk in." Saying which he stepped back and seated himself beside
+Harding.
+
+The elder lady was a charming traveling companion. She wanted to know
+all about the West. She knew all about the region they were passing
+through, and the whole afternoon ride was a delight.
+
+During the journey Harding and Ashley had been begging Carlin to
+accompany them to Massachusetts, and he had finally promised to give
+them a positive answer that day. After a while he emerged from the
+drawing room and said: "I am sorry, but I cannot go East with you. These
+ladies have been good enough to come out and meet me. We will all go on
+as far as Chicago and see you off, but we cannot very well extend the
+journey further. Indeed, Miss Susie intimates that I am too awkward a
+man to be safe east of Chicago."
+
+The others saw how it was and did not further importune him. Next day
+they separated, Carlin's last words being, "If you ever come within five
+hundred miles of Peoria stop and stay a month."
+
+The grand city was passed. The train swung around the end of Lake
+Michigan, leaving the magical city in its wake. Through the beautiful
+region of Southern Michigan it hurried on. Detroit was reached and
+passed; the arm of the Dominion was crossed, and finally, when in the
+early morning the train stopped, the boom of Niagara filled the air, and
+the enchantment of the picture which the river and the sunlight suspend
+there before mortals, was in full view. Next the valley of the Genesee
+was unfolded, and with each increasing mile more and more distinct grew
+the clamors of toiling millions, jubilant with life and measureless in
+energy. Swifter and more frequent was the rush of the chariots on which
+modern commerce is borne, and all the time to the eyes of the men of the
+desert the lovely homes which fill that region flitted by like the
+castles of dreamland.
+
+Later in the day the panorama of the Mohawk Valley began to unroll and
+was drawn out in picture after picture of rare loveliness.
+
+Ashley and Harding were enchanted. It was as though they had emerged
+into a new world.
+
+"Think of it, Ashley," said Harding. "It is but eight days--at this very
+hour--since we were having that wrestle with death in the depths of the
+Bullion mine. Think of that and then look around upon these serene homes
+and the lavish loveliness of this scenery."
+
+"I know now how Moses felt, when from the crest of Pisgah he looked down
+to where the Promised Land was outstretched before him," was the reply.
+"I feel as I fancy a soul must feel, when at last it realizes there is a
+second birth."
+
+Said Harding: "I dread more and more to meet these people where we are
+going. How uncouth we will seem to them and to ourselves."
+
+"Our errand will plead our excuses," said Ashley; "besides they will be
+too much absorbed with something else to pay much attention to us.
+Moreover they will know that our lives of late have been passed mostly
+under ground, and they will not expect us to reflect much light."
+
+"What are your plans, Ashley, for the near future, after this business
+which we have in hand shall be over?" asked Harding.
+
+"A home in old Pennsylvania is to be purchased," said Ashley, "and then
+a trial with my fellow men for a fortune and for such honors as may be
+fairly won. And you Harding, what have you marked out?"
+
+Said Harding: "My father's estate is to be redeemed; after that,
+whatever a strong right arm backing an honest purpose, can win. But one
+thing we must not forget. We must be the semi-guardians of those
+children of Brewster, until they shall pass beyond our care."
+
+"You are very right, my boy," said Ashley. "Brewster was altogether
+grand and his children must ever be our concernment."
+
+In the early night the Hudson was crossed and the train plunged on
+through the hills beyond. At Walpole early next morning the train was
+boarded by three gentlemen who searched out Harding and Ashley and
+introduced themselves as old friends of Brewster and his family. They
+had come out to escort the body of Brewster to Taunton, now only a few
+miles off. The names of these men were respectively Hartwell, Hill and
+Burroughs.
+
+Hartwell explained that the remains would be taken to an undertaker, and
+examined to see if it would be possible for the children and Mrs.
+Wolcott, the sister of Brewster, to look upon their father's and
+brother's face. He also said the funeral would be on the succeeding day.
+Then the particulars of the accident were asked.
+
+A full and graphic account of the whole affair had been published in the
+Virginia City papers.
+
+Copies of these were produced and handed over as giving a full idea of
+the calamity.
+
+The statement made by the superintendent of the Bullion including the
+smaller certificate of deposit, also the other effects of Brewster, all
+but the money obtained from Miller, were transferred to Mr. Hartwell.
+
+On reaching Taunton a great number of sympathizing friends were in
+waiting, for Brewster had lived there all his life until he went West
+three years before, and he was much esteemed. The manner of his death
+added to the general sympathy.
+
+A hearse in waiting, at once took the body away. The young men were
+taken to his home by Mr. Hartwell. They begged to be permitted to go to
+a hotel, but the request would not be listened to.
+
+On examination it was found that the work of the embalmer had been most
+thorough. The face of Brewster was quite natural and placid, as though
+in sleep.
+
+Breakfast was in waiting for the young men, and when it was disposed of
+they were shown again to the parlors and introduced to a score of people
+who had gathered in to hear the story of Brewster's death from the lips
+of the men who had taken his body from the deep pit and brought it home
+for burial.
+
+In the conversation which followed two or three hours were consumed.
+
+When the callers had gone, Hartwell said:
+
+"Gentlemen, I advise you to go to your rooms and try and get some rest.
+In two or three hours I shall want you to go and make a call with me, if
+the poor family of my friend can bear it."
+
+Late that afternoon Hartwell knocked on the door of the sitting room,
+which, with sleeping apartments on either side, had been given Harding
+and Ashley, and when the door was opened, he said:
+
+"Gentlemen, please come with me, the children of James Brewster desire
+to see you!"
+
+The young men arose and followed their host. Brewster had always
+referred to his daughters as his "little girls;" the man who had the
+young men to go and meet them, spoke of them as "the children of James
+Brewster." Both Harding and Ashley, as they followed Hartwell, were
+mentally framing words of comfort to speak to school misses just
+entering their teens, who were in sorrow.
+
+When then, they were ushered into the presence of two thoroughly
+accomplished young women, and when these ladies, with tears streaming
+down their faces, came forward, shook their hands, and, in broken words
+of warmest gratitude, thanked them for all they had done and were doing,
+and for all they had been to their father in life and in death, the men
+from the desert were lost in surprise and astonishment.
+
+As Harding said later: "I felt as though I was in a drift on the
+2,800-foot level, into which no air pipe had been carried."
+
+This apparition was all the more startling to them, because during the
+two or three years that they had been at work on the Comstock, the very
+nature of their occupation forbade their mingling in the society of
+refined women to any but a most limited extent.
+
+From the papers given the family by Hartwell that day, matters were
+fully understood by the sister of Brewster and the young ladies, so no
+explanations were asked. At first the conversation was little more than
+warm thanks on the part of the young ladies and modest and half
+incoherent replies.
+
+The ladies were in the humble home of their father's widowed sister,
+Mrs. Wolcott. That they were all poor was apparent from all the
+surroundings. This fact at length forced its way through the bewildered
+brain of Harding and furnished him a happy expedient to say something
+without advertising himself the idiot that he, in that hour, would have
+been willing to make an affidavit that he was. Said he:
+
+"Ladies, amid all the sorrows that we bring to you, we have, what but
+for your grief would be good news. Tell them, Ashley!"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Ashley, "we have something which is yours, and which,
+while no balm for sorrow like yours, will, we sincerely hope, be the
+means of driving some cares from your lives."
+
+Taking a memorandum from his pocket, he continued:
+
+"Your father left more property than he himself knew of. How it was
+Harding and myself will explain at some other time, if you desire. At
+present it is only necessary to say that the amount is forty-two
+thousand and six hundred dollars, for which we have brought you a bill
+of exchange." With that he extended the paper to Miss Brewster. Then
+these brave girls began to tremble and quake indeed. "It can not be,"
+said Mabel. "There must be some mistake," said Mildred.
+
+"Indeed, there is no mistake," said Harding. "See, it is a banker's
+order on a Boston bank, and is payable to your joint order. No one can
+draw it until you have both endorsed it, for it is yours."
+
+Then these girls fell into each others arms and sobbed afresh.
+
+As soon as they could the miners retired.
+
+Mabel Brewster was tall, of slender form and severely classic face. She
+had blue eyes, inherited from her mother, and that shade of hair which
+is dusky in a faint light, but which turns to gold in sunlight. Her
+complexion was very fair, her hands and arms were exquisite and her
+manners most winsome.
+
+Mildred, her sister, was of quite another type. A year and a half
+younger than Mabel, she looked older than her sister. She had her
+father's black eyes, and like him, a prominent nose and resolute mouth.
+She was lower of statue and fuller of form than her sister. She had also
+a larger hand and stronger arm. Over all was poised a superb head,
+crowned with masses of tawny hair.
+
+Standing in their simple mourning robes, with the afternoon sun shining
+around them, they looked as Helen and Cassandra might have looked, while
+yet the innocence and splendor of early womanhood were upon them.
+
+Mabel was such a woman as men dream of and struggle to possess; Mildred
+was such an one as men die for when necessary, and do not count it a
+sacrifice.
+
+[Illustration: MABEL AND MILDRED.]
+
+From the house the young men walked rapidly away, and so busy were they
+with their own thoughts that neither spoke until they entered a wooded
+park or common, and finding a rustic bench sat down.
+
+Harding was the first to speak. "After all his mighty toil; after his
+self-sacrificing life; after all his struggles, Brewster died and was
+not permitted to see his children. It is most pitiable."
+
+"May be he sees them now," said Ashley, softly. "It can not be far from
+here to Heaven."
+
+"I wish I had never seen her," said Harding, impetuously. And then all
+his reserve breaking down he arose, stretched out his arms and cried:
+
+"I wish I had died in Brewster's stead."
+
+"Is she not divine?" said Ashley. "A very Iris, goddess of the rainbow,
+bringing divine commands to man, his guide and his adviser."
+
+"Say not so," said Harding. "Rather she is Ceres, in her original purity
+returned to earth; flowers bloom under the soft light of her divine
+eyes, and all bountifulness rests in the heaven of her white arms. I
+tell you, Ashley, the man who could have that woman's eyes to smile up
+approvingly upon him, would have to move on from conquest to conquest so
+long as life lasted."
+
+An anxious look came over the face of Ashley. "Which lady do you mean?"
+he asked.
+
+"Mean!" echoed Harding. "I mean she of the royal brow and starry eyes,
+Mildred Brewster."
+
+"Thank God," said Ashley with a great sigh of relief.
+
+"And why do you thank God?" asked Harding.
+
+"Because," said Ashley, "to me Mabel is the dainty, the divine one. She
+comes upon the eye as a perfect soprano voice smites on a musical ear."
+
+"You are growing musical, are you?" said Harding. "Well then, the other
+is a celestial contralto, deep-toned and full and sweet, materialized."
+
+After this both were silent for a moment and then Ashley began to laugh
+low to himself.
+
+"What is your hilarity occasioned by?" asked Harding.
+
+"I was thinking what fools we have been making of ourselves," said
+Ashley.
+
+"And how did you reach that estimate, pray?" asked Harding.
+
+"Why, Harding," was the answer, "an hour ago we met two ladies. They
+were not what we expected to find, and they brought a sort of
+enchantment to us. We saw them first an hour ago; we will to-morrow see
+them once more, and that will be all; and still we have been raving like
+two lunatics for the past half hour about them."
+
+"You are right," was the sad reply. "See yonder on the street corner."
+
+Just then a dainty carriage and a set of heavy trucks met on the corner
+and passed each other, the carriage turning to the east, the trucks to
+the west.
+
+"Typical, is it not?" said Ashley. "The trucks go west--at least they
+will to-morrow night."
+
+"Most true," said Harding, "and still I think I would like to kiss the
+carpet that has been sanctified by the footfalls of Mildred Brewster."
+
+Ashley reached out, seized Harding's wrist and felt his pulse.
+
+"You have got it bad, Harding," said he, "and I don't feel very well
+myself. If poor Corrigan were alive again and here we would get him to
+tell us about Maggie Murphy."
+
+"We have had a mirage, Ashley. Let us pray that it will soon pass by,"
+said Harding.
+
+And then without another word being spoken, they returned to the
+hospitable house of Hartwell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+The following is the copy of a letter written by Mrs. Wolcott to the
+widow of her deceased husband's brother, Mrs. Abby Roberts, of Eastport,
+Maine:
+
+     TAUNTON, Sept. 20th, 1878.
+
+     MY DEAR SISTER:--I wrote you briefly of the dispatch announcing
+     the death of my brother James, in a Nevada mine, and that his
+     embalmed body was being brought home by two miners. Since then
+     events have crowded upon me so swiftly that I have not had
+     composure enough to think of writing.
+
+     The remains of my brother reached here on the 29th ultimo. Mr.
+     Hartwell, Mr. Hill and Mr. Burroughs went out as far as Walpole
+     on the railroad to meet the train on which the body was being
+     brought.
+
+     The miners were taken home by Mr. Hartwell. On examination my
+     poor brother's face was found to look quite natural, and it
+     wore an expression so restful that I could not help but feel as
+     though it was an indictation that after his hard physical toil
+     and fierce mental troubles, he was at peace at last.
+
+     Mabel, you know, has been with me since she graduated in June.
+     On receiving the dispatch we telegraphed to Mildred at Mt.
+     Holyoke to come home at once, so both girls were with me when
+     the remains arrived.
+
+     From the two miners who came with the body Mr. Hartwell
+     received the Nevada papers giving an account of the accident in
+     which James was killed; also a letter from the superintendent
+     of the mine, stating that after all expenses were paid my poor
+     brother left eight hundred and forty dollars to his children.
+     This we all thought was most wonderful, considering the amount
+     regularly sent the children. It shows that poor James lived a
+     most economical life in the West and that the wages paid there
+     are generous.
+
+     The letter of the superintendent stated that the two miners who
+     were to accompany the remains home had risked their lives in
+     trying to rescue James, and the published account showed that
+     one of them had fainted in the dreadful chamber of the mine
+     while the exhaustion of the other was so extreme that he was
+     entirely prostrated and seized with chills and vomiting upon
+     being brought out into the open air.
+
+     Of course myself and the girls were anxious to meet and thank
+     these men, but I confess that at the same time we all dreaded
+     the interview awfully. Good land! You know what we have been
+     reading about Western miners for the last twenty-five years,
+     and we could not help but feel that if they should prove to be
+     quiet men it would only at best be a case of wild beast with a
+     collar and chain on. And what to do with them at the funeral
+     was something which had been troubling us ever since the
+     receipt of the dispatch. It was to be in church and on Sunday
+     and it was certain that there would be a church full of people.
+     How to be polite, and at the same time how to get those men in
+     and out of a church without their doing something dreadful was
+     a question which I confess had worried me and I could see that
+     it was worrying Mabel, too. Mildred did not seem to think much
+     about it.
+
+     Mr. Hartwell called upon us and told us he was going to bring
+     them over at once and we sat down in fear and trembling to wait
+     their arrival.
+
+     You can never imagine our surprise when Mr. Hartwell showed
+     them into our parlor and we saw them for the first time. Both
+     were young men, one not more than thirty, and the other not
+     more than twenty-four years of age; both were dressed with
+     perfect taste, in dark business suits of fashionable clothes,
+     and though slightly confused--I guess startled is a better
+     word--both, with considerate gentleness, and with a grave
+     courtesy, in low voices, addressed me first and then the
+     children.
+
+     They expected to find school children, they met young ladies--I
+     may say beautiful young ladies if I am their aunt--and I think
+     the surprise for a moment threw them off their guard.
+
+     But they certainly were not more astonished than were we. Mabel
+     well nigh broke down, but Mildred, with her more matter-of-fact
+     nature, bore the ordeal nobly.
+
+     While the girls were talking I stole the opportunity to look
+     more closely at the men. My surprise increased every moment.
+     Instead of a pair of bronzed bruisers, they stood there with
+     faces that were as free from tan as the face of a
+     closely-housed woman. They were each of about medium height,
+     but with broad shoulders, tremendous chests and powerful arms.
+     The younger one had a firm foot and large hand and the frankest
+     open face you ever looked into. The other had smaller hands,
+     feet and features, but their heads were both superb, and the
+     first words they spoke revealed that both were fairly educated.
+     The younger one was light with auburn hair. He wore a heavy
+     mustache; the rest of his face was clean shaven. The other was
+     darker with gray eyes, brown hair, with full beard, but neatly
+     trimmed, and the hair of both was of fashionable cut. I tell
+     you, sister, as they stood there they would have borne
+     inspection even in Boston.
+
+     After the first greetings were over and we had all gained a
+     little composure, the men explained to us that James was
+     possessed of more property than he himself was aware of, and
+     one of them handed to Mabel a paper which he called "a bill of
+     exchange" on a Boston bank for forty two thousand six hundred
+     dollars. Since then they have explained that the money was made
+     by a friend of my brother, and that it was accomplished by
+     buying stocks when they were low and selling them when they
+     were high, which seems to me to be a most profitable business.
+     You see it makes the girls rich when they thought they were so
+     poor, and were counting only on lives of hard work.
+
+     The visit of the young men was only a very brief one, not five
+     minutes in duration it seemed to me, but they were moments of
+     great excitement to our little household as you may well
+     believe. When they were gone Mabel said: "Are they not
+     perfectly splendid?" and I said: "Indeed, they are," but
+     Mildred merely said: "They seem to be real gentlemen." That
+     Mildred is the strangest girl.
+
+     The funeral was to be the next day, and in anticipation of it
+     we had bought cheap mourning hats and plain bombazine mourning
+     habits, such as I thought would be becoming to people in our
+     circumstances. But when I learned that the girls were no longer
+     poor, I thought it would be only proper that they should have
+     more expensive dresses. So as soon as the young men had gone, I
+     sent a message to Mrs. Buffets, the dressmaker, and Mrs.
+     Tibbetts, the milliner, asking them to do me the favor to call
+     upon me at once, if possible. They both called within a few
+     minutes. Before they came, however, I explained to the girls
+     what I had done, at which Mabel was very glad, but Mildred
+     seemed perfectly indifferent. She hardly spoke after the young
+     men went away for several minutes. I think their coming had
+     turned her thoughts back more intently upon her father. Mrs.
+     Tibbetts came first and from her Mabel ordered three expensive
+     hats. I expostulated against her buying a hat for me but she
+     would have it so. When we explained what was wanted to Mrs.
+     Buffets, she declared at first that it was impossible without
+     working after twelve o'clock on Saturday night which she did
+     not like to do as she was a member in good standing in the
+     First Baptist church, but she finally agreed that she would
+     try, provided we would pay what would be extra for her sewing
+     girls. This she estimated would amount on three dresses to at
+     least seven dollars and a half. I have no idea that the girls
+     got more than half a dollar apiece extra and there were but
+     seven of them, and that the rest was clear gain to Mrs.
+     Buffets, but that is the advantage which is always taken of
+     people when there is a funeral.
+
+     We had a hard time with Mildred. She insisted that two dresses
+     and hats were all that were required, one for Mabel and one for
+     aunty; that as yet she was a school girl and the cheap raiment
+     was good enough for her. I think she would have refused to
+     yield had I not told her that unless she did I would not accept
+     either hat or habit; then she consented.
+
+     Of course, it may seem like vanity to speak of such a thing in
+     so sad a connection, but the dresses were most lovely. The
+     girls' were of rich and soft cashmere, mine was of Henrietta
+     cloth. I must say that in the new clothes the girls did look
+     beautiful at the funeral, and I was as proud of them as I could
+     be on so sad an occasion.
+
+     That Saturday evening after we talked the matter over, the
+     girls sent an invitation over to Mr. Hartwell's house to the
+     miners to attend the funeral with us. The invitation was
+     answered by the younger miner, Harding. He accepted the
+     invitation for himself and his friend, stating that Ashley (the
+     other one) was temporarily absent in the city. The note was
+     beautifully written and every word was spelled correctly.
+
+     Next morning, a few minutes before it was time to proceed to
+     the church, the young men came in.
+
+     They were scrupulously dressed in black and their attire even
+     to their hats and gloves was in perfect taste.
+
+     Mildred betrayed more agitation than on the first meeting. She
+     is a strange girl and the loss of her father almost crushed
+     her. Mabel, however, received them with a grace which was
+     queenly and in her new robes she looked like a queen indeed.
+
+     When it came time to go to the church, I supposed, of course,
+     the young men would offer to escort the girls. Besides Mildred,
+     Mabel and myself, Aunt Abigail, James' wife's grandmother had
+     come down to the funeral. You know she is old now--past 73; she
+     never was very pretty and coming down from the country her
+     dress and bonnet--good land, she was a sight.
+
+     Mabel could not conceal her mortification, and I must say I
+     should have been glad if she had not come.
+
+     As we stood up to go, the younger miner said gently: "Ashley,
+     will you not see to Mrs. Wolcott?" and then he went up to Aunt
+     Abigail and with as much kindly politeness as I ever saw
+     displayed, asked her to lean upon him in the walk to the
+     church. The other one gave me his arm, at the same time saying:
+     "The young ladies are the nearer relatives, they should walk in
+     front." His face was fair, but the arm I took was as hard as
+     iron.
+
+     I said: "No matter, Mildred take the other arm of Mr. Ashley
+     and Mabel take that of Mr. Harding!" This was done except that
+     somehow in the confusion Mildred took the arm of Harding and
+     Mabel sought the disengaged arm of Ashley.
+
+     At the church we were seated in the front pew, of course. You
+     never saw such a crowd at a funeral. I noticed as we worked our
+     way up the aisle, men there that had not been in a church
+     before for years.
+
+     There were, besides, the Brown, the Smith and the Jones
+     families who were never before known to attend an ordinary
+     funeral.
+
+     I mention this merely to show how much James was respected.
+
+     The services were most impressive. The organ was played as we
+     entered the church. When we were seated there was a short
+     prayer, then a chant with organ accompaniment was rendered.
+     Professor Van Dyke, the music teacher at the seminary, presided
+     at the organ and Jane Emerson led the sopranos. She sang her
+     best and people do tell me that they have paid money to hear
+     women sing in concerts that could not sing as well as Jane
+     Emerson. If Jane was only a little better looking and knew how
+     to dress in better style and if her father only belonged to a
+     better family, there would not be a young woman in Taunton with
+     brighter prospects than hers.
+
+     Mr. Ashman's main prayer was a most touching one and it moved
+     many in the congregation to tears. He preached from John, the
+     fourteenth chapter and eighteenth verse.
+
+         "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you."
+
+     It was generally conceded that the sermon was one of the
+     minister's best efforts since be preached in Taunton. Miss Hume
+     who was present says she never heard a finer discourse in
+     Boston.
+
+     The burden of the sermon was that the promise to send a
+     comforter to the disciples was a promise made for all time, to
+     those in sorrow, that if they would but ask, the comforter
+     would come to them. When the sermon was over and the choir had
+     sung again; the minister said, as many persons present would
+     like to know the particulars of James' death he would read the
+     account from the _Territorial Enterprise_, a paper published in
+     Virginia City only a few miles from the Nevada mines. He said
+     further that the report was written by a Mr. De Quille, who he
+     presumed was a descendant of the distinguished family of France
+     of that name, that the account showed that he was a very
+     learned man and graphic writer, and such a man could only be
+     retained by the receipt of an enormous salary.
+
+     He further explained that where the word shaft was used it
+     meant a hole like a well which men sunk in order to get the
+     rock out from underground that had silver in it, that drifts
+     were places in the mines where the rock that had the silver in
+     it lay in ridges like snow drifts; that stations were where men
+     kept lunch stands for the miners, that tunnels were holes made
+     in the shape of a funnel to get air down in the mine, that a
+     winze was a corruption for windlass, and cages were simply
+     elevators, like those in use in hotels, but made like cages so
+     that men could not fall out, that run up and down in the well.
+
+     You never at a revival saw a congregation so excited as that
+     one was during the reading of that account. They tell me that
+     men were as pale as death all over the house while the sobbing
+     of women could be heard above the reading.
+
+     But our two miners never showed a bit of emotion and never
+     seemed conscious that every eye in the church was on them. The
+     only things I noticed were that during the singing the older
+     one was softly beating time on his hymn book, and both moved a
+     little uneasily in their seats when the minister was explaining
+     the mining terms.
+
+     After the children had looked for the last time on their
+     father's face, the young men who had been standing at the foot
+     of the coffin, walked up to the head, one on each side. After a
+     long gaze at James' face they turned facing each other and
+     stretching out their hands, clasped hands a moment over the
+     coffin. I suppose that is a custom among miners in the west.
+
+     Brother's body was buried beside that of his wife.
+
+     The young men remained in Taunton two weeks after the funeral.
+     We all went on a little excursion to Buzzards Bay and to Cape
+     Cod. I never saw better behaved men, even those that come down
+     from Boston, than those two miners. They received a great many
+     attentions, too, here in Taunton and every day were obliged to
+     decline invitations to dinner.
+
+     There is a story going around, but I do not believe it is true,
+     that one morning early they went to a livery stable and asked
+     for two wild horses, regular furies, that had thrown their
+     riders the previous day, that they mounted them and the horses
+     reared and plunged awfully but they rode rapidly out of town;
+     that they were gone an hour and a half and when they returned
+     the horses were covered with foam and seemed perfectly gentle.
+
+     Just before going away they came over one day to my house and
+     telling the girls that they had received so many kindnesses
+     from so many people that they wanted to make a little picnic
+     festival in Mr. Hartwell's grounds, asked them to help suggest
+     names for the invitations. The festival was to be the next
+     afternoon. What do you think? That morning carpenters came and
+     fixed benches and tables on the grounds, the three o'clock
+     train brought the ---- Cornet Band from Boston, and at five
+     o'clock in the afternoon the waiters in the ---- Hotel
+     appeared, set the tables and waited on the guests. They had
+     sent up to Boston for the dinner and I never saw anything like
+     it in my life.
+
+     Mr. Hartwell says the expense must have been at least two
+     hundred and twenty-five dollars. Those Western men are awfully
+     extravagant.
+
+     Next morning they went away. The older one to Pennsylvania,
+     where he will live hereafter, and the other one to California,
+     where he has property. We have been real lonesome ever since
+     they went away.
+
+     Mildred left us yesterday to return to school, and will
+     graduate next June, she says on the day she is eighteen. Mabel,
+     you know, was eighteen and a half when she graduated last June,
+     but Mildred always was a little the most forward scholar of her
+     age. Since the funeral the girls have purchased some beautiful
+     clothing, and it would do your heart good to see them. My
+     letter is pretty long but I could tell you as much more if I
+     had time.
+
+     Your loving sister,
+
+     MARTHA WOLCOTT.
+
+     P. S.--I want to tell you a secret. I think that Ashley, the
+     older miner, and Mabel have a liking for each other, though I
+     don't know, except that I saw Ashley kiss Mabel as he was going
+     away. All I can say is that if they should make a match, there
+     would not be a handsomer couple in Massachusetts. It is only a
+     surmise on my part that they are fond of each other. After the
+     young men had been gone for several hours I asked Mabel if
+     there were any serious relations between her and Ashley, and
+     she answered: "Not the least serious auntie, our relations are
+     altogether pleasant."
+
+     M. W.
+
+The next letter from Mrs. Wolcott to Mrs. Roberts read like this:
+
+     TAUNTON, Sept. 13th, 1879.
+
+     MY DEAR SISTER:--It is now almost a year since I wrote you the
+     letter telling you of brother James' funeral and that I half
+     suspected a fondness had sprung up between one of the men who
+     came with the remains of James and Mabel. Well, I was correct
+     in my suspicion for last Thursday they were married and left by
+     the evening train for their future home in Pennsylvania. He has
+     an iron mine in the mountains and reduction works at Pittsburg
+     and is making money very fast. Their home is in Pittsburg.
+
+     I thought at first that I was mistaken because no letters came
+     to Mabel, but it seems Mabel made a confident of her cousin
+     George who is a conductor on a train which runs between here
+     and Providence, he hired a box in the postoffice there, Mabel's
+     letters were sent to that postoffice and George brought them to
+     her. This was done to thwart the curiosity of the wife of the
+     postmaster here. The postmaster himself is a good meaning man,
+     but his wife is a real gossip and had frequent letters come
+     from one place to Mabel the whole town would have known it in
+     no time. When it was known that the girls had received a large
+     amount of money the Browns, the Smiths and the Proctors, who
+     had never called before, all came and begged Mabel, now that
+     she had graduated, (look at the hypocrisy) to come out more in
+     the world. Young Henry Proctor called several times and in less
+     than a fortnight asked Mabel if he might not sit up with her on
+     Saturday nights. He is a very proud young man and it is said he
+     will have twelve thousand dollars when he goes out for himself
+     next year, but Mabel declined any particular attentions from
+     him. She did the same thing with half a dozen more young men of
+     the best families. I was perplexed. Of course I was in no hurry
+     for Mabel to marry, but good opportunities for girls are none
+     too plenty, so many young men go West, and when I saw her throw
+     away chance after chance, and some of them so eligible, I was
+     afraid she would be sorry sometime, for careless as girls are,
+     they all expect sometime to be married. It went on so until six
+     weeks ago when suddenly one evening Mabel said: "Auntie come go
+     with me to Boston to-morrow." "What are you going to Boston
+     for?" I asked. "There is a young man coming here to carry me
+     away in a few weeks, Aunty, and I need a few things," said she.
+     "And who is the young man, Mabel?" I asked. "Herbert Ashley,"
+     was the answer, and then she fell on her knees and burying her
+     face in my lap sobbed for joy. I cried a little, too, it was so
+     sudden. "But when were you engaged?" I asked after she grew a
+     little composed. "We have had a perfect understanding since the
+     week after father's funeral," said she, and then added: "My
+     heart followed him out of the house on that first day when I
+     had only looked once in his eyes. Is he not grand, Auntie?"
+     "But why have you never told me?" I asked. Then she put her
+     arms around me and said: "Because, dear Aunty, you know you
+     could not have kept my secret." I was hurt at this, because
+     every body knows how close mouthed I am. But I went to Boston
+     and, what do you think? that girl spent over seven hundred
+     dollars just for clothes. I remonstrated, but she cut me short,
+     saying, "I am going with my king, and I must not disgrace his
+     court." Did you ever hear such talk? When I was married I had
+     just two merino dresses, one brown and one blue, four muslin
+     dresses and some plain underclothing. But I had a beautiful
+     feather bed that I had made myself, four comforters, two
+     quilted bed spreads in small patterns, and a full set of dishes
+     that cost six dollars and a half in Portland. Things are
+     greatly changed since I was a girl. Well, Mr. Ashley came; he
+     is a splendid man. Mabel slipped away with her cousin and went
+     down to Providence to meet him. He brought Mabel jewelry that
+     the best judges here think cost as much as a thousand dollars.
+     It is shameful, the extravagance of those Western men. Why, he
+     gave the minister that married them fifty dollars, which you
+     know yourself was a clear waste of forty-five dollars. Five
+     dollars is certainly enough for five minutes work of a
+     minister, especially if he and his wife are also given a fine
+     supper. Mr. Ashley also gave Mildred some beautiful jewelry. It
+     must have cost two hundred and fifty dollars, and he was most
+     generous to me, too. On his wedding day he got five dispatches
+     from the West; one from Illinois, two from Virginia City,
+     Nevada, and two from California, congratulating him, and they
+     must have cost the senders as much as fifty dollars. Thank
+     goodness, they all came marked "paid." The wedding was in the
+     church in the evening. It had been whispered around and the
+     church was full. Land sakes, but they were a lovely couple.
+     Mabel's dress was white satin with princesse train of brocaded
+     satin. The front of the skirt was trimmed with lace flounces,
+     headed with garlands of lilies of the valley and orange
+     blossoms. She wore also a long tulle veil, with orange blossoms
+     in the hair. Her dress cost one hundred and fifty-three dollars
+     and thirty-seven cents. I did not think the train was necessary
+     and there was no need of a veil, leastwise not so long a one,
+     but it was Mabel's wish to have them, so I did not object. Mrs.
+     White said she never saw a handsomer bride in Boston nor a more
+     manly looking groom. I confess I was proud of them both. We had
+     a quiet little party at my house and a supper, and at ten
+     o'clock they went away by special train to Providence. Think of
+     the foolishness of hiring a special train, when the regular
+     train would have come by next morning. Mr. Ashley wanted to
+     have what he called a "boss wedding;" wanted to ask half the
+     town and, as he said, "shake up Taunton for once," but Mabel
+     coaxed him out of the idea. He wanted me to sell or rent my
+     place and with Mildred go and make his home mine, but I don't
+     think that is the best way. Young married folks want to be let
+     alone mostly, while they are getting acquainted with each
+     other. Mildred has been home since she graduated in June. I
+     think she has discouraged more men since she came home than
+     ever Mabel did. She has improved greatly in her personal
+     appearance and is a girl of most decided character. When she
+     first came home we used to tease her about her beaux, but we do
+     not any more. When the young men were here last year, after we
+     got pretty well acquainted, one day when they had called
+     Mildred took a sheet of paper and pen and going to Mr. Harding,
+     said: "Mr. Harding, please write an inscription to put upon
+     Father's monument." He took the pen and wrote: "The truest,
+     best of men." Well, one day about a month ago Mildred had gone
+     down town for something when Mabel wanting scissors, or thimble
+     or something which she had mislaid, went to Mildred's work
+     basket to get hers. There under some soft wools that Mildred
+     had been working upon Mabel saw the end of a ribbon and picking
+     it up drew out a locket which was attached to it. She could not
+     control her curiosity but brought it to me. I gave Mabel
+     liberty to open it though my sense of perfect justice was a
+     good deal shocked. To tell the truth I was dying to see what
+     was in it. Mabel opened it and inside there was nothing but
+     that bit of paper with the words in Harding's hand-writing:
+     "The truest, best of men." There were some stains on the paper
+     but whether they were made by kisses or tears we could not make
+     out though I put on my gold-rimmed spectacles, which are
+     powerful magnifiers, and looked my best. Mabel put the locket
+     back, but to this day there has not been a word said to give me
+     any idea whether there is anything like an engagement or not.
+     Mildred is so quiet and self-contained that if her heart was
+     breaking I do not believe she would say a word. I should be
+     glad to think they were engaged, for privately, I liked Mr.
+     Harding a little the best, but if they had been it seems to me
+     he would have been here to the wedding. I don't know when I
+     have been so worked up about anything. If I was fifteen years
+     younger, and I thought the majority of men in the West were
+     like the two that I have seen, I would sell my place and go
+     West, too.
+
+     Your affectionate sister,
+
+     MARTHA WOLCOTT.
+
+     P. S.--When Mr. Ashley was here he took the girls out to James'
+     grave. We had put up a plain stone but Mr. Ashley did not like
+     it. When he came in he ordered the finest monument in the
+     marble works. Those that have seen it say it is real Italian
+     marble, and that it is handsomer than the one that the banker
+     Sherman erected over his wife and that cost over five hundred
+     and fifty dollars.
+
+     M. W.
+
+This letter explains itself:
+
+     LOS ANGELES, Cal., March 20, 1880.
+
+     MY DARLING SISTER:--We reached our home here last night. While
+     I write the perfume of almonds and orange blossoms, of climbing
+     vines, and roses shedding their incense in lavish fragrance
+     steals in through the open window. A mocking bird is mimicking
+     an oriole's warblings, and I fancy I feel at this moment as do
+     ransomed souls when amid the mansions of the redeemed they open
+     their eyes and know that for them joy is to be eternal. You
+     have always called me "Old Matter-of-Fact." Well, then, just
+     imagine me sitting here half blinded by the tears of happiness
+     that I can not restrain.
+
+     But let me tell you of my journey. You remember that though the
+     sky was bright overhead--as bright as it can be in
+     Pittsburg--on the morning that we were married, when we took
+     the train in the evening it was snowing hard. Before morning
+     the train was delayed by the snow. We worried along, however,
+     and the next evening arrived at Peoria, Illinois. Here an old
+     friend of my husband (is not that word husband lovely?) your
+     husband and father's, with his wife met us at the depot and we
+     had to go home with them and stay two days. The man's name is
+     Carlin and he is "a splendid fellow," as they say out this way.
+     He was one of the Club to which our husbands belonged. He has a
+     mill, store and farm a few miles from Peoria and seems to be
+     the first man in that region. He has, too, a charming wife whom
+     he calls "Susie Dick," and a six months' old baby which he
+     calls "Brewster Miller Carlin." They are as hearty people in
+     their friendship as I ever met. They asked all about your
+     husband, and yourself, and I had to get out your photograph to
+     convince them that you were far more beautiful than myself.
+     When we arrived Mr. Carlin sent out and got in some twenty
+     couples, and to use his own expression, "we made a night of
+     it," and "painted the town red," that is until midnight. They
+     made me sing and play, and one old gentleman present made me
+     proud, by telling me "you beat ord'nary primer donners." After
+     the company retired Mr. Carlin asked me how I liked the old
+     gentleman's pronunciation, and then husband said the old
+     gentleman knew as much about music as our minister in Taunton
+     did about mining. Then he told Mr. Carlin what Mr. Ashman said
+     about tunnels, drifts, stations, etc., and the man laughed
+     until the tears ran down his cheeks. Well, at length, with
+     blessings, presents, and packed lunch baskets, we got away. All
+     through Illinois and Iowa the world was hid by the snow, we
+     passed Omaha, crossed Nebraska, climbed the Rocky Mountains and
+     came down on this side, and swept across the desert of Nevada
+     to Reno. Here we stopped and next day went to Virginia City. I
+     wanted to visit the place where our father died. In Virginia
+     City--which is a city on a desert mountain side--you cannot
+     conceive of such a place--the wind was blowing a hurricane;
+     blowing as at the old home, it comes in sometimes from the
+     ocean in a southeaster. Husband took me to the fatal Bullion
+     shaft. The men were just then changing shift as they call it;
+     the men who had worked eight hours were coming out of the mine,
+     those who were to work the next eight hours were going down.
+     The shaft is half a mile deep and the cage loaded with nine men
+     shoots up out of the dreadful gloom or drops back into it as
+     though it were nothing. Many of the miners greeted husband
+     warmly, and were hearty in their welcomes to me, though they
+     were not encumbered by any great amount of clothing. I turned
+     away from the shaft almost in a panic, I could not bear to took
+     at it. But Virginia City is a wonderful place, I would tell you
+     more of it, if you had not some one near you who can tell it
+     much better than I can. We met a great many pleasant people
+     there, especially a lawyer named Col. Savage, a journalist, a
+     Mr. Strong and a Professor Stoneman. They met us like brothers
+     and spoke of your Herbert as another brother. We left that same
+     evening and returning to Reno started up the Sierras. I confess
+     that a feeling of something like desolation took possession of
+     me. The region was so dreary, it seemed to me that only my
+     husband was between me and chaos. After leaving Reno a couple
+     of hours, we entered the snow sheds and I went to sleep with a
+     thought that I was under a mountain of snow. I wakened next
+     morning in Sacramento and when I looked out the birds were
+     singing and flowers were blooming around me. Before noon we
+     reached San Francisco and drove to the Palace. There we were
+     met by a gentleman named Miller, the one that made for father
+     our money. He is very rich. He told husband that he had been
+     "coppering" the market ever since he came to the city and had
+     "taken every trick." Later I asked husband what "coppering"
+     meant and he smiled and said: "betting that it will not win." I
+     do not quite understand it yet, but I know it is right for
+     husband says so. This Mr. Miller told husband that he was going
+     to make me a present and that he must not say a word at which
+     Sammy said "go ahead." Then he handed me a little package but
+     said I must not open it until I reached home. What do you
+     think? It is a diamond cluster which the cost of must have been
+     fifteen hundred dollars. In San Francisco I found the most
+     delicious flowers I ever saw. Tell aunty, too, that there are
+     no such hotels, as one or two in San Francisco, "not even in
+     Boston." There are splendid churches and theatres. The Bay is
+     beautiful, the park is going to be grand, the ladies dress most
+     richly. We sailed over to Saucelito and San Rafael, looked out
+     through the Golden Gate--in short, ran around for a week. Then
+     we came directly home, reaching this place last night.
+
+     A charming supper was in waiting, and, all smiles, the Chinaman
+     who prepared it was in attendance. His name is Yap Sing, and he
+     has been with husband ever since his first return from the
+     East. He was the cook for the Club which you have heard our
+     husbands talk about, and of course knew father. He fairly ran
+     over with joy at our coming, and such a cook as he is. I would
+     like to hear what Aunt Martha would say to one of his dinners.
+     But husband pays him forty dollars a month. Is not that a
+     dreadful price for a cook?
+
+     We have received good news since coming home. Husband's mine in
+     Arizona is yielding him for his one-half interest twelve
+     hundred and fifty dollars per month.
+
+     My house is a beautiful cottage, with broad halls and verandas,
+     and is furnished elegantly all through.
+
+     My heart runs over with gratitude. My soul is on its knees in
+     thankfulness all the time. I believe I am the happiest woman in
+     the world. "The truest and best of men" sits across the room
+     writing letter after letter, clearing up a delayed
+     correspondence. He is handsomer than on that day when I first
+     looked in his eyes, and knew in an instant that he was my fate,
+     that I should worship him forever, whether he knew it or not;
+     that if he did not ask me to be his wife, I should never be a
+     wife, but by myself should walk through life bearing my burdens
+     as humbly and bravely as I could, and keeping my heart warm by
+     the flame in the vestal lamp which his smile had kindled within
+     it.
+
+     Now heaven has opened to me, and so jubilant is my heart that I
+     can feel it throbbing as I write, and with a thankfulness
+     unspeakable I worship at my hero's feet.
+
+     With warmest love to you, dear sister, and to your husband and
+     Auntie, in which my other self joins heartily, I am
+
+     Your loving sister,
+
+     MILDRED BREWSTER HARDING.
+
+     P. S.--Sister: This morning as we sat here I asked my lord why
+     he and your husband clasped hands over our father's coffin.
+     Waiting a moment, he answered that on the journey East with
+     father's body, your husband and himself made a covenant
+     together that henceforth, whatever might happen, they would
+     watch over us as a sacred trust received from our father, and
+     that the hand-clasp was but an involuntary pledge of the
+     sincerity of that compact.
+
+     Can we ever be good enough wives to these men who do not half
+     realize how grand they are?
+
+     Love and kisses,
+
+     MILDRED.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Comstock Club, by Charles Carroll Goodwin
+
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+    .poem span.i44     {display: block; margin-left: 44em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Comstock Club, by Charles Carroll Goodwin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Comstock Club
+
+Author: Charles Carroll Goodwin
+
+Release Date: May 16, 2011 [EBook #36123]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMSTOCK CLUB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Justin Gillbank, Mary Meehan and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>THE COMSTOCK CLUB.</h1>
+
+<h2>BY C. C. GOODWIN</h2>
+
+<h3>EDITOR SALT LAKE DAILY TRIBUNE.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>Neither radiant angels nor magnified monsters, but just plain,
+true men.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>1891.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Tribune Job Printing Company,</span><br />
+SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH.</h3>
+
+<h3><i>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by</i><br />
+THE LEONARD PUBLISHING COMPANY,<br />
+<i>in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>TO THE<br />
+MINERS OF THE PACIFIC COAST,<br />
+THIS BOOK,<br />
+WHICH WAS WRITTEN WHILE WORKING FOR AND AMONG THEM,<br />
+IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED<br />
+BY<br />
+THE AUTHOR.<br />
+<i>Salt Lake City, Utah, December 15, 1891.</i></h3>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">The Old Flush Days</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">The Club</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Mirages</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">The Argonauts</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">The Call of the Birds</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">The Perfume and the Light</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">Man As a Worker</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">Rough Royalty</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">More Royalty</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">Specimen Liars</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">The Club Grows Poetical</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">An Unbiased Judge</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">Sister Celeste</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. <span class="smcap">Trouble with the Expense Account </span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. <span class="smcap">Humor of the West</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. <span class="smcap">Trouble in the Club</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. <span class="smcap">Up in the Sheaves</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. <span class="smcap">The Terrible Depths</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. <span class="smcap">The Dawn of Elysium</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. <span class="smcap">Three Postscripts</span></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE COMSTOCK CLUB.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"The pioneer! Who shall fitly tell the story of his life and work?</p>
+
+<p>"The soldier leads an assault; it lasts but a few minutes; he knows that
+whether he lives or dies, immortality will be his reward. What wonder
+that there are brave soldiers!</p>
+
+<p>"But when this soldier of peace assaults the wilderness, no bugles sound
+the charge; the forest, the desert, the wild beast, the savage, the
+malaria, the fatigue, are the foes that lurk to ambush him, and if,
+against the unequal odds, he falls, no volleys are fired above him; the
+pitiless world merely sponges his name from its slate.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus he blazes the trails, thus he fells the trees, thus he plants his
+rude stakes, thus he faces the hardships, and whatever fate awaits him,
+his self-contained soul keeps its finger on his lips, and no
+lamentations are heard.</p>
+
+<p>"He smooths the rugged fields, he turns the streams, and the only cheer
+that is his is when he sees the grain ripen, and the flowers bloom where
+before was only the frown of the wilderness. When over the trail that he
+has blazed, enlightenment comes joyously, with unsoiled sandals, and
+homes and temples spring up on the soil that was first broken by him,
+his youth is gone, hope has been chastened into silence within him; he
+realizes that he is but a back number.</p>
+
+<p>"Not one in a thousand realizes the texture of the manhood that has been
+exhausting itself within him; few comprehend his nature or have any
+conception of his work.</p>
+
+<p>"But he is content. The shadows of the wilderness have been chased away;
+the savage beast and savage man have retired before him; nature has
+brought her flowers to strew the steps of his old age; in his soul he
+feels that somewhere the record of his work and of his high thoughts has
+been kept; and so he smiles upon the younger generation and is content.</p>
+
+<p>"May that contentment be his to the end."</p>
+
+<p>It was an anniversary night in Pioneer Hall, in Virginia City, Nevada,
+one July night in 1878, and the foregoing were the closing words of a
+little impromptu speech that Alex Strong had delivered.</p>
+
+<p>A strange, many-sided man was Alex Strong. He was an Argonaut. When the
+first tide set in toward the Golden Coast, he, but a lad, with little
+save a pony and a gun, joined a train that had crossed the Missouri and
+was headed westward.</p>
+
+<p>The people in the company looked upon him as a mere boy, but, later,
+when real hardships were encountered and sickness came, the boy became
+the life of the company. When women and children drooped under the
+burdens and the fear of the wilderness, it was his voice that cheered
+them on; his gun secured the tender bit of antelope or grouse to tempt
+their failing appetites; his songs drove away the silence of the desert.
+He was for the company a lark at morn, a nightingale at night.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving in California, he sought the hills. When his claim would not
+pay he indicted scornful songs to show his "defiance of luck." Some of
+these were published in the mountain papers, and then a few people knew
+that somewhere in miner's garb a genius was hiding. Amid the hills, in
+his cabin, he was an incessant reader, and with his books, his friction
+against men and in the study of nature's mighty alphabet, as left upon
+her mountains, with the going by of the years he rounded into a
+cultured, alert, sometimes pathetic and sometimes boisterous man, but
+always a shrewd, all-around man of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>When we greet him he had been for several years a brilliant journalist.</p>
+
+<p>He had jumped up to make a little speech in Pioneer Hall, and the last
+words of his speech are given above.</p>
+
+<p>When he had finished another pioneer, Colonel Savage, was called upon.
+He was always prepared to make a speech. He delighted, moreover, in
+taking the opposite side to Strong. So springing to his feet, he cried
+out:</p>
+
+<p>"Too serious are the words of my friend. What of hardships, when youth,
+the beautiful, walks by one's side! What of danger when one feels a
+young heart throbbing in his breast!</p>
+
+<p>"Who talks of loneliness while as yet no fetter has been welded upon
+hope, while yet the unexplored and unpeopled portions of God's world
+beckon the brave to come to woo and to possess them!</p>
+
+<p>"The pioneers were not unhappy. The air is still filled with the echoes
+of the songs that they sung; their bright sayings have gone into the
+traditions; the impression which they made upon the world is a monument
+which will tell of their achievements, record their sturdy virtues and
+exalt their glorified names."</p>
+
+<p>As the Colonel ceased and some one else was called upon to talk, Strong
+motioned to Savage and both noiselessly sought some vacant seats in the
+rear of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Savage was another genius. He was a young lawyer in New York
+when the first news of gold discoveries in California was carried to
+that city. He, with a hundred others, chartered a bark that was lying
+idle in the harbor, had her fitted up and loaded, and in her made a
+seven months' voyage around the Cape to San Francisco. He was the most
+versatile of the Argonauts. Every mood of poor human nature found a
+response in him. At a funeral he shamed the mourners by the sadness of
+his face; at a festival he added a sparkle to the wines; he could
+convulse a saloon with a story; he could read a burial service with a
+pathos that stirred every heart, and so his life ran on until when we
+find him he had been several years a leading member of a brighter bar
+than ever before was seen in a town of the size of Virginia City.</p>
+
+<p>He was a tall, handsome man, his face was classical, and all his
+bearing, even when all unbent, was that of a high-born, self-contained
+and self-respecting man.</p>
+
+<p>Strong, on the other hand, was of shorter statue; his face was the
+perfect picture of mirthfulness; there was a wonderful magnetism in his
+smile and hand-clasp; but when in repose a close look at his face
+revealed, below the mirthfulness, that calm which is the close attendant
+upon conscious power.</p>
+
+<p>As they reached their seats Alex spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"You were awfully good to-night, Colonel."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course; I always am. But what has awakened your appreciation
+to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought my speech was horrible."</p>
+
+<p>"For once it would require a brave man to doubt your judgment," said the
+Colonel, sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I was sure of it until I heard you speak; then I recovered my
+self-respect, believing that, by comparison, my speech would ring in the
+memories of the listeners, like a psalm."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean Sam, the town-crier and bootblack. His brain is a little weak,
+but his lungs are superb."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you are jealous of his voice, Colonel. But sit down: I want
+to tell you about the most unregenerate soul on earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Proceed, Alex, only do not forget that under the merciful statutes of
+the State of Nevada no man is obliged to make statements which will
+criminate himself."</p>
+
+<p>"What a comfort that knowledge must be to you."</p>
+
+<p>"It often is. My heart is full of sympathy for the unfortunate, and more
+than once have I seen eyes grow bright when I have given that
+information to a client."</p>
+
+<p>"The study of that branch of law must have had a peculiar fascination to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, it did, Alex. At every point where the law draws the shield of
+its mercy around the accused, in thought it seemed made for one or
+another of my friends, and, mentally, I found myself defending one after
+the other of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you, at the same time, keep in thought the fact that in an
+emergency the law permits a man to plead his own cause?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, on my honor. In those days my life was circumspect, even as it
+now is, and my associates&mdash;not as now&mdash;were so genteel that there was no
+danger of any suspicion attaching to me, because of the people I was
+daily seen with."</p>
+
+<p>"That was good for you, but what sort of reputations did your associates
+have?" asked Alex.</p>
+
+<p>"They went on from glory to glory. One became a conductor on a railroad,
+and in four years, at a salary of one hundred dollars per month, retired
+rich. One became a bank cashier, and three years later, through the
+advice of his physicians, settled in the soft climate of Venice, with
+which country we have no extradition treaty. Another one is a broker
+here in this city, and I am told, is doing so well that he hopes next
+year to be superintendent of a mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Why have you not succeeded better, Colonel, financially?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am too honest. Every day I stop law suits which I ought to permit to
+go on. Every day I do work for nothing which I ought to charge for. I
+tell you, Alex, I would sooner be right than be President."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot, just now, recall any one who knows you, Colonel, who does not
+feel the same way about you."</p>
+
+<p>"That is because the most of my friends are dull, men, like yourself.
+But how prospers that newspaper?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the same old, steady grind," replied Alex, thoughtfully. "I saw a
+blind horse working in a whim yesterday. As he went round and round,
+there seemed on his face a look of anxiety to find out how much longer
+that road of his was, and I said to him, compassionately: 'Old Spavin,
+you know something of what it is to work on a daily paper.' I went to
+the shaft and watched the buckets as they came up, and there was only
+one bucket of ore to ten buckets of waste. Then I went back to the horse
+and said to him: 'You do not know the fact, you blissfully ignorant old
+brute, but your work is mightily like ours, one bucket of ore to ten of
+waste.'"</p>
+
+<p>"How would you like to have me write an editorial for your paper?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be most grateful," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"On what theme?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you might make your own selection."</p>
+
+<p>"How would you like an editorial on&mdash;&mdash;scoundrels?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would, with your experience, be truthfully written, doubtless, but
+Colonel, it is only now and then in good taste for a man to supply the
+daily journals with his own autobiography."</p>
+
+<p>"How modest you are. You did not forget that, despite the impersonality
+of journalism, you would have the credit of the article."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was afraid of that credit, and I am poor enough now, Colonel; but
+really, that credit does not count. If, for five days in the week, I
+make newspapers, which my judgment tells me are passably good, it
+appears to me the only use that is made of them is for servant girls to
+kindle fires with, and do up their bangs in: but if, on the sixth day,
+my heart is heavy and my brain thick, and the paper next morning is
+poor, it seems to me that everybody in the camp looks curiously at me,
+as if to ascertain for a certainty, whether or no, I am in the early
+stages of brain softening."</p>
+
+<p>"A reasonable suspicion, I fancy, Alex; but what do you think of your
+brother editors of this coast as men and writers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most of them are good fellows, and bright writers. If you knew under
+what conditions some of them work, you would take off your hat every
+time you met them."</p>
+
+<p>"To save my hat?" queried the Colonel. "But whom do you consider the
+foremost editor of the coast?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such person. Men with single thoughts and purposes, are, as
+a rule, the men who make marks in this world. For instance, just now,
+the single purpose of James G. Fair, is to make money through mining.
+Hence, he is a great miner, and he, now and then, I am told, manages to
+save a few dollars in the business. The dream of C. P. Huntington is to
+make money through railroads, so he builds roads, that he may collect
+more fares and freights, and he collects more fares and freights so that
+he may build more roads, and I believe, all in all, that he is the
+ablest, if not the coldest and most pitiless, railroad man in the world.
+The ruling thought of Andy Barlow is to be a fighter, and he can draw
+and shoot in the space of a lightning's flash. The dream of George
+Washington, he having no children, was to create and adopt a nation
+which should at once be strong and free, and the result is, his grave is
+a shrine. But, as the eight notes of the scale, in their combinations,
+fill the world with music&mdash;or with discords, so the work of an editor
+covers all the subjects on which men have ever thought, or ever will
+think, and the best that any one editor can do is to handle a few
+subjects well. Among our coast editors there is one with more marked
+characteristics, more flashes of genius, in certain directions, more
+contradictions and more pluck than any other one possesses.</p>
+
+<p>"That one is Henry Mighels, of Carson. I mention him because I have been
+thinking of him all day, and because I fear that his work is finished.
+The last we heard of him, was, that he was disputing with the surgeons
+in San Francisco, they telling him that he was fatally ill, and he,
+offering to wager two to one that they were badly mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Henry," mused the Colonel; "he is a plucky man. I heard one of our
+rich men once try to get him to write something, or not to write
+something, I have forgotten which, and when Mighels declined to consent,
+the millionaire told him he was too poor to be so exceedingly
+independent. Here Mighels, in a low voice, which sounded to me like the
+purr of a tiger, said: 'You are quite mistaken, you do not know how rich
+I am. I have that little printing office at Carson; paper enough to last
+me for a week or ten days. I have a wife and three babies,' and then
+suddenly raising his voice, to the dangerous note, and bringing his fist
+down on the table before him with a crash, he shouted, '<i>and they are
+all mine</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>"The rich man looked at him, and, smiling, said: 'Don't talk like a
+fool, Mighels.' The old humor was all back in Mighels' face in an
+instant, as he replied, 'Was I talking like a fool, old man? What a
+sublime faculty I have of exactly gauging my conversation to the mental
+grasp of my listener!' But, Alex, do you not think there is a great deal
+of humbug about the much vaunted power of the press?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's gratitude for you. You ask <i>me</i> such a question as that."</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" inquired the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"You won a great suit last week, did you not&mdash;the case of Jones vs.
+Smith?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It was wonderful; let me tell you about it."</p>
+
+<p>"No; spare me," cried Alex. "But how much did you receive for winning
+that case?"</p>
+
+<p>"I received a cool ten thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"And you still ask about the influence of the press?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why should I not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure enough, why should you not? If you will stop and think you will
+know that three months ago you could not have secured a jury in the
+State that would have given you that verdict. There was a principle on
+trial that public opinion was pronounced against in a most marked
+manner. The press took up the discussion and fought it out. At length it
+carried public opinion with it. That thing has been done over and over
+right here. At the right time, your case, which hung upon that very
+point, was called. You think you managed it well. It was simply a
+walkover for you. The men with the Fabers had done the work for you. The
+jury unconsciously had made up their minds before they heard the
+complaint in the case read. The best thoughts in your argument you had
+unconsciously stolen from the newspapers, and the judge, looking as wise
+as an Arctic owl, unconsciously wrung half an editorial into his charge.
+You received ten thousand dollars, and to the end of his days your
+client will tell (heaven forgive his stupidity) what a lawyer you are,
+but ask him his opinion of newspaper men and he will shrug his
+shoulders, scowl, and with a donkey's air of wisdom, answer: 'Oh, they
+are necessary evils. We want the local news and the dispatches, and we
+have to endure them.'</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you robbed him, Colonel. I wish you could rob them all. If a
+child is born to one of them we have to tell of it, and mention
+delicately how noble the father is and how lovely the mother is. If one
+of them dies we have to jeopardize our immortal souls trying to make out
+a character for him. They want us every day; we hold up their business
+and their reputations, beginning at the cradle, ending only at the
+grave."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of character would you give me, were I to die?"</p>
+
+<p>"Try it, Colonel! Try it! And if 'over the divide' it should be possible
+for you to look back and read the daily papers, when your shade gets
+hold of my notice, I promise you it shall be glad that you are dead."</p>
+
+<p>"But what about that unregenerate soul that you were going to tell me
+of&mdash;has some broker sold out some widow's stocks?"</p>
+
+<p>"No: worse than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Has some one burglarized some hospital or orphan asylum?" suggested the
+Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. Old Angus Jacobs, you know, is rich. Among strangers he parades
+his thin veneering of reading, and poses as though all his vaults were
+stuffed with reserves of knowledge. Well, while East last spring, he ran
+upon a distinguished publisher there, with whom he agreed that he would,
+on his return, write and send for publication an article on the West.</p>
+
+<p>"He came and begged me to write it, confessing that he had deceived the
+publisher, and asserting that, he must keep up the deception, or the
+integrity of the West would be injured in the estimation of that
+publisher.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to work, wrote an article, became enthused as I wrote, wrote it
+over, spent as much as three solid days upon it, and when it was
+finished I looked upon my work, and lo, it was good.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, at my own expense, I had it carefully copied and gave the copy to
+old Angus. He sent it East. To-day he received a dozen copies and a
+letter of profuse praise and thanks from the publisher.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the old thief give one of the copies to a literary man from San
+Francisco, telling him, cheerfully, as he did, that he dashed the
+article off hastily, that most of the language was crude and awkward,
+but it might entertain him a little on the train going to San
+Francisco."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard of anything meaner or more depraved than that,"
+indignantly remarked the Colonel, "except when I read the funeral
+service over an old Dutchman's child once, in Downieville. Speaking of
+it afterward, the old Hessian said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Dot Colonel's reading vos fine, but he dond vos haf dot prober look uf
+regret vot he ought to haf had'&mdash;but here comes the Professor."</p>
+
+<p>Professor Stoneman joined the pair, and when the greetings were over the
+Professor said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am just in from Eastern Nevada: went to Eureka to examine a mine
+owned by a jolly miner named Moore. It is a good one, too&mdash;a contact
+vein between lime and quartzite. The fellow worked, running a tunnel,
+all winter, and now he has struck, and cross-cut, his vein. It is fully
+seven feet thick, and rich. I asked him how he felt when at last he cut
+the vein.</p>
+
+<p>"'How did I feel, Professor,' he said, 'how did I feel? Why, General
+Jackson's overcoat would not have made a paper collar for me.'</p>
+
+<p>"There are a great many queer characters out that way. Moore is not a
+very well educated man. In Eureka I was telling about the mine&mdash;that
+Moore ought to make a fortune out of it&mdash;when a man standing by, a
+stranger to me, stretched up both his arms and cried: 'A fortune! Look
+at it, now! Moore is so unspeakably ignorant that he could not spell out
+the name of the Savior if it were written on White Pine Mountain in
+letters bigger than the Coast Range. But he strikes it rich! His kind
+always do.' Then he added, bitterly: 'If I could find a chimpanzee, I
+would draw up articles of copartnership with him in fifteen minutes.'</p>
+
+<p>"And then a quiet fellow, who was present, said: 'Jim, maybe the
+chimpanzee, after taking a good look at you, would not stand it.'</p>
+
+<p>"I was sitting in a barroom there one day, and a man was talking about
+the Salmon River mines, and insisting that they were more full of
+promise than anything in Nevada, when another man in the crowd earnestly
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"'If my brother were to write me that it was a good country, and advise
+me to come up there, I would not believe him.'</p>
+
+<p>"Quick as lightning, still another man responded: 'If we all knew your
+brother as well as you do, maybe none of us would believe him.'</p>
+
+<p>"That is the way they spend their time out there. But I secured some
+lovely specimens: specimens of ore, rare shells, some of the finest
+specimens of mirabilite of lead that I ever saw. It is a most
+interesting region. But I don't agree entirely with Clarence King on the
+geology of the district. You see King's theory is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hold on, Professor," said the Colonel, "it does not lack an hour of
+midnight. You have not time, positively. Heigh ho. Here is Wright. How
+is the mine, Wright?"</p>
+
+<p>"About two hundred tons lighter than it was this morning, I reckon,"
+replied Wright.</p>
+
+<p>"But tell us about the mine, Wright," said Alex, impatiently. "How is
+the temperature?"</p>
+
+<p>"How is your health?" responded Wright, jocularly. "If you do not expect
+to live long, you might come down and take some preparatory lessons;
+that is, if you anticipate joining the majority of newspaper men."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; you are mistaken," said Alex. "You mean the Colonel. He is a
+lawyer, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Professor that needs the practice," chimed in the Colonel.
+"Just imagine him 'down below,' explaining to the gentleman in green how
+similar the formation is to a hot drift that he once found in the
+Comstock."</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you a hotter place than any drift in the Comstock," said
+the Professor. "Put all the money that you have into stocks, having a
+dead pointer from a friend who is posted, buy on a margin, and then have
+the stocks begin to go down; that will start the perspiration on you."</p>
+
+<p>"We have all been in that drift," said Alex.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, we have," responded Wright.</p>
+
+<p>"I have lived in that climate for twelve years. One or two winters it
+kept me so warm that I did not need an overcoat or watch, so I loaned
+them to&mdash;&mdash;'mine uncle,'" remarked the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"But, do you know any points on stocks, Wright?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not certainly, Alex. I heard some rumors last night and ordered 100
+Norcross this morning. Some of the boys think it will jump up three or
+four dollars in the next ten days."</p>
+
+<p>"I took in a block of Utah yesterday. They are getting down pretty deep,
+and there is lots of unexplored ground in that mine," said the Colonel,
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor, looking serious, said: "I have all my money the other
+way, in Justice and Silver Hill. They are not deep enough in the north
+end yet."</p>
+
+<p>Alex got up from his chair. "You are all mistaken," said he, "Overman is
+the best buy, but it is growing late and I must go to work. What shift
+are you on, Wright?"</p>
+
+<p>"I go on at seven in the morning. By the way, you should come up of an
+evening to our Club. We would be glad to see all three of you."</p>
+
+<p>"And pray, what do you mean by your Club?" asked the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Wright, "I thought you knew. Three or four of us miners met
+up here one night last month. Joe Miller was in the party, and as we
+were drinking beer and talking about stocks, Miller proposed that we
+should hire a vacant house on the divide&mdash;the old Beckley House&mdash;and
+give up the boarding and lodging houses. We talked it all over, how
+shameful we had been going on, how we were spending all our money, how,
+if we had the house, we could save fifty or sixty dollars a month, and
+eat what we pleased, do what we pleased, and have a place in which to
+pass our leisure time without going to the saloons; so we picked up
+three or four more men, and, on last pay-day, moved in&mdash;seven of us in
+all&mdash;each man bringing his own chair, blankets and food. The latter, of
+course, was all put into common stock, and Miller had fixed everything
+else. Since then we have been getting along jolly.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But who makes up your company?" inquired Alex.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know the whole outfit," answered Wright. "There is Miller, as I
+told you; there are, besides, Tom Carlin, old man Brewster, Herbert
+Ashley, Sammy Harding, Barney Corrigan and myself."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a good crowd; but you are not all working in the same mine, are
+you?" said the Professor, inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. Brewster is running a power-drill in the Bullion. He is a
+mechanic, you know, and not a real miner. Miller and Harding are in the
+Curry, Barney is in the Norcross, Carlin and Ashley are in the Imperial,
+and I in the Savage. But we all happen to be on the same shift, so, for
+this month at least, we have our evenings together."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be splendid," enthusiastically remarked the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you spend your evenings?" asked Alex.</p>
+
+<p>"We talk on all subjects except politics. That subject, we agreed at the
+start, should not be discussed. We read and compare notes on stocks."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you manage about your cooking?" queried the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a Chinaman, who is a daisy. He is cook, housekeeper,
+chambermaid, and would be companion and musician if we could stand it.
+You must come up and see us."</p>
+
+<p>"I will come to-morrow evening," Alex replied, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"So will I," said the Colonel, with a positiveness that was noticeable.</p>
+
+<p>"And so will I," shouted the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the eleven o'clock whistles sounded up and down the lead.
+"That is our signal for retiring," said Wright, "and so good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go out and take a night cap, first," said the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I must," said Wright. "Though the rule of our Club is only a
+little for medicine."</p>
+
+<p>The night caps were ordered and swallowed. Then the men separated, the
+Colonel, Professor and Wright going home, the journalist to his work.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Stoneman was a character. Tall and spare, with such an outline
+as Abraham Lincoln had. He was fifty years of age, with grave and serene
+face when in repose, and with the mien of one of the faculty of a
+university. Still he had that nature which caused him when a boy to run
+away from his Indiana home to the Mexican war, and he fought through all
+that long day at Buena Vista, a lad of eighteen years. Of course he was
+with the first to reach California. He had tried mining and many other
+things, but the deeper side of his nature was to pursue the
+sciences&mdash;the lighter to mingle with good fellows. He would tell a story
+one moment and the next would combat a scientific theory with the most
+learned of the Eastern scientists, and carry away from the controversy
+the full respect of his opponent. There was a great fund of merriment
+within him, and his generosity not only kept his bank account a minus
+number, but moreover, kept his heart aching that he had no more to give.
+When by himself he was an incessant student, and beside knowing all that
+the books taught, he had his own ideas of their correctness, especially
+those that deal with the formation of ore deposits. He was a learned
+writer, a gifted lecturer and an expert of mines, and, over all, the
+most genial of men.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian Wright was of another stamp altogether. He was tall and strong,
+with large feet and hands, a massive man in all respects, and forty-five
+years of age.</p>
+
+<p>He had a cool and brave gray eye, a firm, strong mouth, very light brown
+hair and carried always with him a something which first impressed those
+who saw him with his power, while a second look gave the thought that
+beside the power which was visible, he had unmeasured reserves of
+concealed force which he could call upon on demand.</p>
+
+<p>He went an uncultured lad to California. He was at first a placer miner.
+Obtaining a good deal of money he became a mountain trader and the owner
+of a ditch, which supplied some hydraulic grounds. He was brusque in his
+address, said "whar" and "thar," but his head was large and firmly
+poised; his heart was warm as a child's, and he was loved for his clear,
+good sense and for the sterling manhood which was apparent in all his
+ways. Though uncultured in the schools, he had read a great deal, and,
+mixing much with men, his judgment had matured, until in his mountain
+hamlet his word had become an authority.</p>
+
+<p>His friends persuaded him to become a candidate for the State
+Legislature. After he had consented to run he spent a good deal of money
+in the campaign. He was elected and went to Sacramento. There he was
+persuaded to buy largely of Comstock stocks. He bought on a margin. When
+it came time to put up more money he could not without borrowing. He
+would not do that through fear that he could not pay. He lost the
+stocks. He went home in the spring to find that his clerks had given
+large credits to miners; the hydraulic mines ceased to pay, which
+rendered his ditch property valueless, and a few days later his store
+burned down. When his debts were paid he had but a few hundred dollars
+left. He said nothing about his reverses, but went to Virginia City and
+for several years had been working in the mines.</p>
+
+<p>As already said, a miners' mess had been formed. Seven miners on the
+Comstock might be picked out who would pretty nearly represent the whole
+world.</p>
+
+<p>This band had been drawn together partly because of certain traits that
+they possessed in common, though they were each distinctly different
+from all the others.</p>
+
+<p>We have read of Wright. Of the others, James Brewster, was the eldest of
+the company. He was fifty years of age, and from Massachusetts. He was
+not tall, but was large and powerful.</p>
+
+<p>There were streaks of gray in his hair, but his eyes were clear, and
+black as midnight. He had a bold nose and invincible mouth; the
+expression of his whole face was that of a resolute, self-contained, but
+kindly nature. All his movements were quick and positive.</p>
+
+<p>He was educated, and though of retiring ways, when he talked everybody
+near him listened. He was not a miner, but a mechanical engineer, and
+his work was the running of power drills in the mine. He never talked
+much of his own affairs, but it was understood that misfortune in
+business had caused him to seek the West somewhat late in life. The
+truth was he had never been rich. He possessed a moderately prosperous
+business until a long illness came to his wife, and when the depression
+which followed the reaction from the war and the contraction of the
+currency fell upon the North, he found he had little left, and so sought
+a new field.</p>
+
+<p>He was the Nestor of the Club and was exceedingly loved by his
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>Miller, who first proposed the Club, was a New Yorker by birth, a man
+forty-five years of age, medium height, keen gray eyes, a clear-cut,
+sharp face, slight of build, but all nerve and muscle, and lithe as a
+panther. He had been for a quarter of a century on the west coast, and
+knew it well from British Columbia to Mexico, and from the Rocky
+Mountains to the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>He was given a good education in his youth; he had mingled with all
+sorts of men and been engaged in all kinds of business. There was a
+perpetual flash to his eyes, and a restlessness upon him which made him
+uneasy if restrained at all. He had the reputation of being inclined to
+take desperate chances sometimes, but was honorable, thoroughly, and
+generous to a fault.</p>
+
+<p>He had studied men closely, and of Nature's great book he was a constant
+reader. He knew the voices of the forests and of the streams; he had a
+theory that the world was but a huge animal; that if we were but wise
+enough to understand, we should hear from Nature's own voices the story
+of the world and hear revealed all her profound secrets.</p>
+
+<p>He possessed a magnetism which drew friends to him everywhere. His hair
+was still unstreaked with gray, but his face was care-worn, like that of
+one who had been dissipated or who had suffered many disappointments.</p>
+
+<p>Carlin was twenty-eight years of age, long of limb, angular, gruff, but
+hearty; quick, sharp and shrewd, but free-handed and generally in the
+best of humors. He was an Illinois man, and a good type of the men of
+the Old West.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were brown, his hair chestnut; erect, he was six feet in
+height, but seated, there seemed to be no place for his hands and hardly
+room enough for his feet. He was well-educated, and had been but three
+and a half years on the Comstock.</p>
+
+<p>All the Californians in the Club insisted, of course, that there was no
+other place but that, but this Carlin always vehemently denied, for he
+came from the State of Lincoln and Douglas, and the State, moreover,
+that had Chicago in one corner of it, and he did not believe there was
+another such State in all the Republic.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley was from Pennsylvania; a young man of twenty-five, above medium
+height, compact as a tiger in his make-up, and weighing, perhaps, one
+hundred and eighty pounds. His eyes were gray, his hair brown, his face
+almost classic in its outlines; his feet and hands were particularly
+small and finely formed, and there was a jollity and heartiness about
+his laugh which was contagious. He had an excellent education, and had
+seen a good deal of business in his early manhood.</p>
+
+<p>Corrigan was a thorough Irishman, generous, warm-hearted, witty,
+sociable, brave to recklessness, curly-haired, with laughing, blue eyes;
+the most open and frank of faces that was ever smiling, powerfully built
+and ready at a moment's notice to fight anyone or give anyone his purse.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody knew and liked him, and he liked everybody that, as he
+expressed it, was worth the liking.</p>
+
+<p>He had come to America a lad of ten. He lived for twelve years in New
+York City, attended the schools, and was in his last year in the High
+School when, for some wild freak, he had been expelled. He worked two
+years in a Lake Superior copper mine, then went to California and worked
+there until lured to Nevada by the silver mines, and had been on the
+Comstock five years when the Club was formed.</p>
+
+<p>Harding was the boy of the company, only twenty-two years of age, a
+native California lad. But he was hardly a type of his State.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were that shade of gray which looks black in the night; his
+hair was auburn. He had a splendid form, though not quite filled out;
+his head was a sovereign one.</p>
+
+<p>But he was reticent almost to seriousness, and it was in this respect
+that he did not seem quite like a California boy. There was a reason for
+it. He was the son of an Argonaut who had been reckless in business and
+most indulgent to his boy. He had a big farm near Los Angeles, and
+shares in mines all over the coast. The boy had grown up half on the
+farm and half in the city. He was an adept in his studies; he was just
+as much an adept when it came to riding a wild horse.</p>
+
+<p>He had gained a good education and was just entering the senior class in
+college when his father suddenly died. He mourned for him exceedingly,
+and when his affairs were investigated it was found there was a mortgage
+on the old home.</p>
+
+<p>He believed there was a future for the land. So he made an arrangement
+to meet the interest on the mortgage annually, then went to San
+Francisco, obtained an order for employment on a Comstock
+superintendent, went at once to Virginia City and took up his regular
+labor as a miner. He had been thus employed for a year when the Club was
+formed.</p>
+
+<p>This was the company that had formed a mess. Miller had worked up the
+scheme.</p>
+
+<p>It had been left to Miller to prepare the house&mdash;to buy the necessary
+materials for beginning housekeeping, like procuring the dishes, knives
+and forks and spoons, and benches or cheap chairs, for the dining room,
+and it was agreed to begin on the next pay day.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>About four o'clock in the afternoon of the day appointed for commencing
+housekeeping, our miners gathered at this new home. The provisions,
+bedding and chairs had been sent in advance, in care of Miller, who had
+remained above ground that day, in order to have things in apple-pie
+shape. The chairs were typical of the men. Brewster's was a common,
+old-fashioned, flag-bottomed affair, worth about three dollars. Carlin
+and Wright each had comfortable armchairs; Ashley and Harding had neat
+office chairs, while Miller and Corrigan each had heavy upholstered
+armchairs, which cost sixty dollars each.</p>
+
+<p>When all laughed at Brewster's chair, he merely answered that it would
+do, and when Miller and Corrigan were asked what on earth they had
+purchased such out-of-place furniture for, to put in a miner's cabin,
+Miller answered: "I got trusted and didn't want to make a bill for
+nothing," and Corrigan said: "To tell the truth, I was not over-much
+posted on this furniture business, I did not want to invest in too chape
+an article, so I ordered the best in the thavin' establishment, because
+you know a good article is always chape, no matter what the cost may
+be."</p>
+
+<p>The next thing in order was to compare the bills for provisions.
+Brewster drew his bill from his pocket and read as follows: Twenty
+pounds bacon, $7.50; forty pounds potatoes, $1.60; ten pounds coffee,
+$3.75; one sack flour, $4.00; cream tartar and salaratus, $1.00; ten
+pounds sugar, $2.75; pepper, salt and mustard, $1.50; ten pounds prunes,
+$2.50; one bottle XXX for medicine, $2.00; total, $32.60.</p>
+
+<p>The bill was receipted. The bills of Wright and Harding each comprised
+about the same list, and amounted to about the same sum. They, too, were
+receipted. The funny features were that each one had purchased nearly
+similar articles, and the last item on each of the bills was a charge of
+$2.00 for medicine. It had been agreed that no liquor should be bought
+except for medicine.</p>
+
+<p>The bills of Carlin and Ashley were not different in variety, but each
+had purchased in larger quantities, so that those bills footed up about
+$45 each. On each of the bills, too, was an item of $4.75 for demijohn
+and "half gallon of whisky for medicine." All were receipted.</p>
+
+<p>Corrigan's bill amounted to $73, including one-half gallon of whisky and
+one bottle of brandy "for medicine," and his too was receipted.</p>
+
+<p>Miller read last. His bill had a little more variety, and amounted to
+$97.16. The last item was: "To demijohn and one gallon whisky for
+medicine, $8.00." On this bill was a credit for $30.00.</p>
+
+<p>A general laugh followed the reading of these bills. The variety
+expected was hardly realized, as Corrigan remarked: "The bills lacked
+somewhat in versatility, but there was no doubt about there being plenty
+of food of the kind and no end to the medicine."</p>
+
+<p>When the laugh had subsided, Brewster said: "Miller estimated that our
+provisions would not cost to exceed $15.00 per month apiece. I tried to
+be reasonable and bought about enough for two months, but here we have a
+ship load. Why did you buy out a store, Miller?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had to make a bill and I did not want the grocery man to think we
+were paupers," retorted Miller.</p>
+
+<p>"How much were the repairs on the house, Miller?" asked Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the beggar's bill. It's a dead swindle, and I told him so. He
+ought to have been a plumber. He had by the Eternal. He has no more
+conscience than a police judge. Here's the scoundrel's bill," said
+Miller, excitedly, as he proceeded to read the following:</p>
+
+<p>"'To repairing roof, $17.50; twenty battens, $4.00; to putting on
+battens, $3.00; hanging one door, $3.50; six lights glass, $3.00;
+setting same, $3.00; lumber, $4.80; putting up bunks, $27.50; total,
+$66.30.'</p>
+
+<p>"The man is no better than a thief; if he is, I'm a sinner."</p>
+
+<p>"You bought some dishes, did you not, Miller?" inquired Ashley. "How
+much did they amount to?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's another scalper," answered Miller, warmly. "I told him we
+wanted a few dishes, knives, forks, etc.&mdash;just enough for seven men to
+cabin with&mdash;and here is the bill. It foots up $63.37. A bill for wood
+also amounts to $15.00; two extra chairs, $6.00."</p>
+
+<p>Brewster, who had been making a memorandum, spoke up and said: "If I
+have made no error the account stands as follows:</p>
+
+<table width="50%">
+<tr><td>Provisions</td><td align="right">$357 56</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Crockery, knives, forks, etc.</td><td align="right">53 37</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Wood</td><td align="right">19 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Repairs</td><td align="right">66 50</td></tr>
+<tr><td>One month's rent</td><td align="right">50 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td>One month's water</td><td align="right">7 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chairs</td><td align="right">6 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">--------</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Making a total of</td><td align="right">$559 43</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Or, in round numbers, eighty dollars per capita for us all. I settled my
+account at the store, amounting to $32.60, which leaves $47.40 as my
+proportion of the balance. Here is the money."</p>
+
+<p>This was like Brewster. Some of the others settled and a part begged-off
+until next pay-day.</p>
+
+<p>The next question was about the cooking. After a brief debate it was
+determined that all would join in getting up the first supper. So one
+rushed to a convenient butcher shop and soon returned with a basket full
+of porter house steaks, sweetbreads and lamb chops; another prepared the
+potatoes and put them in the oven; another attended to the fire; another
+to setting the table. Brewster was delegated to make the coffee. To
+Corrigan was ascribed the task of cooking the meats, while Miller
+volunteered to make some biscuits that would "touch their hearts."</p>
+
+<p>He mixed the ingredients in the usual way and thoroughly kneaded the
+dough. He then, with the big portion of a whisky bottle for a
+rolling-pin, rolled the dough out about a fourth of an inch thick. He
+then touched it gently all over with half melted butter; rolled the thin
+sheet into a large roll; then with the bottle reduced this again to the
+required thickness for biscuits, and, with a tumbler, cut them out. His
+biscuit trick he had learned from an old Hungarian, who, for a couple of
+seasons, had been his mining partner. It is an art which many a fine
+lady would be glad to know. The result is a biscuit which melts like
+cream in the mouth&mdash;like a fair woman's smile on a hungry eye. Corrigan
+had his sweetbreads frying, and when the biscuits were put in the oven,
+the steak and chops were put on to broil. The steak had been salted and
+peppered&mdash;miner's fashion&mdash;and over it slices of bacon, cut thin as
+wafers, had been laid. The bacon, under the heat, shriveled up and
+rolled off into the fire, but not until the flavor had been given to the
+steak. One of the miners had opened a couple of cans of preserved
+pine-apples; the coffee was hot, the meats and the biscuits were ready,
+and so the simple supper was served. Harding had placed the chairs;
+Brewster's was at the head of the table.</p>
+
+<p>Corrigan waited until all the others had taken their seats at the table;
+then, with a glass in his hand and a demijohn thrown over his right
+elbow, he stepped forward and said:</p>
+
+<p>"To didicate the house, and also as a medicine, I prescribe for aitch
+patient forty drops."</p>
+
+<p>Each took his medicine resignedly, and as the last one returned the
+glass, Corrigan added: "It appears to me I am not faling ony too well
+meself," and either as a remedy or preventive, he took some of the
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p>The supper was ravenously swallowed by the men, who for months had eaten
+nothing but miners' boarding-house fare. With one voice they declared
+that it was the first real meal they had eaten for weeks, and over their
+coffee they drank long life to housekeeping and confusion to
+boarding-houses.</p>
+
+<p>When the supper was over and the things put away, the pipes were
+lighted. By this time the shadow of Mount Davidson around them had
+melted into the gloom of the night, and for the first time in months
+these men settled themselves down to spend an evening at home. It was a
+new experience.</p>
+
+<p>"It is just splendid," cried Wright. "No beer, no billiards, no painted
+nymphs, no chance for a row. We have been sorry fools for months&mdash;for
+years, for that matter&mdash;or we would have opened business at this stand
+long ago."</p>
+
+<p>"We have, indeed," said Ashley. "To-night we make a new departure. What
+shall we call our mess?"</p>
+
+<p>Many names were suggested, but finally "The Comstock Club" was proposed
+and nominated by acclamation.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3> THE COMSTOCK CLUB.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>It was agreed, too, that no other members, except honorary members,
+should be admitted, and no politics talked. Then the conversation became
+general, and later, confidential; and each member of the Club uncovered
+a little his heart and his hopes.</p>
+
+<p>Miller meant, so soon as he "made a little stake," to go down to San
+Francisco and assault the stock sharps right in their Pine and
+California street dens. He believed he had discovered the rule which
+could reduce stock speculation to an exact science, and he was anxious
+for the opportunity which a little capital would afford, "to show those
+sharpers at the Bay a trick or two, which they had never yet 'dropped
+on.'" He added, patronizingly: "I will loan you all so much money, by
+and by, that each of you will have enough to start a bank."</p>
+
+<p>"I shtarted a bank alridy, all be mesilf, night before last," said
+Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of a bank was it, Barney?" asked Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"One of King Pharo's. I put a twenty-dollar pace upon the Quane; that
+shtarted the bank. The chap on the other side of the table commenced to
+pay out the pictures, and the Quane&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what of the Queen, Barney?" asked Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"She fill down be the side of the sardane box, and the chap raked in me
+double agle."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you like that style of banking, Barney?" asked Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Its mighty plisant and enthertainin', of course; the business sames
+to be thransacted with a grate dale of promptness and dispatch; the only
+drawback seems to be that the rates of ixchange are purty high."</p>
+
+<p>Tom Carlin knew of a great farm, a store, a flour mill, and a hazel-eyed
+girl back in Illinois. He coveted them all, but was determined to
+possess the girl anyway.</p>
+
+<p>After a little persuasion, he showed her picture to the Club. They all
+praised it warmly, and Corrigan declared she was a daisy. In a neat hand
+on the bottom of the picture was written: "With love, Susie Richards."
+Carlin always referred to her as "Susie Dick."</p>
+
+<p>Harding, upon being rallied, explained that his father came with the
+Argonauts to the West; that he was brilliant, but over-generous; that he
+had lived fast and with his purse open to every one, and had died while
+yet in his prime, leaving an encumbered estate, which must be cleared of
+its indebtedness, that no stain might rest upon the name of Harding.
+There was a gleam in the dark eyes, and a ring to the voice of the boy
+as he spoke, that kindled the admiration of the Club, and when he ceased
+speaking, Miller reached out and shook his hand, saying: "You should
+have the money, my boy!"</p>
+
+<p>Back in Massachusetts, Brewster had met with a whole train of
+misfortunes; his property had become involved; his wife had died&mdash;his
+voice lowered and grew husky when mentioning this&mdash;he had two little
+girls, Mable and Mildred. He had kept his children at school and paid
+their way despite the iron fortune that had hedged him about, and he was
+working to shield them from all the sorrows possible, without the aid of
+the Saint who had gone to heaven. The Club was silent for a moment, when
+the strong man added, solemnly, and as if to himself: "Who knows that
+she does not help us still?"</p>
+
+<p>In his youth, Brewster acquired the trade of an engineer. At this time,
+as we learned before, he was running a power drill in the Bullion. He
+was a great reader and was thorough on many subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Wright had his eyes on a stock range in California, where the land was
+cheap, the pasturage fine, the water abundant, and where, with the land
+and a few head of stock for a beginning, a man would in a few years be
+too rich to count his money. He had been accustomed to stock, when a
+boy, in Missouri, and was sure that there was more fun in chasing a wild
+steer with a good mustang, than finding the biggest silver mine in
+America.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley had gained some new ideas since coming West. He believed he knew
+a cheap farm back in Pennsylvania, that, with thorough cultivation,
+would yield bountifully. There were coal and iron mines there also,
+which he could open in a way to make old fogies in that country open
+their eyes. He knew, too, of a district there, where a man, if he
+behaved himself, might be elected to Congress. It was plain, from his
+talk, that he had some ambitious plans maturing in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Corrigan had an old mother in New York. He was going to have a few acres
+of land after awhile in California, where grapes and apricots would
+grow, and chickens and pigs would thrive and be happy. He was going to
+fix the place to his own notion, then was going to send for his mother,
+and when she came, every day thereafter he was going to look into the
+happiest old lady's eyes between the seas.</p>
+
+<p>So they talked, and did not note how swiftly the night was speeding,
+until the deep whistle of the Norcross hoisting engine sounded for the
+eleven o'clock shift, and in an instant was followed by all the whistles
+up and down the great lode.</p>
+
+<p>Then the good nights were said, and in ten minutes the lights were
+extinguished and the mantles of night and silence were wrapped around
+the house.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>An early breakfast was prepared by the whole Club, as the supper of the
+previous evening had been. The miners had to be at the mines, where they
+worked, promptly at 7 o'clock, to take the places of the men who had
+worked since eleven o'clock the previous night.</p>
+
+<p>While at breakfast the door of the house was softly opened and a
+Chinaman showed his face. He explained that he was a "belly good cook,"
+and would like to work for ten dollars a week.</p>
+
+<p>Carlin was nearest the door, and in a bantering tone opened a
+conversation with the Mongolian.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your name, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yap Sing."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a good cook, sure, Yap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, me belly good cook; me cookie bleef-steak, chickie, turkie,
+goosie; me makie bled, pie, ebbything; me belly good cook."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any cousins, Yap?"</p>
+
+<p>"No cuzzie; no likie cuzzie."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you get drunk, Yap?"</p>
+
+<p>"No gettie glunk; no likie blandy."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you smoke opium?"</p>
+
+<p>"No likie smokie opium. You sabe, one man smokie opium, letee while he
+all same one fool; all same one d&mdash;&mdash;d monkey."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we were to hire you, Yap, how long would it take you to steal
+everything in the ranch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me no stealie; me no likie stealie."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Yap, suppose we hire you and we all go off to the mines and leave
+you here, and some one comes and wants to buy bacon and beans and flour
+and sugar, what would you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me no sellie."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose some one comes and wants to steal things, what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me cuttie his ears off; me cuttie his d&mdash;&mdash;d throat."</p>
+
+<p>At this Brewster interposed and said: "I believe it would be a good idea
+to engage this Chinaman. We are away and the place is unprotected all
+day; besides, after a man has worked all day down in the hot levels of
+the Comstock, he does not feel like cooking his own dinner. Let us give
+John a trial."</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed to. Yap Sing was duly installed. He was instructed to have
+supper promptly at six o'clock; orders were given him on the markets for
+fresh meat, vegetables, etc. From the remnants of the breakfast the
+dinner buckets were filled and the men went away to their work.</p>
+
+<p>Yap Sing proved to be an artist in his way. When the members of the Club
+met again at their home, a splendid, hot supper was waiting for them.
+They ate, as hungry miners do, congratulating themselves that, as it
+were from the sky, an angel of a heathen had dropped down upon them.</p>
+
+<p>After supper, when the pipes were lighted, the conversation of the
+previous evening was resumed.</p>
+
+<p>The second night brought out something of the history of each. They had
+nearly all lived in California; some had wandered the Golden Coast all
+over; all had roughed it, and all had an experience to relate. These
+evening visits soon became very enjoyable to the members of the Club,
+and the friendship of the members for each other increased as they the
+more thoroughly, knew the inner lives of each other.</p>
+
+<p>On this night, Wright was the last to speak of himself. When he had
+concluded, Ashley said to him: "Wright, you have had some lively
+experiences. What is the most impressive scene that you ever witnessed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know." Wright replied. "I think maybe a mirage that was
+painted for me, one day, out on the desert, this side of the sink of the
+Humbolt, when I was crossing the plains, shook me up about as much as
+anything that ever overtook me, except the chills and fever, which I
+used to have when a boy, back in Missouri. For only a picture it was
+right worrisome."</p>
+
+<p>The Club wanted to hear about it, and so Wright proceeded as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"We had been having rough times for a good while; thar had been sickness
+in the train; some of the best animals had been poisoned with alkali;
+thar had been some Injun scares&mdash;it was in '57&mdash;and we all had been
+broken, more or less, of our rest, I in particular, was a good deal
+jolted up; was nervous and full of starts and shivers. I suspect thar
+was a little fever on me. We halted one morning on the desert, to rest
+the stock, and make some coffee. It was about eight o'clock. We had been
+traveling since sundown the night before, crossing the great desert, and
+hoped to reach Truckee River that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"While resting, a mighty desire took possession of me to see the river,
+and to feel that the desert was crossed.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a saddle mule that was still in good condition. I had petted him
+since he was three days old, had broken him, and he and myself were the
+best of friends. His mother was a thoroughbred Kentucky mare; from her
+he had inherited his courage and staying qualities, while he had also
+just enough of his father's stubbornness to be useful, for it held his
+heart up to the work when things got rough.</p>
+
+<p>"I looked over the train; it was all right; I was not needed; would not
+be any more that day.</p>
+
+<p>"The mule was brought up in the Osage hills, and I had named him Osage,
+which after awhile became contracted to Sage. I went to him and looked
+him over. He was quietly munching a bacon sack. I took a couple of
+quarts of wheaten flour, mixed it into a soft paste, with water from one
+of the kegs which had been brought along, and gave it to him. He drank
+it as a hungry boy drinks porridge, and licked the dish clean. The
+journey had impressed upon him the absolute need of exercising the
+closest economy.</p>
+
+<p>"When he had finished his rather light breakfast, I whispered to him
+that if he would stand in with me, I would show him, before night, the
+prettiest stream of water&mdash;snow water&mdash;in the world. I think he
+understood me perfectly. Telling the people of the train that I would go
+ahead and look out a camping place, I took my shotgun, put a couple of
+biscuits in my pocket, and mounted Sage. He struck out at once on his
+long swinging walk.</p>
+
+<p>"It was an August morning and had been hot ever since the sun rose. That
+is a feature out thar on the desert in the summer. The nights get cold,
+but so soon as the sun comes up, it is like going down into the
+Comstock. In fifteen minutes everything is steaming. Old Ben Allen, down
+on the borders of the Cherokee Nation, never of a morning, warmed up his
+niggers any livelier than the sun does the desert.</p>
+
+<p>"I rode for a couple of hours. As I said, I was weak and nervous. In the
+sand, Sage's feet hardly made any sound, and the glare and the silence
+of the desert were around and upon me. If you never experienced it you
+don't know what the silence of the desert means. Take a day when the
+winds are laid; when in all directions, as far as your vision extends,
+thar is not a moving thing; when all that you can see is the brazen sky
+overhead, and the scarred breast of the earth, as if smitten and
+transfixed by Thor's thunderbolts, lying prone and desolate like the
+face of a dead world, before you; and withal not one sound: absolute
+stillness; and strong nerves after awhile become strained. On me, that
+forenoon, my surroundings became almost intolerable. I had been on foot
+driving team all night; I had eaten nothing since midnight, and then had
+only forced down a small slice of bread and a cup of horrible black
+coffee, and was really not more than half myself. One moment I was
+chilly; the next was perspiring, and sometimes it seemed as though I
+should suffocate. With my nerves strung up as they were, I guess it
+would not have required much to give me a panic.</p>
+
+<p>"Just then, out against the sun to the southward, and apparently a mile
+away, I saw something. Talk about being impressed! that was my time. I
+was sure I saw five hundred Indian warriors, all mounted. They were
+wheeling in black squadrons on the desert, wheeling and forming, as I
+thought. Horses and men were all black, and now and then as they wheeled
+or swung to and fro, I marked what I was sure was the gleam of steel.
+They evidently had seen me: I expected every moment to hear their yell
+and wondered that I did not feel the tremble of the earth beneath their
+horses' feet; I was too nearly paralyzed to try to escape. I slipped or
+fell, I don't know which, from my mule, and lay panting like a tired
+hound upon the sand. But I could not keep my eyes from the terrible
+sight before me. Still those tawny warriors kept wheeling and forming,
+and as I believed, menacing me.</p>
+
+<p>"At length I grew a little calmer, and remember that I explained to
+myself that the reason I did not hear the thunder of their horses' feet,
+was because of the sand, and from the fact that the ponies could not be
+shod. But I wondered more and more where an Indian tribe could get so
+many black horses.</p>
+
+<p>"Once, when they seemed particularly furious, and just on the point of
+charging down upon me; I remember that I said to myself: 'If they eat me
+they will have to broil me in the sun, for thar is no fuel here.' All
+the time too, I was pitying Sage, and my own voice frightened me as I
+unconsciously said: 'Poor Sage, it is a hard fate to be faithful and
+suffer as you have and then fall into the hands of savages.'</p>
+
+<p>"When a little more under my own control, I cautiously rose to my feet
+and looked at the mule. It was no use. On top of the fatigue of coming
+quite two thousand miles, he had, on that morning, been constantly
+traveling for fourteen hours, with only two rests of thirty minutes
+each. He never could get away from those fresh ponies. I looked back in
+the direction of the train; it was nowhar in sight and must have been
+back probably five miles.</p>
+
+<p>"In this strait I looked up again toward my savages. At that very moment
+the charge commenced; the whole array was bearing down upon me. I took
+my gun from the horn of the saddle and sat down on the ground. I
+felt&mdash;but no matter how I felt; I only know that at that moment I would
+have given my note for a large sum to have been back in Missouri.</p>
+
+<p>"On they swept, and I watched them coming. But somehow they began to
+grow smaller and smaller, and in an instant more the squadron vanished.
+Where the moment before an armed band, terrible with life and bristling
+with fury, had shone upon my eyes, now all that there was to be seen was
+a flock of perhaps twenty ravens, flying with short flights, and hopping
+and lighting around some little thing, which lay above the level of the
+desert. I mounted Sage and rode out to the spot, some four hundred yards
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"I found another road, and strung along it, were the carcasses of a good
+many cattle that had died in emigrant trains. The ravens were hopping
+about these carcasses and flying from one to another. I had heard of the
+mirage of the desert, when a boy in school, and suddenly 'I dropped
+upon' the whole business. By some mighty refraction of the beams of
+light, these miserable scavengers of the desert had been magnified into
+formidable, mounted warriors, and the glint of steel that I had seen,
+was but the shimmer of sunbeams upon their black wings.</p>
+
+<p>"Again I headed Sage for the river. In a little while he commenced to
+stretch out his nose; soon, of his own accord, he quickened his pace to
+a trot, a little later he took up his long lope and never relaxed his
+speed until he drove his nose into the delicious water of the Truckee. I
+dismounted and joined him. Right there we each took the biggest and
+longest drink of our lives; then I gave Sage one of my biscuits and ate
+the other myself, and we both felt immensely refreshed. I stripped the
+saddle and bridle from the mule and let him go. The river bank was green
+with grass and Sage was happy.</p>
+
+<p>"Throwing myself upon the ground, and laying my head upon the saddle, I
+composed myself for a sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"I was greatly in need of sleep, but the moment I closed my eyes, here
+came my black cavalry charging down upon me again, and I sprang up with
+a cry. Of all impressive scenes, that was my biggest one sure. I see it
+in my dreams still, at times, and I never, from this mountain side, look
+down to where the sand clouds are piling up their dunes over toward the
+Sink of the Carson, that I do not instinctively take one furtive glance
+in search of my savages."</p>
+
+<p>"I had a livelier mirage than that once," said Miller with a laugh. "I
+was prospecting for quartz in the foothills of Rogue River Valley,
+Oregon, and looking up, I thought I saw four or five deer, lying under a
+tree, on a hill side, about three hundred yards away. I raised the sight
+on my gun, took as good aim as I could on horseback, and blazed away.</p>
+
+<p>"In a second, four of those Rogue River Indians sprang from the ground
+and made for me. I had a good horse, but they ran me six miles before
+they gave up the chase. No more mirages like that for me, if you
+please."</p>
+
+<p>"I had a worse one than either of yees," chimed in Corrigan. "It was in
+that tough winter of '69. I had been placer mining up by Pine Grove, in
+California, all summer. I had a fair surface claim, and by wurking half
+the time, I paid me way and had a few dollars besides. The other half of
+the time I was wurking upon a dape cut, through bid rock, to get a fall
+in which I could place heavy sluices, and calculated that with the
+spring I could put in a pipe, and hydraulic more ground in one sason
+than I could wurk in the ould way in tin. One day, late in the autumn, I
+went up to La Porte to buy supplies, and on the night that I made that
+camp it began to snow. When once it got shtarted, it just continued to
+snow, as it can up in those mountains, and niver "lit up" for four hours
+at a time for thray wakes. It began to look as though the glacial period
+had returned to the wurld.</p>
+
+<p>"When I wint into town, I put up at Mrs. O'Kelly's boardin' and lodgin'
+house. Mrs. O'Kelly was a big woman, weighin' full two hundred pounds,
+and she was a business woman. She didn't pretind to be remainin' in La
+Porte jist for her hilth.</p>
+
+<p>"But there was a beautiful girl waitin' on the table in Mrs. O'Kelly's
+home. Her name was Maggie Murphy, and she was as thrim and purty a girl
+as you would wish to mate. She had bright, cheery ways, and whin she
+wint up to a table and sung out 'Soup'? all the crockery in the dinin'
+room would dance for joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Of an avenin' I used, after a few days, to visit a bit with Maggie.
+Some one had told about the camp that I had a great mine, and was all
+solid, and I was willin' to have the delusion kipt up, anyway until the
+storm saised. Maggie, I have a suspicion, had hurd the same story, for
+she was exceedingly gracious loike to me. One avenin,' as I was sayin'
+'good night'&mdash;we were growin' mighty familiar loike thin&mdash;I said
+'Maggie,' says I, 'the last woman I iver kissed was my ould mother, may
+I not kiss you, for I love you, darlint?' 'Indade you shall not,' says
+she, but in spite of that, somethin' in her eyes made me bould loike,
+and I saised upon and hild her&mdash;but she did not hould so very hard&mdash;and
+I kissed her upon chake and lips and eyes, and me arms were around her,
+and her heart was throbbin' warm against mine, and me soul was in the
+siventh heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"After awhile we quieted down a bit, and with me arms shtill around her,
+I asked, didn't she think Corrigan was a purtier name nor Murphy, and as
+I could not change my name fur her sake, wouldn't she change hers fur
+moine?</p>
+
+<p>"Thin with the tears shinin' loike shtars in her beautiful eyes, she
+raised up her arms, let thim shtale round me neck, and layin' her chake
+against me breast, which was throbbin' loike a stone bruise, said, said
+she, 'Yis, Barney, darlint.'</p>
+
+<p>"I had niver thought Barney was a very beautiful name before, but jist
+then it shtruck upon me ear swater thin marriage bells."</p>
+
+<p>Here Miller interrupted with, "You felt pretty proud just then, did you
+not, Barney?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Koohinoor would not hiv made a collar button fur me."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't interrupt him, Miller," interposed Carlin; "let Barney tell us the
+rest of the story."</p>
+
+<p>"There was a sofay near by. I drew Maggie to it, sat down and hild her
+to me side. She was pale, and we were both sort of trembly loike.</p>
+
+<p>"We did not talk much at first, but after awile Maggie said, suddent,
+said she: 'What a liar you are, Barney!'</p>
+
+<p>"And I said 'for why?' And she said 'to say you had niver kissed a woman
+since you had lift your ould mother. You have had plinty of practice.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And how do you know,' says I, and thin&mdash;but no matter, we had to begin
+all over again.</p>
+
+<p>"After awhile I wint away to bid, and talk about your mirages; all that
+night there was a convoy of angels around me, and the batein' of their
+wings was swater than the echoes that float in whin soft music comes
+from afar over still wathers.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the angels had just folded her wings and taken the form of
+Maggie, and was jist bend in' over me, whisperin' beautiful loike, whin,
+oh murther, I was wakened with a cry of: 'Are ye there now, ye
+blackguard?' I opened me eyes, and there stood Mrs. O'Kelly, with a
+broomstick over her head, and somethin' in her eye that looked moighty
+like a cloudburst.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ye thavin' villin,' said she, 'pertendin' to be a rich miner, and
+atin' up a poor woman all the time.' Thin she broke down intoirely and
+comminced wailin.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, Mr. Corrigan,' she howled through her sobs, 'How could yees come
+here and impose upon a unsuspectin' widdie; you know how hard I wurk;
+that I am up from early mornin' until the middle of the night, cookin'
+and shwapin' and makin' beds, and slavin' loike a black nigger, and&mdash;&mdash;'
+by this time she recovered her timper and complated the sintence with:
+'If yees don't pay me at once I'll&mdash;I'll, I'll&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"I found breath enough after awhile to tell her to hould on. My
+pantaloons were on a chair within aisy rache; I snatched thim up, sayin'
+as I did so: 'How much is your bill, Mrs. O'Kelly?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Thray wakes at iliven dollars is thray and thirty dollars, and one
+extra day is a dollar and five bits, or altogither, thirty-four dollars
+and five bits.'</p>
+
+<p>"I shtill had siveral twinty-dollar paces; I plunged me hand into the
+pocket of me pants, saized them all, thin let them drop upon aich other,
+all but two, and holdin' these out, said sharply, and still with the
+grand air of a millionaire: 'The change, if you plase, Mrs. O'Kelly.'</p>
+
+<p>"She took the money, gazed upon it a moment with a dazed and surprised
+look; thin suddenly her face was wrathed in smiles, and as softly as a
+woman with her voice (it sounded loike a muffled threshing machine)
+could, said: 'Take back your money. Mr. Corrigan, and remain as long as
+you plase. I was only jist after playin' a bit of a trick upon yees.
+What do yees think I care for a few beggarly dollars?'</p>
+
+<p>"But I could not see it; I remained firm. Again I said: 'The change, if
+you plase, Mrs. O'Kelly, and as soon too as convanient.'</p>
+
+<p>"She brought me the change, sayin': 'I'll have your brikfast smokin' hot
+for yees, in five minutes, Mr. Corrigan.'</p>
+
+<p>"I put on me clothes and looked out. The storm had worn itself out at
+last. I wint down stairs to the dinin' room door, and beckoned to
+Maggie. She came to me, and there ware the rale love-light in her
+beautiful eyes. I can see her now. She was straight as a pump rod; her
+head sat upon her nick like a picture; the nick itsilf was white loike
+snow&mdash;but niver mind.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come out in the hall a bit.' I whispered, and she come. I clasped her
+hand for a moment and said: 'It's goin' home I am, Maggie; I am goin' to
+fix me house a little: it will take me forty days to make me
+arrangements. If I come thin, will you take me name and go back with
+me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I will,' says she.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the sivinteenth of the month, Maggie; the sivinteenth of next
+month will be thirty days, and tin more will make it the twinty-sivinth.
+If I come thin, will yees go?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will, Barney, Dear,' was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have yees thought it over, and will yees be satisfied, darlint?' I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'I have, Barney; I shall be satisfied, and I will be a good wife to
+yees, darlint,' was the answer.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>MAGGIE.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"Thin I hild out me arms and she sprang into thim. There was an embrace
+and a kiss and thin&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Goodbye, Maggie!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Good bye, Barney!' and I wint away.</p>
+
+<p>"I wint to a ristaurant and got a cup of coffee, and was jist startin'
+fer home, whin a frind come up and said: 'Barney,' said he; 'there's a
+man here you ought to go and punch the nose off of.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What fur,' says I.</p>
+
+<p>"'He's a slanderin' of yer,' says he.</p>
+
+<p>"'Who is the man and what is he sayin?' says I.</p>
+
+<p>"'It's Mike Dougherty, the blacksmith,' says he; and he is a sayin' as
+how your claim is no account, and that you are a bummer.'</p>
+
+<p>"Me heart was too light to think of quarrelin'; on me lips the honey of
+Maggie's kiss was still warm, and what did I care what ony man said. I
+merely laughed, and said: 'Maybe he is right,' and wint upon me way."</p>
+
+<p>With this Corrigan ceased speaking. After a moment or two of silence,
+Carlin said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Barney, how was it in six weeks?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had another mirage thin," said Barney. "I wint up to town; called at
+Mrs. O'Kelly's; she mit me, smilin' like, and said: 'Walk in, Mr.
+Corrigan!' I said: 'If you please, Mrs. O'Kelly, can I see Miss Murphy?'
+There was a vicious twinkle in her eye, as she answered, pointin' to a
+nate house upon the hillside, as she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"'You will find her there, but her name is changed now. She was married
+on Thursday wake, to Mr. Mike Dougherty, the blacksmith. A foine man,
+and man of property, is Mr. Dougherty.'</p>
+
+<p>"Talk about shtrong impressions! For a moment I felt as though I was
+fallin' down a shaft. I&mdash;&mdash;but don't mention it."</p>
+
+<p>Barney was still for a moment, and then said, in a voice almost husky:
+"As I came into town that day, all the great pines were noddin,'
+shmilin' and stretchin' out their mighty arms, as much as to say: 'We
+congratulate you, Mr. Corrigan.' As I turned away from Mrs. O'Kelly's,
+it samed to me that ivery one of thim had drawn in its branches and
+stood as the hoodlum does whin he pints his thumb to his nose and
+wriggles his fingers."</p>
+
+<p>Just then the Potosi whistle rung out on the still night again, the
+others answered the call, and the Club, at the signal, retired.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>As the pipes were lighted next evening, Carlin said to Barney:
+"Corrigan, does the ghost of your La Porte mirage haunt you as Wright's
+does him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it," answered Corrigan sharply. "It hurt for awhile, I
+confess it, but a year and a half after Maggie was married, I passed her
+house one avenin' in the gloaming, and in a voice which I knew well,
+though all the swateness had been distilled out of it, this missage came
+out upon the air: 'Mike, if yees have got the brat to slape, yees had
+better lay him down and come out to your tay. I should loike to get
+these supper things put away sometime to-night.' Be dad, there was no
+mirage about that, no ravens about that, Wright; it was the charge of
+the rale Injun!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking of babies," said Miller nonchalantly, "do you know that about
+the most touching scene I ever witnessed was over a baby? It was in
+Downieville. California, way back in '51 or '2. You know at that time
+babies were not very numerous in the Sierras. There were plenty of men
+there who had not seen a good woman, or a baby, for two years or more.
+You may not believe it, but you shut the presence of women and children
+all out of men's lives, for months at a time, and they contract a
+disease, which I call 'heart hunger,' and because of that I suspect that
+more whiskey has been drunk in this country, and more killings have
+grown out of trifling quarrels, than through all other causes combined.
+Without the eyes of women, good women, that he respects, upon a man, in
+a little while the wild beast, which is latent in all men's hearts,
+begins to assert itself. Because of this, men who were born to be good
+and true, have, to kill the unrest within their souls, taken to drink;
+the drink has led naturally up to a quarrel; they have got away with
+their first fight; the fools around them have praised them for their
+'sand'; there has been no look of sorrow and reproach in any honest
+woman's eyes to bring them back to their senses; and after such a
+beginning, look for them in a year, and, in nine cases out of ten, you
+will find that they are lost men.</p>
+
+<p>"But I commenced to tell you about the Downieville baby. It had been
+decided that we would have a Fourth of July celebration. There was no
+trouble about getting it up. We had a hundred men in camp, either one of
+whom could make as pretty a speech as you ever heard; everybody had
+plenty of money, and there was no trouble about fixing things to have a
+lively time. True, there was no chance for a triumphal car, with a
+Goddess of Liberty, and a young lady to represent each State. There was
+a good reason for it. There were not thirty young ladies within three
+hundred miles of us.</p>
+
+<p>"But we had a big live eagle to represent Sovereignty, and a grizzly
+bear as a symbol of Power, which we hauled in the procession; we had
+some mounted men, including some Mexican packers on mule back; a vast
+variety of flags, and many citizens on foot in the procession. Of course
+we had a marshal and his staff, a president of the day, an orator, poet,
+reader and chaplain, and last, but not least, a brass band of a few
+months' training. There were flags enough for a grand army, and every
+anvil in town was kept red hot firing salutes.</p>
+
+<p>"After the parade, the more sedate portion of the people repaired to the
+theatre, to hear the Declaration, poem, and oration. The prayer,
+Declaration and poem had been disposed of, and the president of the day
+was just about to introduce the orator, when a solitary baby but a few
+months old, set up a most energetic yell, and continued it for two or
+three minutes, the frightened mother not daring in that crowd to supply
+the soothing the youngster was evidently demanding. To cause a
+diversion, I suppose, the leader of the brass band nodded to the others,
+and they commenced to play the 'Star Spangled Banner.' The band had not
+had very much more practice than the baby, but the players were doing
+the best they could, when a tremendous, big-whiskered miner sprang upon
+a back seat, and waving his hat wildly, in a voice like a thunder-roll,
+shouted: 'Stop that&mdash;&mdash;d band and give the baby a chance!'</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing like what followed during the next ten minutes had ever been
+seen on this earth, since the confusion of tongues transpired among the
+builders of Babel's Tower. Men shouted and yelled like mad men,
+strangers shook each other by the hand and screamed 'hurrah,' and in the
+crowd I saw a dozen men crying like children.</p>
+
+<p>"For a moment every heart was softened by the memories that baby's cries
+awakened.</p>
+
+<p>"The next time you feel provoked because the children shout and shy
+rocks as they return from school, you may all remember that could the
+world be carried on without children, it would not require more than two
+generations to transform men into wild beasts."</p>
+
+<p>When Miller ceased speaking, Ashley remarked: "Miller, yon talk very
+wisely on the subject of babies, why have you none of your own?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller waited a moment before answering, and then in an absent-minded
+manner said:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you never hear a gilt-edged expert talk familiarly about a mine, as
+though he knew all about it, when he did not really know a streak of ore
+from east country porphyry?"</p>
+
+<p>At this the others all laughed, and Miller joined in the merriment
+heartily, but nevertheless, something in the thoughts which the question
+awakened, had its effect upon him, for he was moody and preoccupied for
+several minutes. Meanwhile, a spell seemed to be upon the whole Club,
+except Brewster, who was reading a pamphlet on "The Creation of Mineral
+Veins," and Carlin, who was absorbed in a daily paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever stops to think," proceeded Miller, speaking as much to himself
+as to the others, "upon what sorrows the foundations of new States are
+laid, how many hearts are broken, how many strong lives are worn out in
+the pitiless struggle?</p>
+
+<p>"Where are the men who were the Argonauts of the golden days? The most
+of them are gone. Every hill side is marked with their graves. They were
+a strong, brave, generous race. They laid the wand of their power on the
+barbarism which met them; it melted away at their touch; they blazed the
+trails and smoothed the paths, that, unsoiled, the delicate sandals of
+civilization might draw near; they rifled the hills and ravines of their
+stores of gold, and poured it into the Nation's lap, until every
+sluggish artery of business was set bounding; they built temples to
+Religion, to Learning, to Justice and to Industry; as they moved on,
+cities sprung up in their wake; following them came the enchantments of
+home and the songs of children; but for them, what was their portion?
+They were to work, to struggle, to be misjudged in the land whence they
+came; to learn to receive any blows which outrageous fortune might hurl
+at them, without plaint; to watch while States grew into place around
+them, and while the frown on the face of the desert relaxed into a smile
+at their toil, that toil was simply to be accepted as a matter of course
+by the world, and in the severe and self-satisfied civilization of older
+States, only pity was to be felt for their ignorance, and only horror
+for their rough ways. They were to be path-finders, the sappers and
+miners to storm the strong-holds of barbarism; through summer's heat,
+and winter's cold, to continue their march, until the final night should
+come, and then to sink to a dreamless bivouac under the stars. What
+wonder if some became over-wearied! if others grew reckless?"</p>
+
+<p>He had risen and was walking the floor, to and fro, like a caged lion,
+as he talked. Going now to the kitchen door, he cried: "Yap, bring some
+hot water, some sugar, a nutmeg and some limes, if you have them."</p>
+
+<p>The heathen obeyed, and Miller made seven big, hot whiskey punches. Then
+lifting his glass he offered this toast:</p>
+
+<p>"Here's to the Old Boys; to those who worked and suffered and died, but
+never complained!"</p>
+
+<p>All rose and drank in silence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+
+<p>At the next meeting, when the pipes were all lighted, Ashley, turning to
+Miller, said:</p>
+
+<p>"You took too gloomy a view of things last night. What you said, or
+rather something in your tone, has haunted me ever since. But you were
+wrong. The Argonauts will not be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>"The names of the kings who compelled the building of the pyramids are
+mostly matters of conjecture now, but no man who ever gazed upon those
+piles of stone that have borne unscarred the desert storms that have
+been breaking upon and around them through the centuries, has failed to
+think of the tremendous energy of the race that reared those monuments
+above the sand; reared them so that the abrasion of the ages avails not
+against them.</p>
+
+<p>"One loves to dream of how that race must have looked, there under that
+sky, while yet the world was young, and while the energy and beauty of
+youth was upon it. There was no steam power to assist, no power drills,
+there were only rude, untempered tools. The plain wedge, and the lever
+in its more effective form, were about all that was known of mechanics;
+still from the quarries of Syene, far up the Nile, those blocks were
+wrested, hewed, transported, lifted up and laid in place, and with such
+mathematical precision was the work performed, that the ebb and flow of
+the centuries have no effect upon the work. While this material work was
+going on, in the same realm wise men were putting into a language the
+alphabet of the sky, tracing out the procession of the stars and solving
+the mystery of the seasons. When we think of Ancient Egypt, it is not of
+her kings, but what was wrought out there by brain and hand.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day I was at work on the twenty-four hundred-foot level of the mine.
+Around me power drills were working, cars were rattling, cages were
+running; three hundred men were stoping, timbering and rolling cars to
+and from the chutes and ore-breasts, and in the spectral light I thought
+it was a scene for a painter. But while so thinking, for some reason,
+there came to me the thought of the one hundred times three hundred men,
+who, for a generation, worked on a single pyramid; worked without pay
+days, without so much as a kind word, and on poorer fare than one gets
+at a fourth-rate miners' boarding house; and, as I reflected over that,
+our little work here seemed small indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"So, in estimating Greece, we do not pick out a few men or women to
+remember, but we think of the race that made Thermopylæ and Marathon
+possibilities, of the men who followed Xenophon, of the women who closed
+their hearts and left their deformed offspring to perish in the woods
+that Greece should rear no woman who could not bear soldiers, no man who
+could not bear arms; of the race so finely strung that poetry was born
+of it; that sculpture and eloquence were so perfected in, that to copy
+is impossible; that was so susceptible to beauty that it turned justice
+aside, and yet that was so valiant that it mastered the world.</p>
+
+<p>"So of Rome! It is not that the great Julius lived that we call it 'The
+Imperial Nation.' We stand in awe of it still, not because out of its
+millions a few superb figures shine. Rather, we think of the valor that
+from a little nucleus widened until it subdued the world; of the ten
+thousand fields on which Romans fought and conquered. We think how they
+marshaled their armies, and taught the nations how to lay out camps; how
+they built roads and aqueducts, that their land might be defended and
+the Imperial City sustained; how they carved out an architecture of
+their own which the world still clings to in its most stately edifices;
+how, from barbarism, they progressed, until they framed a code which is
+still respected; how, in literature and the arts, they excelled, and
+how, for a thousand years, they were the concernment of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"So of England. Which merits the greater glory, King John or the stern,
+half barbarous barons who, with an instinct generations in advance of
+their age, circled around their sullen king and compelled him to give to
+them 'the great charter?' Through the thousand years that have succeeded
+that act, how many individual names can we rescue from the hosts that on
+that little isle have lived and died? Not many. But the grand career of
+the nation is in the mind forever. How, through struggle after struggle,
+the advance has been made; struggles that, though full of errors, knew
+no faltering or despair, until at last, for the world, she became the
+center and the bulwark of civilization; until in material strength she
+had no equal; until the sheen of her sails gave light to all the seas,
+and under her flag signal stations were upreared the world around. We do
+not remember many men, but there is ever in the mind the thought of
+English valor and persistence, and the clear judgment which backed the
+valor by land and sea.</p>
+
+<p>"But we need not go abroad; our own land has examples enough. Not many
+can call over the names of those who came in the 'Mayflower,' or those
+who made up the colonies up and down the Atlantic coast. But the
+spectacle of the 'Mayflower' band kneeling, on their arrival, in the
+snow and singing a triumphal song, is a picture the tints of which will
+deepen in splendor with the ages. We need not call over the names of our
+statesmen and warriors; they give but a slight impression of our race.
+But when we think how, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, the woods
+were made to give place to gardens, fruitful fields and smiling homes;
+when we think that the majority of those families had each of them less
+to start with than any one of us gets for a month's labor, and yet how
+they subdued the land, pressed back the savage, reared and educated and
+created a literature for their children, until over all the vast expanse
+there was peace, prosperity, enlightenment and joy, then it is that we
+begin to grow proud.</p>
+
+<p>"If the Argonauts of the Golden Coast can show that they have wrought as
+well, they will not be forgotten. Those who succeed them will know that
+they were preceded by a race that was strong and brave and true, and
+their memory in the West will be embalmed with the memory of those in
+the East who, starting under the spray that is tossed from the white
+surf of the eastern sea, with no capital but pluck, hewed out and
+embellished the Republic.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, there have been sorrows; of course, hearts have broken; but
+there has been much of triumph also. It is something to have a home in
+this Far West; there is something in the hills, the trees, the free air
+and action of this region which brings to men thoughts that they would
+never have had in other lands. It is not bad sometimes for men to leave
+their books and turn to Nature for instruction. Here of all the world
+some of the brightest pages of Nature's book are spread open for the
+reader. And many a man that others pity because they think his heart
+must be heavy, does not ask that pity; does not feel its need. Those
+hearts have gathered to themselves delights, which, if not, perhaps, of
+the highest order, still are very sweet. Let me give an instance.</p>
+
+<p>"Last year I went to look at a mine down in Tuolumne county, California.
+I was the guest of a miner who had lived in the same cabin for more than
+twenty years. He was his own cook and housekeeper and seldom had any
+company except his books&mdash;a fine collection&mdash;his daily papers, his gun
+and some domestic animals. He had a little orchard and garden. Around
+his garden tame rabbits played with his dogs. In explanation, he said:
+'They were all babies at the same time and have grown up together.'
+While walking with him in his garden, he asked me if I had ever seen a
+mountain quail on her nest. At the same moment he parted the limbs of a
+shrub, and there, within six inches of his hand, sat a bird, her bright
+eyes looking up in perfect confidence into his.</p>
+
+<p>"The place was in the high foothills; there was a space in front of his
+cabin. From that point the hills, in steadily increasing waves, swelled
+into the great ridges of the higher Sierras, and far away to the east
+the blue crest of Mount Bodie stood out clear against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not strange to me that he loved the place. When within doors he
+talked upon every subject with a peculiar terse shrewdness all his own.
+He had had many bouts with the world; he knew men thoroughly; he had in
+a measure withdrawn himself from them, and found a serener comfort in
+his pets, his hills and trees. He had acquired that faculty which men
+often do when a great deal alone in the mountains. He did not reason his
+way up through the proof of a proposition, but with a clear sagacity
+reached the truth at a bound, and left the reasoning for others. He had
+his theory of how fissures were originally formed and filled; he had his
+opinion of ancient and modern authors; he understood politics well, and
+gave brief and true reasons for his belief. In short, he was a
+self-appointed ambassador to the court of the hills, to represent all
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>"My admiration for him increased the longer I remained with him, for he
+knew much of interest to me; but he spoke always in a tone as though he
+was revealing only a little of what he knew. I suspect that was the real
+state of the case. There was a charm, too, about his manner. Though I
+knew that he had suffered many disappointments, if not sorrows, there
+was no bitterness. Whatever he did or said, was with a gentle grace of
+his own. He was free, alike, from either harshness, egotism or
+diffidence. Something of the great calm of the hills around him had
+entered into his soul.</p>
+
+<p>"But the greatest surprise was reserved for me to the last. I had to get
+up at three o'clock in the morning and walk over a dim trail two or
+three miles to a little village, in order to take the stage which passed
+the village at five o'clock. When I was ready, my friend said: 'There
+are so many trails through the hills you might take the wrong one in the
+uncertain light. I will pilot you.'</p>
+
+<p>"When we set out it was yet dark. There was an absolute hush upon the
+world. Up through the branches of the great pines, God's lanterns were
+swinging as though but just trimmed and lighted, and under the august
+roof where they swung, they shone with rays more pure than vestal lamps.
+But at length up the east some shafts of light were shot, and soon the
+miracle of the dawn began to unfold. It was a June morning and entirely
+cloudless. Soon the warm rays of approaching day began to bend over the
+hills from the east; the foliage which had been black began to grow
+green; the scarlet of the hills shone out where the light touched it;
+the sentinel fires above began to grow dim. A little later the hills
+began to grow resonant with the manifold voices which they held, and
+which commenced to awaken to hail the approaching day.</p>
+
+<p>"Then my sententious companion, as though kindled by the same
+influences, opened his lips. He seemed to have forgotten that I was
+near; he was answering the greetings of his friends in the woods. I can
+only give the faintest idea of what he said, and I grieve over it, for
+it was sweeter than music. His words ran something like this:</p>
+
+<p>"'Chirp, chirp; O, my martin, (the swallow's grandmother); as usual you
+are up first, to say good morning, the first to hail the beautiful
+coming day. Ah, there you are, whistling, my lovely quail, you charming
+cockaded glory; and now, my mocking bird, you brown splendor with a flat
+nose, where do you get all your voices? Heigh, O! you are up, Mr. Jacob
+(woodpecker) up to see if Mrs. Jacob is gathering acorns this morning,
+you old miser of the woods, with your black and white clothes and your
+thrift worse than a Chinaman's; and now, my morning dove has commenced
+its daily drone, growling because breakfast is not ready, I suppose. At
+last you have opened your eyes, Mrs. Lark; a nice bird you are to claim
+to be an early riser, but you have a cheery voice, nevertheless. Now, my
+wren and my oreole, you are making some genuine music, if both of you
+together are not as big as one note of an organ. Hist! that was a
+curlew's cry from away down on the river's bank, and now you are all
+awake and singing, you noisy chatterers, as though your hearts would
+burst for joy. Finally, old night-raiding owl, you are saying 'good
+night' this morning, you old burglar of the woods.'</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile the banners of the dawn had grown more and more bright in the
+sky, and as he ceased speaking, the full disc of the sun, lighted with
+omnipotent fires, shone full above the hills, with a splendor too severe
+for human eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I had not interrupted my friend during the half hour that he, striding
+before me on the trail, had been talking. I half suspected that he had
+forgotten that I was near, absorbed as he was in greeting his warblers.
+Of course I have not named the birds in their order; nor have I named
+half that he greeted; I might as well try to repeat to you all the
+scientific terms in one of Professor Stewart's earthquake lectures. But
+all that day, and for many days afterwards, his words were ringing in my
+ears; and often have I wondered, if, with his thoughts and his
+surroundings, he was not with more reason and more peace, passing down
+life's trail, than as though he were out in the pitiless world of men,
+striving for wealth and for power. Never since have I seen a lonely man
+in town, with shy face which revealed that he was unused to the crowds
+of the city, purchasing some few little necessaries, and, apparently,
+hurrying to get away, that I have not said to myself: 'He has a cabin
+somewhere with books and dogs, and with a garden outside, and he knows
+every bird in the forest by its morning call.'"</p>
+
+<p>While Ashley was talking, he had unconsciously fixed his eyes upon the
+light which shone from a reflector, up through the window from the
+hoisting works down the hill, and seemed to forget the presence of any
+one near.</p>
+
+<p>As he ceased and looked around, he discovered that all his auditors had
+fallen asleep in their chairs, except Yap Sing, who had stolen into the
+room. He looked up knowingly, smiled and said:</p>
+
+<p>"You talkie belly nice. Me heap sabbie, clail, chickie, duckie, goosie.
+Me cookie lem flirst late, you bettie."</p>
+
+<p>"You be&mdash;" said Ashley, and went to bed. The rest, awakened by the
+whistles, started up in surprise, and Corrigan said: "I was dramin' of
+agles and pacocks and swans and hummin' birds. I must have been afther
+atin too much supper."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next evening as the club gathered around the hearth, Brewster, who,
+next to Harding, was the most reticent member of the party, said
+apologetically to Ashley:</p>
+
+<p>"It was shabby of us not to give more heed to your story last night, but
+the truth with me was, I was very tired. We were cutting out a station
+on the 2,300 level of the mine, yesterday; the work was hard, the
+ventilation bad, and it was hot and prostrating work. But, I heard most
+of your story, nevertheless. While I know nothing of your miner who
+lives with his books and birds and dogs and flowers; and hence know
+nothing of what storms he has breasted and what heart-aches he has
+borne; and, therefore, cannot, in my own mind, fix his place, still, on
+general principles, it is man's duty never to accept any rebuff of
+unkind fortune as a reason for ceasing to try; but rather he should
+struggle on and do the best he can; if needs be dying with the harness
+on his back. Moreover, as a rule, it is the easier way. It is in harmony
+with nature's first great law, and man seldom errs when he follows the
+laws that were framed before the world's foundations were laid. When man
+was given his two feet to stand upon; his arms to cleave out for himself
+a path and a career, and his brain to be his guide; then with the rich
+earth for a field, in the opinion of the Infinite Goodness, he has all
+the capital that he required. The opportunities of this land, especially
+this free West, with a capacity to plan and work, are enough for any
+man. The trouble is, men falter too soon. On that last night of anxiety,
+before the New World rose out of the sea to greet the eyes of Columbus;
+when his sullen and fear-stricken crews were on the point of mutiny,
+suddenly there came to the senses of the great commander, the perfume of
+earthly flowers. Soon after the veil of the ocean was rent asunder, and
+upon his thrilled eyes there burst a light. Columbus was not the only
+man who ever discovered a new world. They are being found daily. I meet
+men often on the street and know by something in their faces, that, at
+that very moment, the perfume of the flowers of some glory to come is
+upon them, and that the first rays of the dawn of a divine light are
+commencing to fill with splendor their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"When the idea of the Alexandrian, after having been transmitted from
+mortal to mortal, for more than fifty generations, at last materialized,
+and the care worn man who was watching, heard the first sob of
+artificial life come from a steam engine, to him was the perfume and the
+light.</p>
+
+<p>"When, after generations of turmoil and war, in the deadly double
+struggle to assimilate various peoples, and at the same time out of
+barbarism to construct a stable and enlightened government; when the
+stern old English barons caught the right inspiration, and gathering
+around their sovereign, asked him to recognize the rights of the men on
+whose valor his throne leaned for safety and to sign Magna Charta; to
+them came the perfume and the light.</p>
+
+<p>"When the desire of the colonies, voiceless before, at length through
+the pen of Jefferson, found expression in the words: 'We hold these
+truths to be self-evident&mdash;that all men are created equal; that they are
+endowed by their Creater with certain unalienable rights;' then to a
+whole nation, yes to the world, came the perfume and the light.</p>
+
+<p>"In public life these emotions are marked, and the world applauds. In
+humble life they are generally unnoticed, but they are frequent, and the
+enchantment of the perfume becomes like incense, and it is a softer
+light that dawns. When the poor man, who lays aside daily but a pittance
+from his earnings, finds at last, after months and years, that the sum
+has increased until it is certain that he can build a little home for
+his wife&mdash;a home which is to be all his own&mdash;and that he can educate his
+children; then the perfume and lights of a new world entrance him, and
+in his sphere he is as great as was the dark-eyed Italian.</p>
+
+<p>"In the Bible we read that all the prophets were given to fasting and to
+labor, in order to bring the body under subjection to the soul. This is
+but typical of what a great soul must submit to, if it would catch the
+perfume and the light. The world's wealth rests on labor. Whether a man
+tills a garden or writes a book, the harvest will be worth gathering
+just in proportion to the soil, and to the energy and intelligence of
+the work performed. Columbus could never have discovered a new world by
+standing on the sea shore and straining his eyes to the West. The
+tempests had to be met; the raging seas outrode; the mutinous crew
+controlled. There are tempests, waves and mutineers in every man's path,
+and it is only over and beyond them that there comes the perfume and the
+light. The lesson taught at Eden's gate is the one that must still be
+learned. All that man can gain is by labor, and the sword that guards
+the gate flames just as fiercely as of old.</p>
+
+<p>"To the Argonauts was given a duty. They were appointed to redeem a wild
+and create a sovereign state. I believe they were a brave, true race.
+The proof is, that without the restraint of pure women and without law,
+they enforced order. Their energy, also, was something tremendous. After
+building up California, they, in great part, made a nucleus for
+civilization to gather to in each of half-a-dozen neighboring
+Territories. But they had advantages which the men who settled the
+Eastern States&mdash;the region beyond the Mississippi River, I mean&mdash;never
+possessed. They had better food to eat, a better climate to live in. If
+they did not have capital, they knew a living, at least, could be had
+from the nearest gravel bank or ravine, and if they lacked the
+encircling love of wife and children, they were spared the sorrow of
+seeing dear women wear out lives of hardship and poverty, as has been
+seen on all other frontiers in America.</p>
+
+<p>"If some fell by the wayside, it was natural, for human nature is weak
+and Death is everywhere; if some in the pitiless struggle failed, they
+had no right to cease to try, for when men do that the hope that to them
+will come the perfume or that upon their eyes will ever shine the light,
+is forever closed."</p>
+
+<p>"All that is good," said Carlin, "but the rule does not always hold
+true. There is sometimes a limit to man's capacity to suffer, and his
+heart breaks; and still after that his face gives no sign, and there is
+no abatement of his energies. In such cases, however, men generally lose
+the capacity to reason calmly and chase impossibilities. I saw a case
+yesterday. I met a man mounted on a cheap mustang, and leading another
+on which was packed a little coarse food, a pick, shovel, pan,
+coffee-pot and frying pan. As he moved slowly up C. street, a
+friend&mdash;himself an Argonaut&mdash;clutched me by the arm with one hand, and
+with the other pointing to the man on horseback, asked me if I knew him.
+Replying that I did not, he said: 'Why, that is "Prospecting Joe"; I
+thought everybody knew him.' I told him I had never heard of him, when
+he related his story, almost word for word, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"He came to the far West from some Eastern state in the old, old days.
+He was not then more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old.
+Physically he was a splendid specimen of a man, I am told. He was,
+moreover, genial and generous, and drew friends around him wherever he
+went. He secured a claim in the hills above Placerville. One who knew
+him at that time told me, that, calling at his cabin one night, he
+surprised him poring over a letter written in a fair hand, while beside
+him on his rude table lay the picture of a beautiful girl. His heart
+must have been warmed at the time, for picking up the picture and
+handing it to my friend, he said. 'Look at her! She is my Nora, <i>my</i>
+Nora. She, beautiful as she is, would in her divinity have bent and
+married a coarse mold of clay like myself, and poor, too, as I was; but
+her father said: 'Not yet, Joe. Go out into the world, make a struggle
+for two years, then come back, and if by that time you have established
+that you are man enough to be a husband to a true woman, and you and
+Nora still hold to the thought that is in your hearts now, I will help
+you all I can. And, mind you, I don't expect you to make a fortune in
+two years; I only want you to show that the manhood which I think you
+have within you is true.' 'That was square and sensible talk, and it was
+not unkind. So I came away.' Then he took the picture and looked fondly
+at it for a long time, and said: 'I see the delicious girl as she looked
+on that summer's day, when she waved me her last good by. I shall see
+her all my life, if I live a thousand years.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Joe worked on week days; on Sundays, as miners did in those days,
+he went to camp to get his mail and supplies. His claim paid him only
+fairly well, but he was saving some money. In eight months he had been
+able to deposit twelve hundred dollars in the local bank. One Sunday he
+did not receive the expected letter from his Nora, and during the next
+hour or two he drank two or three times with friends. He was about to
+leave for home, when three men whom he slightly knew, and who had all
+been drinking too much, met him and importuned him to drink with them.
+He declined with thanks, when one of the three caught him by the arm and
+said he must drink.</p>
+
+<p>"At any other time he would have extricated him self without trouble and
+gone on his way. But on that day he was not in good humor, so he shook
+the man off roughly and shortly told him to go about his own affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"The others were just sufficiently sprung with liquor to take offense at
+this, and the result was a terrific street fight. Joe was badly bruised
+but he whipped all three of the others. Then he was arrested and ordered
+to appear next morning to answer a charge of fighting. He was of course
+cleared without difficulty, but it took one-fourth of his deposit to pay
+his lawyer. Then the miners gathered around him and called him a hero
+and he went on his first spree.</p>
+
+<p>"Next morning when he awoke and thought of as much as he could remember
+of the previous day's events, he was thoroughly ashamed. As he went down
+to the office of the hotel, in response to an inquiry as to how he felt,
+he answered: 'Full of repentance and beer.' A friend showed him the
+morning paper with a full account of the Sunday fight and his trial and
+acquittal. This was embellished with taking head-lines, as is the custom
+with reporters. It cut him to the heart. He knew that if the news
+reached his old home of his being in a street fight on Sunday, all his
+hopes would be ended. His first thought was to draw his money and take
+the first steamer for Panama and New York. He went to the bank and asked
+how his account stood, for he remembered to have drawn something the
+previous day. He was answered that there was still to his credit $150.
+The steamer fare was $275. Utterly crushed, he returned to his claim.
+The fear that the news of his disgrace would reach home, haunted him
+perpetually and made him afraid to write. He continued to work, but not
+with the old hope.</p>
+
+<p>"After some weeks, a rumor came that rich ground had been 'struck' away
+to the north, somewhere in Siskiyou county. He drew what money he had,
+bought a couple of ponies, one to ride and one to pack, and started for
+the new field. Before starting, he confided to a friend that the
+previous night he had dreamed of a mountain, the crest of which
+glittered all over with gold, and he was going to find it.</p>
+
+<p>"The friend told him it was but a painted devil of the brain, the child
+of a distempered imagination, but he merely shook his head and went
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"He has pursued that dream ever since. His eyes have been ever strained
+to catch the reflection from those shining heights. When he began the
+search, his early home and the loving arms which were there stretched
+out to him, began to recede in the distance. In a few years they
+disappeared altogether. Then his hopes one by one deserted him, until
+all had fled except the one false one which was, and still is, driving
+him on. Youth died and was buried by the trail, but so absorbed was he
+that he hardly grieved. As Time served notice after notice upon him; as
+his hair blanched, his form bent and the old sprightliness went out of
+his limbs, he retired more and more from the haunts of men; more and
+more he drew the mantle of the mountains around him. But his eyes, now
+bright with an unnatural splendor, were still strained upon the shining
+height. There were but a few intervening hills and some forests that
+obstructed his view. A little further on and the goal would be reached.
+Last night he was in his cups and he told my friend that this time he
+would 'strike it sure,' that the old man would make his showing yet,
+that he would yet go back to the old home and be a Providence to those
+he loved when a boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor wretch. There is an open grave stretched directly across his
+trail. On this journey or some other soon, he will, while his eyes are
+still straining towards his heights of gold, drop into that grave and
+disappear forever.</p>
+
+<p>"Some morning as he awakens, amid the hills or out upon the desert,
+there will be such a weariness upon him that he will say, 'I will sleep
+a little longer,' and from that sleep he will never waken.</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven grant that his vision will then become a reality and that he may
+mount the shining heights at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is easy to say that he was originally weak, but that is no
+argument, for human nature is prone to be weak. His was a high-strung,
+sensitive, generous nature. He never sought gold for the joy it would
+give him, but for the happiness he dreamed it would give to those he
+loved. His Nora was a queen in his eyes and he wanted to give her, every
+day, the surroundings of a queen. He made one mistake and never rallied
+from it. Had the letter come that fatal Sunday from Nora, as he was
+expecting it, or had he left for home half an hour earlier, or had he
+been of coarser clay, that day's performance would have been avoided, or
+would have been passed as an incident not to be repeated, but not to be
+seriously minded. But he was of different mold, and then that was a blow
+from Fate. It is easy enough to say that there is nothing in that thing
+called luck. Such talk will not do here on the Comstock. There is no
+luck when a money lender charges five dollars for the use of a hundred
+for a month and exacts good security. He gets his one hundred and five
+dollars, and that is business.</p>
+
+<p>"But in this lead where ore bodies lie like melons on a vine, when ore
+is reported in the Belcher and in the Savage, when Brown buys stock in
+the Belcher and Rogers buys in the Savage; when the streak of ore in the
+Belcher runs into a bonanza and Brown wakes up rich some morning, and
+when the streak of ore in the Savage runs into a Niagara of hot water
+which floods the mine and Rogers's stock is sold out to meet an
+assessment, it will not do to call Brown a shrewd fellow and Rogers an
+idiot.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, I do not object to the theory that a man should always keep
+trying, even if the lack is against him, because luck may change
+sometime, and if it does not, he sleeps better when he knows that with
+the lights before him he has done the best he could. A man can stand
+almost anything when his soul does not reproach him as he tries to go to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, too, man is notoriously a lazy animal, and unless he has the
+nerve to spur himself to work, even when unfortunate, he is liable to
+fail and get the dry rot, which is worse than death.</p>
+
+<p>"But my heart goes out in sympathy when I think of the glorified
+spirits, which on this coast have failed and are failing every day,
+because from the first an iron fortune has hedged them round and baffled
+their every effort, struggle as they would."</p>
+
+<p>Carlin ceased speaking, and the silence which prevailed in the Club for
+a moment was broken by Miller, who said: "Don't worry about them,
+Carlin. If they do fail they have lots of fun in trying."</p>
+
+<p>"I would grave more for your mon Joe," interposed Corrigan, "did I not
+remember Mrs. Dougherty, who married the gintleman of properthy, and
+thin your Joe war a fraud onyway. What war there in a bit of a scrap to
+make a mon grave himself into craziness over it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your stock-buying illustration is not fair, Carlin, for that is only a
+form of gambling at best," suggested Brewster.</p>
+
+<p>The club winced under this a little, for every member dabbled in stocks
+sometimes, except Brewster and Harding.</p>
+
+<p>For two evenings Harding had been scribbling away behind the table, and
+during a lull in the conversation Ashley asked him what he had been
+writing. "Letters?" suggested Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not letters," answered Harding, sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then," asked Miller; "won't you read it to us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, rade it, rade it," said Corrigan, and the rest all joined in the
+request.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't laugh?" said Harding, inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>They all promised, and Harding read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">THE PROSPECTOR.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How strangely to-night my memory flings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the face of the past its shadowy wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I see far back through the mist and tears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which make the record of twenty years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the beautiful days in the Golden State,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When life seemed sure by long leases from Fate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the wondrous visions of "long ago"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the naked shade that we call "now."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Those halcyon days! There were four with me then&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ernest and Ned, Wild Tom and Ben.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now all are gone; Tom was first to die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I held his hands, closed his glazed eye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a tear o'er his grave we shed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As we tenderly pillowed his curly head<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the shadows deep of the pines, that stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forever solemn, forever fanned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the winds that steal through the Golden Gate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spread their balm o'er the Golden State.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the others, too, they all are dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the turbid Gila perished Ned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brave, noble Ernest, he was lost<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid Montana's ice and frost;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And out upon a desert trail<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our Bennie met the spectre pale.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I am left&mdash;the last of all&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as to-night the white snows fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As barbarous winds around me roar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I think the long past o'er and o'er&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What I have hoped and suffered, all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From twenty years rolls back the pall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the dusty, thorny, weary track,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the tortuous path I follow back.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In my childhood's home they think me, there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A failure, or lost, till my name in the prayer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At eve is forgot. Well, they cannot know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That my toil through heat, through tempest and snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While it seemed for naught but a struggle for pelf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was more for them, far more, than myself.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah, well! As my hair turns slowly to snow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The places of childhood more distantly grow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And my dreams are changing. 'Tis home no more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For shadowy hands from the other shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stretch nightly down, and it seems as when<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I lived with Tom, Ned, Ernest and Ben.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the mountains of Earth seem dwindling down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the hills of Eden, with golden crown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rise up, and I think, in the last great day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will my claim above bear a fire assay?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the slag of earth, and the baser strains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will the crucible show of precious grains<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enough to give me a standing above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where in temples of Peace rock the cradles of Love?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"That is good, but it is too serious by half," Miller said, critically.
+"What is a young fellow like you doing with such a melancholy view of
+things?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a heap better to write such things for pleasure in boyhood than to
+have to feel them for a fact in old age," said Wright.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Harding, have you measured all the faet in that poem?" remarked
+Corrigan, good-naturedly.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been talking too seriously for two or three evenings and it is
+influencing Harding," was Miller's comment.</p>
+
+<p>Brewster thought it was a good way for Sammie to spend his evenings. It
+would give him discipline, which would help him in writing all his life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next evening Wright had business down town.</p>
+
+<p>"Carlin was right last night," began Miller, "when he said that all men
+were naturally lazy. Laziness is a fixed principle in this world. I can
+prove it by my friend Wand down at Pioche.</p>
+
+<p>"When he was not so old as he has been these last few years, he made a
+visit to San Francisco, and one day, passing a building on Fourth
+street, saw within several hives of bees, evidently placed there to be
+sold. Some whim led him within the building and, from the man in charge,
+he learned that in California, because of the softer climate, bees
+worked quite nine months in the year; that a good swarm of bees would
+gather a certain number of pounds of honey in a season, which sold
+readily at a certain price, making a tremendous percentage on the cost
+of the bees, which was, if I remember correctly, one hundred dollars per
+hive. The idea seemed to strike Wand. He had fifteen hundred dollars,
+and all that day he was mentally estimating how much money could be made
+out of fifteen swarms of bees in a year. The figures looked exceedingly
+encouraging. They always do, you know, when your mind is fixed upon a
+certain business which you want to engage in.</p>
+
+<p>"That evening Wand happened to meet a friend who had just come in from
+Honolulu. This friend was enthusiastic over the Hawaiian Islands. There
+was perpetual summer there and ever-blooming flowers. Before one flower
+cast its leaves, others on the same tree were budding. Their glory was
+ever before the eyes and their incense ever upon the air.</p>
+
+<p>"Wand fell asleep that night trying to estimate how much money a swarm
+of bees would make a year in a land of perpetual summer. The conclusion
+was that next morning Wand bought twelve hives of bees, and that
+afternoon sailed with them for Honolulu.</p>
+
+<p>"He found a lovely place for his bees, and saw with kindling pleasure
+that they readily assimilated with the new country and went to work with
+apparent enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"The bees worked steadily until, in their judgment, it was time for
+winter to come. Then they ceased to work, remained in their hives until
+they ate up their hoarded wealth, and then, as Wand expresses it, 'took
+to the woods.'</p>
+
+<p>"He borrowed the money necessary to pay his passage to San Francisco,
+and ever since has sworn that bees are like men, 'natural loafers,' that
+will not work unless they are forced to. He believes that the much
+lauded ant would be the same way if it were not urged on to work
+perpetually by the miser's fear of starvation."</p>
+
+<p>Carlin suggested that the question be tested nearer home, and called
+out, "Yap Sing!"</p>
+
+<p>The Mongolian came in from the kitchen and Carlin interrogated him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yap, do you like to work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, me heap likee workee."</p>
+
+<p>"How many hours a day do you like to work, Yap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe eight hour, maybe ten hour, maybe slixteen hour."</p>
+
+<p>"We give you forty dollars a month. Would you work harder if we paid you
+fifty dollars?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Me thinkee not," answered Yap, adroitly. "You sabbie, you hire me,
+me sellee you my time. Me workee all the slame, forty doll's, fifty
+doll's, one hundred doll's. No diffelence."</p>
+
+<p>"Yap, suppose you were to get $3,000, would you work then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. Me workee all the slame, now."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose, Yap, you had $5,000&mdash;what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me workee all the slame."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ever buy stocks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Slum time buy lettle; not muchee."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose, Yap, that some time stocks would go up and make you $20,000,
+would you work then?"</p>
+
+<p>The Chinaman, with eyes blazing, replied vehemently: "Not one d&mdash;&mdash;d
+bittee."</p>
+
+<p>The Club agreed that Carlin had pretty well settled a vexed question,
+that conditions which would make both the bee and the Chinaman idlers,
+would be apt to very soon cause the Caucasian to lie in the shade.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," mused Brewster, "there are mighty works going on everywhere.
+This Nation to-day makes a showing such as this world never saw before.
+From sea to sea, for three thousand miles, the chariot wheels of toil
+are rolling and roaring as they never did in any other land. The energy
+that is exhausted daily amounts to more than all the world's working
+forces did a hundred years ago. The thing to grieve about is not that
+there is not enough work being performed, but that in this intensely
+practical, and material age, the gentler graces in the hearts of men are
+being neglected. In the race for wealth the higher aspirations are being
+smothered. If from the 'tongue-less past' there could be awakened the
+silent voices, the cry which would be heard over all others would be: 'I
+had some golden thoughts; I meant to have given them expression, but the
+swiftly moving years with their cares were too much for me, and I died
+and made no sign.'</p>
+
+<p>"If there is such a thing as a ghost of memory, all the aisles of the
+past are full of wailing voices, wailing over facts unspoken, over
+eloquence that died in passionate hearts unuttered, over divine poems
+that never were set to earthly music. Aside from native indolence, most
+men are struggling for bread, and when the day's work is completed,
+brain and hand are too weary for further effort. So the years drift by
+until the zeal of young ambition loses its electric thrill; until cares
+multiply; until infirmities of body keep the chords of the soul out of
+tune, and the night follows, and the long sleep. There were great
+soldiers before Achilles or Hector, but there were no Homers, or if
+there were, they were dissipated fellows, or they were absorbed in
+business, or, under the clear Grecian sky, it was their wont to dream
+the beautiful days away, and so, no sounds were uttered, of the kind
+which, booming through space, strike at last on the immortal heights,
+and there make echoes which thrill the earth with celestial music ever
+after. If fortune had not made an actor of Shakespeare, and if his
+matchless spirit, working in the line of his daily duties, had not felt
+that all the plays offered were mean and poor, as wanting in dramatic
+power as they were false to human nature, and so was roused to fill a
+business need, the chances are a thousand to one that he 'would have
+died with all his music in him,' and would, to-day, have been as
+entirely lost in oblivion as are the boors who were his neighbors. Just
+now there is not much hope for our own country, and probably will not be
+for another century. Present efforts are all for wealth and power and
+are almost all earthly. Everything is calculated from a basis of coin.
+Before that, brains are cowed, and for it Beauty reserves her sweetest
+smiles. The men who are pursuing grand ideas with no motive more selfish
+than to make the masses of the world nobler, braver and better, or to
+give new symphonies to life, are wondrously few. There are splendid
+triumphs wrought, but they are almost every one material and practical.</p>
+
+<p>"The men who created the science of chemistry dreamed of finding the
+elixir of life; the modern chemist pursues the study until he invents a
+patent medicine or a baking powder, and then all his energies are
+devoted to selling his discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"In its youthful vitality the Nation has performed wonders, and from the
+masses individuals have solved many of nature's mysteries and bridled
+many elemental forces.</p>
+
+<p>"The winds have been forced to swing open the doors to their caves and
+show where they are brewed; the lightnings have submitted to curb and
+rein; the ship goes out against the tempest, carried forward on its own
+iron arms; the secret of the sunlight has been fathomed and a
+counterfeit light created; the laws which govern sound have been
+mastered until the human voice now thrills a wire and is caught with
+perfect distinctness sixty miles away, and a thousand other such
+triumphs have been achieved.</p>
+
+<p>"But no deathless poem has been written, no immortal picture has been
+called to life on canvas; no master hand has touched the cold stone and
+transfigured it into something which seems ready, like the fabled statue
+of the old master, to warm into life and smiles.</p>
+
+<p>"Souls surcharged at first with celestial fire have waited for the work
+of the bodies to be finished, that they might materialize into words of
+form and splendor, waited until the tenement around them fell away and
+left them unvoiced, to seek a purer sphere, and a generation, three
+generations have died with their deepest tints unpainted, their sweetest
+music unsung.</p>
+
+<p>"This is one of the penalties attached to the laying of the foundations
+of new States. There is too much to be accomplished, too many purely
+material struggles to be made, and so hearts are stifled and souls,
+glowing with celestial fervor, are forbidden an altar on which to kindle
+their sacred flame.</p>
+
+<p>"England struggled a thousand years before a man appeared to shame
+wealth, power and titles with the majesty of a divine mind. Perhaps it
+will be as long in the United States before some glorified spirit will
+appear to show by example that the things which this generation is
+struggling most for are mere dust, which, when obtained, are but Dead
+Sea apples to the lips of hope."</p>
+
+<p>"But Brewster," said Harding, "do you not think that a good miner is of
+more use to the world than a bad sculptor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose," said Carlin, "we were all to stop this four dollars a day
+business of ours and go to writing poetry, who would pay the Chinaman
+and settle the grocery bills at the end of the month?"</p>
+
+<p>"Were not the Argonauts making pretty good use of their time," asked
+Miller, "when in twelve years they dug up and gave to the world nearly a
+thousand millions of dollars and caused such a change in the business of
+the country as comes to the fainting man's circulation through a
+transfusion of healthy blood into his veins?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not tell us last evening," said Ashley, "that when a poor man
+earned a home for his wife and babies, that to him came the perfume and
+the light?"</p>
+
+<p>"I carved out some beautiful stories and shpoke any amount of illegint
+poethry to Maggie Murphy, but it would not do," said Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a mirage before Brewster's eyes to-night," said Miller; "the
+business of most men is to earn bread."</p>
+
+<p>Then Brewster, bristling up, responded:</p>
+
+<p>"My answer to all of you is this: Man's first duty is to provide for
+himself, and for those dependent upon him, by honest toil, either of
+hand or brain, or both. For a long time you have each worked eight hours
+out of the twenty-four; perhaps eight hours more have been absorbed in
+eating and sleeping. What have you done with the other eight hours? You
+are miners. You can set timbers in line, you can lie on your backs and
+hit a drill above you with perfect precision; but could you make a
+draught of a mine, or clothe a description of one in good language on
+paper? You look upon a piece of ore, but can you test it and tell how
+much it is worth? These are all legitimate parts of your business as
+miners, and I refer to them merely to illustrate that in the excitements
+of this city, and the dream of getting rich in stock speculations, you
+have not only neglected your better natures, but have failed to
+thoroughly accomplish yourselves in your real business. You can see what
+you have actually lost, but you cannot estimate the pleasure you have
+been denying yourselves. Then when you are too old to work, what
+amusements and diversions are you preparing for old age?"</p>
+
+<p>"For that, matter," said Miller, "ask the man who fell down the Alta
+shaft last week, 800 feet to the sump, and the pieces of whose body,
+that could be found, were sewed up in canvas to be brought to the
+surface."</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a silence for several minutes until a freight train, with
+two locomotives (a double header), came up the heavy grade from Gold
+Hill and, when opposite the house of the Club, both locomotives
+whistled. At this Corrigan said:</p>
+
+<p>"Hear those black horses neigh! What a hail they give to the night! What
+a power they have under their black skins! I wonder if they don't think
+sometimes, the off-colored monsters."</p>
+
+<p>"If the steam engine has not reflective faculties it ought to have,"
+said Harding. "The highest pleasures which a man, in his normal state,
+can have are the approving whispers of his own soul. If in the iron
+frame of the steam engine there could be hidden a soul, what whispers
+would thrill it in these days! Methinks they would be something like
+this:</p>
+
+<p>"'When I was born Invention gave to Progress a child which was to be to
+the modern world what the Genii were to the ancient world, except that I
+am real, while the Genii were but dreams. In me man finds the
+materialization of a dream which haunted mortals through the centuries,
+while the world was slowly pressing onward to a better state. At my
+birth men were glad to give to me their burdens, because I could carry
+them without fatigue. They thought me but a dumb slave to do their
+bidding; they saw that I could add greatly to their achievements by
+enabling them to overcome heavy matter, and with tireless feet to chase
+the swift hours. I cannot add to man's actual years, but I can make one
+hour for him equal to a day in the olden time. At first my work was
+confined to the closely peopled regions. But at length I was pushed out
+beyond the settlements of men, and then something of the divinity within
+me began to assert itself. Savage man and the wild beast retired before
+me; when the path was made for me into the immemorial hills, before my
+scream the scream of the eagle died away. The lordly bird spread his
+wings to seek more impenetrable crags. Following in my wake,
+civilization came; homes sprang up, temples to art and to learning were
+upreared, and on the air, which but a year before was startled only by
+barbarous cries, there fell the benediction of children's voices, as
+with swinging satchels in their hands, they sang their songs going to
+and returning from schools. Then man began to discover that there was
+more to me than polished iron and brass; more than a heart of fire and a
+breath of steam. In my headlight they began to discover a faint
+reflection of the Infinite light, and in whispers began to say: "It is
+not a dumb slave; rather it is to Progress an evangel." As my power
+increased, it was seen that as the wild man and wild beast fled before
+me, old bigotries and old superstitions likewise fled, snarling like
+wolves, from my path; man moved up to a higher plane, and as he
+comprehended himself better, his thoughts were led upward; with enlarged
+ideas and deeper reverence, he turned to the contemplation of the First
+Great Cause who thrilled the dull matter of the universe with His own
+celestial light and order, and established that nothing was made in
+vain. And now a path is to be made down where the terrible Spaniard
+wrested an empire from the Aztecs; where, with the sword, he hewed down
+the altars on which human sacrifices were made, and built up new altars
+consecrated to Christianity. The people there will gather around me and
+rejoice. They think only of material things; how I will carry their
+burdens, take from them the fatigue of travel and increase their trade.
+They do not know that mine is a higher mission; that as I do their work
+there is to gradually fade from the faith that holds them, the
+superstitions which for centuries have environed their better selves and
+benumbed their grander energies. They will not realize, what is true,
+that angels still walk with men; that it is the near presence of the
+angels of Progress, Truth, Free Thought, Mercy and Eternal Justice, all
+rejoicing, which will give the thrill to their hearts. As yet my work
+has hardly commenced. It is not yet fifty years since I became a power
+in the world. Wait until I am better understood, until the smooth paths
+are made for me through all the wilderness, over all the rivers and
+hills, and I am given dominion over all the deep seas, that I may
+swiftly bring together the children of men, till gradually the nations
+will take on common thoughts and return to that tongue which was
+universal when the world was young, and, as yet, man walked in the clear
+image of his Creator. Then armies will melt away before me as savage
+tribes now do; then no more cannons will be cast, no more swords
+fashioned. Then, through my example, labor in the walks of peace will
+become exalted; then the thirst for gold will cease, because I will till
+the field, drive the loom, and take from man all that is servile or
+gross in toil; and gradually the wild beast in men's souls will be bred
+out, and in the peace of perfect brotherhood men will possess the earth,
+and I will be the good angel that will take away the burdens.'"</p>
+
+<p>As if in response to the words of Harding, just as he finished, the
+whistles all up and down the great lode sounded for the eleven o'clock
+change of shift, and the Club retired with this remark from Corrigan:</p>
+
+<p>"Harding, they heard what yez was remarkin' upon, and now hear the whole
+row of them cheerin' your spache."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Just after the lamps were lighted the next evening the door opened and
+the Professor, Colonel Savage and Alex Strong came in. The greetings
+were warm all around, and at once conversation turned upon stocks. The
+Professor insisted that the first great showing was to be made in the
+south end mines, Alex still believed in Overman, the Colonel was
+sanguine over Utah, Ashley asked the opinion of the others on Sierra
+Nevada. The general sentiment was that if Skae had any real indication
+there the Bonanza firm would gobble it up before any outsider could
+realize.</p>
+
+<p>Wright still inclined to the belief that the water must be conquered
+pretty soon in the Savage and that there would be a showing that would
+make every servant girl and hostler on the coast want some Savage.</p>
+
+<p>So the conversation ran on for an hour, until something was said which
+turned the conversation upon the strange characters which had been met
+on the western coast. At length the Colonel settled down for a talk, and
+the others became willing listeners.</p>
+
+<p>"I have met many royal people on this coast," began the Colonel. "Royal,
+though they never wore crowns, at least crowns not visible in the dim
+light of this world. The emblems of their royalty were hidden from most
+mortal eyes. In narrow spheres they lived and died, and only a few,
+besides God, knew of their sovereignty. One of these was</p>
+
+
+<h3>OLD ZACK TAYLOR.</h3>
+
+<p>"His last years were passed in Plumas and Lassen counties, California.
+When he came there his hair was already silvered; he must have been
+fifty years of age.</p>
+
+<p>"No one knew his antecedents. In the excitements and free-heartedness of
+those days not many questions were asked. Besides the young and hopeful
+there were many who had sought the new land as a balm for domestic
+troubles; as a spot where former misfortunes might be forgotten, where
+early mistakes might, in earnest lives, be buried out of sight. With the
+rest came Zack Taylor. From the first that region seemed to possess a
+charm for him. No person can imagine the splendor in natural scenery of
+Plumas county. It must be seen to be comprehended. The mountains are
+tremendous; the valleys are so fair that they seem like pictures in
+their mountain frames. And so they are. They are the work of a Master's
+hand, whose work never fades. His signet is upon them as it was
+indented, when, in the long ago, it was decided that at last the earth
+was fitted to be a habitation for man.</p>
+
+<p>"The forests are such forests as are no where seen in this world, except
+in the Pacific States of the United States. There is no exaggeration in
+this. Ordinary pines will make ten thousand feet of lumber, and they
+stand very near together, those mighty pines of the Sierras.</p>
+
+<p>"The panoramas that are unrolled there when nature is in the
+picture-making mood are most gorgeous. Some that I saw there linger
+fresh upon my mind still. They come to me sometimes when I am down in
+the depths of the mine, and for a moment I forget the heat and the
+gloom.</p>
+
+<p>"As a rule, all the summer long, the skies are of a crystal clearness;
+the green of the hill tops melts into the everlasting incandescent white
+beyond, and there is no change for days and weeks at a time, except as
+the green of the day fades into the shadows of the night, and the gold
+of the sunlight gives place to the silver of the stars.</p>
+
+<p>"It was to this region that Zack Taylor came and made his abode. About
+him was an air of perfect contentment. Besides his blanching hair, there
+were deep lines about his face, which were an alphabet from which could
+be spelled out stories of past excitements and trials, but if sorrows
+and sufferings were included, the firm lips gave no sign, and the
+bright, black eyes were ever kindly. There were rumors that he had been
+a soldier, but the general impression was, that from childhood, he had
+been tossed about on the frontier. He had the moods, the gestures and
+dialect of the frontier. He liked wild game cooked upon a camp fire,
+and, in frontier phrase, he could 'punish a heap of whisky.'</p>
+
+<p>"He was at home everywhere; in the saloons his coming was always
+welcome; when he met a lady on the street, no matter whether she was
+young or old, fair or ugly, he always doffed his hat, and the few
+children of those early days looked upon him as a father&mdash;or an angel.
+He had a cheery, hearty, winsome way about him which drew all hearts to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"When I saw him last the gray hair had turned to snowy white; the scars
+of time had grooved deeper furrows on cheek and brow, the old elastic,
+merry way had grown sedate, but the black eyes were still kindly and
+bright. At that time he lived, a welcome pauper, on the citizens of
+Susanville, in Lassen county.</p>
+
+<p>"When hungry he went where he pleased and got food; when he needed
+clothes they were forthcoming in any store where he applied for them.
+When, sometimes, merchants would in jest banter him for money on account
+of what he owed, his way was to softly suggest to them that if the
+patronage of the place did not, in their judgments, justify them in
+remaining; there was no constitutional objection that he was aware of to
+prevent their making an auction.</p>
+
+<p>"One fearfully cold winter's night a few of us were sitting around the
+stove in the Stewart House, in Susanville, when old Zack came in. The
+circle was widened for him, and as he drew up to the fire, some one
+said: 'Zack, tell us about that night's work when you tended bar for the
+poker players?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Itwusdown on Noth Fok (North Fork) of Feather River, 'bout '52 or '53,
+I disremember which,' began Zack. 'It wus in the winter, and it being
+too cold for mining, ther boys wus all in camp. Thar wus no women thar,
+least ways, no ladies, and women as isn't ladies&mdash;but we dun no who thar
+mothers wus, nor how much they has suffered, and we haint got no
+business to talk about 'em. But, as I wus sayin', the boys wus all in
+camp, and thar wus lots of beans and whisky and sich things, and we hed
+good times, you bet!</p>
+
+<p>"Jake Clark kept a saloon thar, which wus sort of headquarters, and
+sometimes when the boys got warmed up on Jake's whisky thar wus lively
+times. Well, I <i>should</i> remark. It wussent much wonder, neither, for
+Jake made his whisky in the back room, made it out of old boots,
+akerfortis and sich things, and if you believe me, a fire assay of that
+beverage would have shown 93 per cent, of cl'ar hell. Thar wus three or
+four copies of Shakespeare in camp, and everbody got a Sacermento
+<i>Union</i> every week when the express came in; so we kept posted solid.
+Speakin' of that, if folks only jest stick to Shakespeare and then
+paternize one first-class paper, sich as the old <i>Union</i> wus, and read
+'em, in the long run they'd have a heap more sense.</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course the boys would play poker sometimes. Men will always do that
+when the reproach in honest women's eyes is taken away, and I have
+heard, now and then, of one who would play in spite of good influences.
+At least thar is rumors to that effect.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, they wus playin' one night, five or six of them, inter Jake's
+saloon. It got to be about ten o'clock, and Jake says to me, says he,
+'Zack, them fellers is playin' and will most likely run it all night. By
+mornin' Tom D. will have the hul pile, and Tom never pays nuthin'. I'm
+goin' home. You run the ranch, Zack, and when they call for it you give
+'em whisky outer this 'ere keg, so if they never pay we won't lose too
+much." This he told me in a low voice behind the bar, in confidence
+like.</p>
+
+<p>"'Jake started for home and I went on watch. Thar wus lots of coin and
+dust on the table and the boys wus playin' high. I stood behind the bar
+and watched 'em, and as I watched I said to myself, says I, "The
+doggoned cusses! They come here and bum Jake's fuel and lights, and
+drink his whisky, and don't pay nuthin'. It's too bad."</p>
+
+<p>"'Then an idea struck me. I had a log of fat pine in the back yard. It
+wus fuller of pitch than Bill Pardee is of religion in revival times,
+and I thought of somethin'. I went out, got a lot of the pitch, warmed
+it in the candle down behind the bar and rubbed it all along the bottom
+of my hands, so, and then I waited developments.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pretty soon thar wus a call for whisky. I started out with a bottle in
+one hand and a glass in the other, and, setting down the glass first, I
+said, "'Ere's your glass," and settin' down the bottle, said, "'Ere's
+your whisky."</p>
+
+<p>"'They drank all 'round, when Harlow Porter said: "This is mine, Zack."
+I argued the pint with him and asked him how a man could furnish a
+house, lights, fires and whisky, and keep it up if nobody paid? They
+told me to "hire a hall," and all laughed. It wus only old Zack, you
+know.</p>
+
+<p>"'But I did tolerable well after all. When I sat down the glass half a
+dollar stuck to my hand, and when I sat down the whisky the other hand
+caught up a two and a half piece.</p>
+
+<p>"'The playin' went on, and I warmed my hands. By and by more whisky wus
+called for. I responded. Once more I said, '"Ere's your glass," and
+"'Ere's your whisky." They drank, and then Henry Moore said to Hugh
+Richmond: "Why don't you ante?" "I have," wus Hugh's reply; "I jist put
+up five dollars." "No you didn't," said Henry. "Yes I did," said Hugh,
+hotly. "You're a liar," said Miller, and then biff! biff! biff! came the
+blows.</p>
+
+<p>"'I got down behind the bar, for some of them cusses would shoot if half
+a chance wus given them. The truth wus, I had picked up the five with my
+pitch when I said "'Ere's your whisky."</p>
+
+<p>"'The boys got hold and stopped the row and the players proceeded. The
+oftener they drank the wurs bookkeepers they became, and all the time I
+wus doin' reasonably well.</p>
+
+<p>"'Durin' the night I took in eighty-three dollars and seen a beautiful
+fight.</p>
+
+<p>"'I didn't tell of it, though, for nigh onto three year, 'cept to Jake.
+It nearly killed me to keep it to myself. But Lord! wouldn't they have
+made it tropic for me if they'd ever dropped on the business! Well, I
+should remark!'</p>
+
+<p>"When Zack finished his story I asked if he would not take something.</p>
+
+<p>"He remarked that he was not particularly proud and, besides, the
+weather was 'powerful sarchin';' he believed he would.</p>
+
+<p>"He swallowed a stiff drink, returned to the stove, resumed his seat,
+began and told the whole story over, except that the whisky was having
+its effect, and as he drew towards the close he commenced to exaggerate,
+and wound up by the assertion that he took in one hundred and sixty
+dollars and saw two tremendous fights.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one else asked him to drink. He accepted, then returned to his
+chair and apparently fell into a doze. After a few minutes, however, he
+aroused himself and began again, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"'It wus down on North Fok of Feather River, in '52 or '53, I
+disremember which. It was in the winter, and it bein' too cold for
+minin' ther boys wus all in camp. Thar wus no women thar, leastways no
+ladies, and women as is no ladies&mdash;but we dun no.'</p>
+
+<p>"Here I arose and slipped out of the room. Returning about fifteen
+minutes later. I found old Zack gesticulating wildly and in a high key
+exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"'I everlastingly broke the boys with my pitch. I took in <i>three hundred
+and forty-three dollars</i> and seen three the <i>dod-durndest fights in the
+world</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>"But it was not this that I began to tell. Three or four years before
+Zack's death, a courier announced to the people of Susanville that three
+days before, out near Deep Hole, on the desert eighty miles east of
+Susanville, a man had been killed by renegade Pi Ute Indians. The
+announcement made only a temporary impression, for such news was often
+brought to Susanville in those days. In a very few years eighty Lassen
+county men were murdered by Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"A few days after the news of this particular murder was brought in,
+Susanville began to be vexed by the evident presence of a mysterious
+thief. If a hunter brought in a brace of grouse or rabbits and left them
+exposed for a little while they disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"If a string of trout were caught from the river and were left anywhere
+for a few minutes they were lost. Gardens were robbed of fruit and
+vegetables; blankets, flannels and groceries disappeared from stores.
+The losses became unbearable at length, everybody was aroused and on the
+alert, but no thief could be discovered, though the depredations still
+went on. This continued for days and weeks, until the people became
+desperate, and many a threat was made that when the thief should finally
+be caught, in disposing of him the grim satisfaction of the frontier
+should be fully enjoyed. Old Zack was especially fierce in his
+denunciations.</p>
+
+<p>"One morning a horseman dashed into town, his mustang coming in on a
+dead run. Reining up in front of the main hotel, he sprang down from his
+horse and to the people who came running to see what was the matter, he
+explained that half a mile from town, around the bend of the hill, in
+the old deserted cabin, he had found the widow of the man killed weeks
+before by the Indians; had found her and a nest of babies, and none of
+them with sufficient food or clothing.</p>
+
+<p>"When the story was finished, men and women&mdash;half the population of the
+village&mdash;made a rush for the cabin. It was nearly concealed from view
+from the road by thick bushes, but they found the woman there and four
+little children. The woman seemed like one half dazed by sorrow and
+despair, but when questioned, she replied that she had been there five
+weeks. 'But how have you lived?' asked half a dozen voices in concert.
+Then the woman explained that she and her children would have starved,
+had it not been for a kind old gentleman who brought her everything that
+she required.</p>
+
+<p>"'Indeed,' she added, 'he brought me many things that I did not need,
+and which I felt that I ought not to accept, but he over-persuaded me,
+telling me that I did not know how rich he was, that his supplies were
+simply inexhaustible.</p>
+
+<p>"When asked to describe this man, she began to say: 'He is a heavy-set
+old gentleman; wears blue clothes; his hair is white as snow, but his
+eyes are black, and&mdash;'but she was not allowed to go any farther, for
+twenty voices, between weeping and laughing, cried 'Old Zack!'</p>
+
+<p>"The widow and her children were taken to the village, a house with its
+comforts provided for them, and there was, thenceforth, no more trouble
+from the ubiquitous thief.</p>
+
+<p>"Living on charity himself, with the wreck of a life behind him and
+nothing before him but the grave, which he was swiftly nearing, this
+great-hearted, old heavenly bummer and Christian thief, had taken care
+of this helpless family, and had done it because despite the dry rot and
+the whisky which had benumbed his energies, his soul, deep down, was
+royal to the core.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true that he had robbed the town to minister to the woman and her
+babies, but in the books of the angels, though it was written that he
+was a thief, in the same sentence it was also added, 'and God bless
+him,' and these words turned to gold even as they were being written.</p>
+
+<p>"When Old Zack was asked why he did not make the facts about the family
+known, after waiting a moment he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"'You see I've been tossed about a powerful sight in my time; have drank
+heaps of bad whisky; have done a great many no-account things and not a
+great many good ones. Since I wus a boy I have never had chick or kin of
+my own. I met the woman and her babies up by the cabin; they wus as
+pitiful a sight as ever you seen; and besides, the woman wus jist about
+to go stark mad with grief and hunger and anxiety and weariness. I seen
+she must have quiet and that anxiety about her children must be soothed
+some way. Then I did some of the best lyin' you ever heard. I got her to
+eat some supper and waited until the whole outfit wus fast asleep. I
+watched 'em a little while and then I got curis to know what kind of a
+provider I would have made for a family had I started out in life
+different, and that wus all there wus about it.'</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a wonder, then, that when the old man died his body was dressed
+in soft raiment, placed in a costly casket, and that, preceded by a
+martial band playing a requiem, all the people followed sorrowingly to
+the grave; and that, as they gently heaped the sods above his breast
+they sent after him into the Beyond heartfelt 'all-hails and
+farewells?'"</p>
+
+<p>"You see your man through colored spectacles, Colonel," spoke up
+Brewster. "From your description, I think there was more of the border
+deviltry in the old man than there was true royalty. Life had been a
+joke to him always; he played it as a joke to the end. One such a man
+was entertainment to the village; had there been a dozen more like him
+they would have become intolerable nuisances?"</p>
+
+<p>"That," said the Colonel, "only shows how miserable are my descriptive
+powers. There are not a dozen other such men as old Zack Taylor was
+among all the fourteen hundred millions of people on this sorrowful
+earth."</p>
+
+<p>"No," interposed Miller, "you told the story well enough, but it was
+only descriptive of a good-humored bummer at best&mdash;of one who was
+warm-hearted without a conscience, of one who was more willing to work
+to perpetrate a joke on others than to honorably earn the bread that he
+ate.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you of a royal fellow that I knew. It was Billie Smith. He
+lived in Eureka that first hard winter of '70-71. He was not a miner as
+we are, receiving four dollars per day. He and his partner, a surly old
+fellow, had a claim which they were developing, hoping that it would
+amount to something in the spring. That was before smelting had been
+made a success. The ores were all base and of too low a grade to ship
+away. These men had a little supply of flour, bacon and coffee, and that
+was about all, and it was all they expected until spring.</p>
+
+<p>"It was early in January and the weather was exceedingly cold. Their
+cabin was but a rude hut, open on every side to the winds. I was there
+and I know how things were. One day I was waiting in a tent, which by
+courtesy was called a store, when Billie came in. He had a cheery smile
+and hearty, welcome words for every one. He had been there but a few
+minutes when his partner came in. The old man was fairly boiling with
+rage. So angry was he that he could hardly articulate distinctly.
+Finally he explained that some thief had stolen their mattress, a pair
+of their best blankets and a sack of flour. He wanted an officer
+dispatched with a search warrant. Then I overheard the following
+conversation between the two men:</p>
+
+<p>"'O, never mind,' said Billie; 'some poor devil needed the things or he
+would not have taken them.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, but we need them, too; need them more than anything else,' was
+the response.</p>
+
+<p>"'O, we will get along; we have plenty.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' retorted the partner, 'but what are we going to do for a bed?
+Our hair mattress and best pair of blankets are gone, and the cabin is
+cold.'</p>
+
+<p>"'We can sew up some sacks into a mattress, and fill it with soft brush
+and leaves, and use our coats for blankets,' replied Billie. 'We'll get
+along all right. The truth is we have been sleeping too warm of late.'</p>
+
+<p>"Too warm!' said the partner, bitterly; 'I should think so. A polar bear
+would freeze in that cabin without a bed.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you think so?' asked Billie, smiling. 'Well, that is the way to
+keep it, and so if any wild animal comes that way we can freeze him out.
+Brace up, partner! Why should a man make a fuss about the loss of a
+trifle like that?'</p>
+
+<p>"Later I found out the facts. A little below Billie's cabin was another
+cabin, into which a family of emigrants had moved. They were dreadfully
+poor. Going to and returning from town Billie had noticed how things
+were. One night as he passed, going home in the dark, he heard a child
+crying in the cabin and heard it say to its mother that it was hungry
+and cold.</p>
+
+<p>"Next morning he waited until his partner had gone away, then rolled the
+mattress around a sack of flour, then rolled the mattress and flour up
+in his best pair of blankets, swung the bundle on his shoulder, carried
+it down the trail to the other cabin, where, opening the door, he flung
+it inside; then with finger on his lip he said in a hoarse whisper to
+the woman: 'Don't mention it! Not a word. I stole the bundle, and if you
+ever speak of it you will get me sent to prison,' and in a moment was
+swinging down the trail singing joyously:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"If I had but a thousand a year, Robin Ruff,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If I had but a thousand a year."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Last winter, after the fire, there was one man in this city, John W.
+Mackay, who gave $150,000 to the poor. It was a magnificent act, and was
+as grandly and gently performed as such an act could be. No one would
+ever have known it, had not the good priest who distributed the most of
+it, one day, mentioned the splendid fact. That man will receive his
+reward here, and hereafter, for it was a royal charity. But he has
+$30,000,000 to draw against, while, when Billie in the wilderness gave
+up his bed and his food, he not only had not a cent to draw against, but
+he had not a reasonably well-defined hope.</p>
+
+<p>"When at last the roll-call of the real royal men of this world shall be
+sounded, if any of you chance to be there, you will hear, close up to
+the head of the list, the name of Billie Smith, and when it shall be
+pronounced, if you listen, you will hear a very soft but dulcet refrain
+trembling along the harps and a murmur among the emerald arches that
+will sound like the beating of the wings of innumerable doves."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a good mon, surely. Did he do well with his mine?" asked
+Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Miller. "It was but a little deposit, and was quickly
+worked out. He scuffled along until the purchase of the Eureka Con. in
+the spring, then went to work there for a few months, then came here,
+and a day or two after arriving, was shot dead by the ruffian Perkins.</p>
+
+<p>"He was shot through the brain, and people tell me he was so quickly
+transfixed that in his coffin the old sunny smile was still upon his
+face. I don't believe that, though. I believe the smile came when, as
+the light went out here, he saw the dawn and felt the hand clasps on the
+other side.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, there was a man here who knew him, and who wrote something
+with the thought of poor Billie in his mind while he was writing."</p>
+
+<p>At this Miller arose and went to his carpet-sack, opened it and drew out
+a paper. Then handing it to Harding, he said: "Harding, you read better
+than I do, read it for us all."</p>
+
+<p>Harding took the paper and read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">ERNEST FAITHFUL.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twas the soul of Ernest Faithful<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Loosed from its home of clay&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its mission on earth completed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the judgment passed away.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twas the soul of Ernest Faithful<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stood at the bar above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the deeds of men are passed upon<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In justice, but in love.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And an angel questioned Faithful<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the life just passed on earth!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What could he plead of virtue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What could he count of worth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the soul of Ernest Faithful<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Trembled in sore dismay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from the judgment angel's gaze<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shuddering, turned away.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For memory came and whispered<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How worldly was that life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unfairly plotting, sometimes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In anger and in strife;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For a selfish end essaying<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To treasures win or fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the soul of Ernest cowered 'neath<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The angel's eye of flame.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then from a book the angel drew<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A leaf with name and date,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A record of this Ernest's life<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wove in the looms of Fate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And said: "O, Faithful, answer me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Here is a midnight scroll,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What didst thou 'neath the stars that night?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Didst linger o'er the bowl?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Filling the night with revelry<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With cards and wine and dice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And adding music's ecstacy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To give more charms to vice?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then the soul of Faithful answered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"By the bedside of a friend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I watched the long hours through; that night<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His life drew near its end."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here's another date at midnight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where was't thou this night, say?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I was waiting by the dust of one<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose soul had passed that day."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"These dollar marks," the angel said;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"What mean they, Ernest, tell?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"It was a trifle that I gave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To one whom want befell."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here's thine own picture, illy dressed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What means this scant attire?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I know not," answered Faithful, "save<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That once midst tempest dire,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I found a fellow-man benumbed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And lost amid the storm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so around him wrapped my vest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His stiffening limbs to warm."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here is a woman's face, a girl's.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O, Ernest, is this well?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knowst thou how often women's arms<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Have drawn men's souls to hell?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then Ernest answered: "This poor girl<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An orphan was. I gave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A trifle of my ample store<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The child from want to save."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Next are some words. What mean they here?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then Ernest answered low:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A fellow-man approached me once<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose life was full of woe,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When I had naught to give, except<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Some words of hope and trust;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I bade him still have faith, for God<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who rules above is just."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then the grave angel smiled and moved<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ajar the pearly gate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said: "O, soul! we welcome thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unto this new estate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Enter! Nor sorrow more is thine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor grief; we know thy creed&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou who hast soothed thy fellowmen<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In hour of sorest need.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thou who hast watched thy brother's dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When the wrung soul had fled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to the stranger gave thy cloak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And to the orphan, bread.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And when all else was gone, had still<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A word of kindly cheer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For one more wretched than thyself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thou, soul, art welcome here.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Put on the robe thou gav'st away<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Tis stainless now and white;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all thy words and deeds are gems;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wear them, it is thy right!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And then from choir and harp awoke<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A joyous, welcome strain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which other harps and choirs took up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In jubilant refrain,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Till all the aisles of Summer Land<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Grew resonant, as beat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The measures of that mighty song<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of welcome, full and sweet.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"That is purty. I hope there were no mistake about the gintleman making
+the showing up above," said Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"What lots of music there must be up in that country," chimed in Carlin.
+"I wonder if there are any buildings any where on the back streets where
+new beginners practice."</p>
+
+<p>"That represents the Hebrew idea of Heaven," said Alex. "I like that of
+the savage better, with hills and streams and glorious old woods. There
+is a dearer feeling of rest attached to it, and rest is what a life
+craves most after a buffet of three score years in this world."</p>
+
+<p>"Rest is a pretty good thing after an eight-hours' wrestle with the
+gnomes down on a 2,300 level of the Comstock," said Miller; "suppose we
+say good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Withdraw the motion for a moment, Miller," said Wright. "First, I move
+that our friends here be made honorary members of the Club."</p>
+
+<p>It was carried by acclamation, and thereafter, for several nights, the
+three were present nightly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When the Club reassembled Carlin, addressing the Colonel, said: "You
+told us of a royal old bummer last night, and Miller told us of an angel
+in miner's garb. Your stories reminded me of something which happened in
+Hamilton, in Eastern Nevada, in the early times, when the thermometer
+was at zero, when homes were homes and food was food. There was a royal
+fellow there, too, only he was not a miner, and though he lived upon the
+earnings of others, he never accepted charity. By profession he was a
+gambler, and not a very 'high-toned' gambler at that. He was known as
+'Andy Flinn,' though it was said, for family reasons, he did not pass
+under his real name.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Andy had, in sporting parlance, been 'playing in the worst kind
+of luck' for a good while. One afternoon his whole estate was reduced to
+the sum of fifteen dollars. He counted it over in his room, slipped it
+back into his pocket and started up town. A little way from the lodging
+where he roomed he was met by a man who begged him to step into a house
+near by and see how destitute the inmates were.</p>
+
+<p>"Andy mechanically followed the man, who led the way to a cabin, threw
+open the door and ushered Andy in. There was a man, the husband and
+father, ill in bed, while the wife and mother, a delicate woman, and two
+little children, were, in scanty garments, hovering around the ghost of
+a fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Andy took one look, then rushed out of doors, the man who had led him
+into the cabin following. Andy walked rapidly away until out of hearing
+of the wretched people in the house, then swinging on his heel, for full
+two minutes hurled the most appalling anathemas at the man for leading
+him, as Andy expressed it, 'into the presence of those advance agents of
+a famine.'</p>
+
+<p>"When he paused for breath the man said, quietly: 'I like that; I like
+to see you fellows, that take the world so carelessly and easily,
+stirred up occasionally.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Easy!' said Andy; 'you had better try it. You think our work is easy;
+you are a mere child. We don't get half credit. I tell you to make a man
+an accomplished gambler requires more study than to acquire a learned
+profession; more labor than is needed to become a deft artisan. You talk
+like a fool. Easy, indeed!'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't care to discuss that point with you, Andy,' said the man. 'I
+expect you are right, but that is not the question. What are you, a big,
+strong, healthy fellow, going to do to help those poor wretches in the
+cabin yonder?'</p>
+
+<p>"Andy plunged his hand into his pocket, drew out the fifteen dollars and
+was just going to pass it over to the man when a thought struck him.
+'Hold on,' he said; 'a man is an idiot that throws away his capital and
+then has to take his chances with the thieves that fill this camp. You
+come with me. I am going to try to take up a collection. By the way,' he
+said, shortly, 'do you ever pray?'</p>
+
+<p>"The man answered that he did sometimes. 'Then,' said Andy, 'you put in
+your very biggest licks when I start my collection.'</p>
+
+<p>"Not another word was said until they reached and entered a then famous
+saloon on Main street.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to the rear where a faro game was in progress, Andy exchanged his
+fifteen dollars for chips and began to play. He never ceased; hardly
+looked up from the table for two hours. Sometimes he won and sometimes
+he lost, but the balance was on the winning side. Finally he ceased
+playing, gathered up his last stakes, and beckoning to the man who had
+come with him to the saloon, and who had watched his playing with lively
+interest, he led the way into the billiard room.</p>
+
+<p>"Andy went to a window on one side of the room and began to search his
+pockets, piling all the money he could find on the sill of the window.
+The money was all in gold and silver.</p>
+
+<p>"When his pockets were emptied, with the quickness of men of his class,
+he ran the amount over. Then taking from a billiard table a bit of chalk
+he, with labored strokes, wrote on the window sill the following:</p>
+
+<table width="50%">
+<tr><td>hul sum</td><td align="right">$263 50</td></tr>
+<tr><td>starter</td><td align="right">15 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">-------</td></tr>
+<tr><td>doo ter god</td><td align="right">$248 50</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"He picked up a ten-dollar piece and a five-dollar piece from the
+amount, then pushing the rest along the sill away from the figures,
+asked the man to count it. He did so and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I make altogether $248.50, Andy.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I suspect you are correct,' said Andy, 'and now you take that money
+and go and fix up those people as comfortably as you can. Tell 'em we
+took up a collection among the boys; don't say a word about it on the
+outside, and see here. If you ever again show me as horrible a sight as
+that crowd makes in that accursed den down the street, I'll break every
+bone in your body.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But,' said the man, 'this is not right, Andy. It is too much. Fifty
+dollars would be a most generous contribution from you. Give me fifty
+dollars and you take back the rest.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you take me for?' was Andy's reply. 'Don't you think I have
+any honor about me? When I went into that saloon I promised God that if
+He would stand in with me, His poor should have every cent that I could
+make in a two hours' deal. I would simply be a liar and a thief if I
+took a cent of that money. You praying cusses have not very clear ideas
+of right and wrong after all.'</p>
+
+<p>"The man went on his errand of mercy, and Andy returned and invested his
+money in the bank again, as he said, 'to try to turn an honest penny.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That was a right ginerous man," remarked Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"May be and may be not," was the remark of the Colonel. "It is possible
+that he had been 'playing in bad luck,' as they say, for a good while
+and did it to change that luck. Confirmed gamesters never reason clearly
+on ordinary subjects. They are either up in the clouds or down in the
+depths; they are perpetually studying the doctrine of chances, and are
+as full of superstitions as so many fortune tellers."</p>
+
+<p>"That class of men are proverbially generous, though," said Harding;
+"but the way they get their money, I suspect, has something to do with
+the matter. Had the man earned the money at four dollars a day, running
+a car down in a hot mine, he would hardly have given up the whole sum."</p>
+
+<p>Here Miller took up the conversation. "I knew a man down in Amador
+county, California," said he, "who worked in a mine as we are working
+here, except that wages were $3.50 instead of $4.00 per day. He came
+there in the fall of the year and worked eight months. His clothes were
+always poor. He lived in a cabin by himself, and such miners as happened
+into his cabin at meal time declared their belief that his food did not
+cost half a dollar a day. He never joined the miners down town; was
+never known to treat to as much as a glass of beer. We all hated him
+cordially and looked upon him as a miner so avaricious that he was
+denying himself the common comforts of life. He was the talk of the
+mine, and many were the scornful words which he was made to hear and to
+know that they were uttered at his expense. Still he was quiet and
+resented nothing that was said, and there was no dispute about his being
+a most capable and faithful miner. At last one morning as the morning
+shift were waiting at the shaft to be lowered into the mine, Baxter
+(that was his name) appeared, and, after begging our attention for a
+moment, said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen, there is the dead body of an old man up in the cabin across
+from the trail. It will cost sixty dollars to bury it in a decent
+coffin. The undertaker will not trust me, but if twenty of you will put
+in three dollars each, I will pay you all when pay-day comes.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then we questioned him, and it came out at last that Baxter had found
+the old man sick a few days after he came to work, and of his $3.50 per
+day had spent $3.00 in food, medicine and medical attendance upon the
+man, all through the long winter, and had moreover often watched with
+him twelve hours out of the twenty-four. It was not a child that
+something might be hoped for; there was no beautiful young girl about
+the place to be in love with. It was simply a death watch over a
+worn-out pauper. I thought then, I think still, it was as fine a thing
+as ever I saw.</p>
+
+<p>"There were sixty of us on the mine. We put in ten dollars apiece, went
+to Baxter in a body, and, begging his pardon, asked him to accept it.</p>
+
+<p>"With a smile, he answered: 'I thank you, but I cannot take it. I have
+wasted much money in my time. Now I feel as though I had a little on
+interest, and I shall get along first rate.'</p>
+
+<p>"Talk about royalty, our Baxter was an Emperor."</p>
+
+<p>"He did have something on interest," said Brewster. "Something for this
+world and the world to come."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear about Jack Marshall's attempt to pay his debts by
+clerking in a store?" asked Savage. "Jack brought a good deal of coin
+here and opened a store. He did first rate for several months, and after
+awhile branched out into a larger business, which required a good many
+men. When everything was promising well a fire came and swept away the
+store and a flood destroyed the other property. There was just enough
+saved out of the wreck to pay the laborers.</p>
+
+<p>"When all was settled up Jack had but forty-three dollars left and an
+orphan boy to take care of. Just then a man that Jack had known for a
+good while as a miner, came into town, and hearing of Jack's
+misfortunes, hunted him up and told him that he had given up mining and
+settled down to farming, and begged Jack to come and make his home with
+him until he had time to think over what was best to do. He further said
+that he had twelve acres of land cleared and under fence, with ditches
+all dug for irrigating the crop; that he had a yoke of oxen to plough
+the land; that his intention was to plant the whole twelve acres to
+potatoes; that a fair crop would yield him sixty tons, which, as
+potatoes then were four cents a pound, would bring him nearly $5,000 for
+the season. But he explained that he could not drive oxen, and more than
+that, it required two men to do the work, and as he had not much money
+and did not want to run in debt, his business in town was to find some
+steady man who could drive oxen, who would go with him and help him
+plant, tend, harvest and sell the crop on shares. The ranch was down on
+Carson River, not far from Fort Churchill.</p>
+
+<p>"When the man had finished his story, Jack said to him: 'How would I do
+for a steady man and a bovine manipulator?'</p>
+
+<p>"'My God, Mr. Marshall! you would not undertake to drive oxen and plant
+potatoes, would you?' said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"'That's just what I would,' said Jack, 'if you think you can endure me
+for a partner. I will become a horny-handed tender of the vine&mdash;the
+potato vine. What say you?'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that evening both men started for the farm. No friend of Jack
+knew his real circumstances. They knew he had been unfortunate, but did
+not know that it was a case of 'total wreck.' He bade a few of them
+good-bye, with the careless remark that he was going for a few days'
+hunt down toward the sink of the Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he ploughed the land, the two men planted the crop and irrigated
+it until the potatoes were splendidly advanced and just ready to
+blossom. It got to be the last of June and the promise for a bountiful
+crop was encouraging. They had worked steadily since the middle of
+March. But just then a thief, who had some money, made a false
+affidavit, got from a court an injunction against the men and shut off
+the water. It was just at the critical time when the life of the crop
+depended upon water. In two weeks the whole crop was ruined. In the
+meantime for seed and provisions, clothes, etc., a debt of one hundred
+and fifty dollars had been contracted at the store of a Hebrew named
+Isaacs. News of the injunction reached the merchant, and one morning he
+put in an appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"'Meester Marshall, hous dings?' asked Isaacs.</p>
+
+<p>"Pointing to the blackened and withering crop, Jack answered: 'They look
+a little bilious, don't you think so?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Mine Gott! Mine Gott!' was the wailing exclamation. Then, after a
+pause, 'Ven does you suppose you might pay me, Meester Marshall?'</p>
+
+<p>"'As things have been going of late, I think in about seven years. It is
+said that bad luck changes about every seven years.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Mine Gott! Meester Marshall,' cried Isaacs; 'haven't you got nodings
+vot you can pay? I vill discount de bill&mdash;say ten per cent.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing that I can think of, except a dog. I have a dog that is worth
+two hundred dollars, but to you I will discount the dog twenty-five per
+cent.'</p>
+
+<p>"'O, mine Gott! vot you dinks I could do mit a dog?' said the despairing
+merchant.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why keep him for his society, Mr. Isaacs,' was the bantering answer.
+'With him salary is not so much an object as a comfortable and
+respectable home. There's too much alkali on the soil to encourage fleas
+to remain, so there's no difficulty on that score; and he's an awfully
+good dog, Isaacs; no bad habits, and the most regular boarder you ever
+saw; he has never been late to a meal since we have been here. You had
+better take him; twenty-five per cent is an immense discount.'</p>
+
+<p>"By this time the Hebrew was nearly frantic.</p>
+
+<p>"'Meester Marshall,' he said, hesitatingly, 'did you clerk ever in a
+store?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, yes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Vould you clerk for me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes: that is, until that bill shall be settled.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ven could you come?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Whenever you wish.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Vould you come next Monday&mdash;von of mine clerks, Henery, goes avay
+Monday?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, I will be on hand Monday. Let us see; it is seven miles to walk.
+I will be there about nine o'clock in the morning.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Vell, I danks you, Meester Marshall; danks you very much.'</p>
+
+<p>"He turned away and rode off a few steps, then stopped and called back:
+'Meester Marshall, if you dinks vot de society of de dog is essential to
+your comfort, bring him.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Thanks, Isaacs,' cried Jack, cheerfully; 'considering where I am going
+to work, and the company I am going to keep, it will not be necessary.'</p>
+
+<p>"Jack went as he had promised. Isaacs, who was a thoroughly good man,
+was delighted to see him, shook hands cordially, and then suddenly, with
+a mysterious look, led him to the extreme rear end of the store, and
+when there, placing his lips close to Jack's ear, in a hoarse whisper,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Meester Marshall, de vater here is &mdash;&mdash; bad; it is poison, horrible.
+You drinks nodings but vine until you gets used to de vater.'</p>
+
+<p>"Marshall went to work at once. It was in 1863. The war was at its
+height, and Jack was intensely Union, while Isaacs, his employer, was a
+furious Democrat. Nothing of especial interest transpired for a couple
+of weeks, when one day an emigrant woman, just across the plains,
+leading two little children, came into the store.</p>
+
+<p>"She was an exceedingly poor woman, evidently. All her clothes were not
+worth three dollars, while her children were pitiful looking beyond
+description.</p>
+
+<p>"Isaacs was in the front of the store; Jack was putting up goods in the
+rear, but in hearing, while another clerk was in the warehouse outside
+of the main store. Isaacs went to wait on the woman. She picked out some
+needed articles of clothing for her children, amounting to some six or
+eight dollars, then unrolling a dilapidated kerchief, from its inner
+folds drew out a Confederate twenty-dollar note and tendered it in
+payment.</p>
+
+<p>"Isaacs, who had been all smiles, drew back in horror, exclaiming: 'I
+cannot take dot; dot is not monish, madam.'</p>
+
+<p>"Jack overheard what Isaacs said and the woman's reply, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"'It is all that I have; it is all the money that we have had in
+Arkansas since the war commenced. Everybody takes it in Arkansas.'</p>
+
+<p>"This conversation continued for two or three minutes, and the woman was
+just about turning away without the goods when Jack, unable to longer
+bear it, stepped forward and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. Isaacs, Mr. Smith would like to see you in the warehouse; please
+permit me to wait upon the lady.'</p>
+
+<p>"'All right,' said Isaacs, 'only (in a whisper) remember dot ish not
+money.'</p>
+
+<p>"Isaacs passed out of the store and Jack then said: 'If you please,
+madam, let me see your money.'</p>
+
+<p>"The woman, with a trembling hand, presented the Confederate note. Jack
+glanced at it and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, this is first-class money, madam. It is just a prejudice that
+that infernal old Abolitionist has. I will discharge him to-night. They
+would hang him in two hours in Arkansas, and they ought to hang him
+here. Buy all the goods you want, madam.'</p>
+
+<p>"With eyes full of gratitude the woman increased the bill, until it
+amounted to eleven dollars and a half. Jack tied up the goods, took the
+Confederate note, handed the woman a five-dollar gold piece and three
+dollars and fifty cents in silver, and she went on her way holding the
+precious coin, the first she had seen in years, closely clasped in her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack charged goods to cash twenty dollars, charged himself to cash
+twenty dollars, and went back to putting up goods, humming to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"'Half the world never knows how the other half lives.' Jack's salary
+was one hundred and fifty dollars a month. He owed one hundred and fifty
+dollars when he went to work. It took him four months to pay off his
+indebtedness, but when he gave up his place he had all his pockets full
+of Confederate money."</p>
+
+<p>As the story was finished, Miller said: "A real pleasant but
+characteristic thing happened right here in this city when Bishop W&mdash;&mdash;
+first came here.</p>
+
+<p>"He wanted to establish a church, and his first work was to select men
+who would act and be a help to him as trustees.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing to get trustees for a mining company here, but a church
+is a different thing. In a church, you know, a man has to die to fill
+his shorts, and then, somehow, in these late years men have doubts about
+the formation, so that when a man starts a company on that lead any more
+he finds it mighty hard to place any working capital.</p>
+
+<p>"At the time I was speaking of it was just about impossible to get a
+full staff of trustees that would exactly answer the orthodox
+requirements. But the Bishop is a man of expedients. It was sinners that
+he came to call to repentance, and it did not take him long to discover
+that right here was a big field. He went to work at once with an energy
+that has never abated for a moment since. He selected all his trustees
+but one, and looking around for him, with a clear instinct he determined
+that Abe E&mdash;&mdash; should be that one if he would accept the place.</p>
+
+<p>"Now Abe was the best and truest of men, but he would swear sometimes.
+Indeed when he got started on that stratum he was a holy terror. But the
+Bishop put him down as a trustee, and, meeting Abe on the street,
+informed him that he was trying to organize a church; had taken the
+liberty to name him as a trustee, and asked Abe to do him the honor of
+attending a trustees' meeting at 1 o'clock the next afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"'I would be glad to help you, Bishop,' said Abe, 'but&mdash;&mdash;it&mdash;&mdash;I
+don't know. I can run a mine or a quartz mill, but I don't know any more
+than a Chinaman about running a church.'</p>
+
+<p>"But the Bishop plead his case so ably that Abe at length surrendered,
+promised to attend the meeting, and, having promised, like the sterling
+business man that he was, promptly put in an appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides Abe and the Bishop, there were six others. When all had
+assembled the Bishop explained that he desired to build a church; that
+he had plans, specifications and estimates for a church to cost $9,000,
+with lot included; that he believed $1,500 might be raised by
+subscription, leaving the church but $7,500 in debt, which amount would
+run at low interest and which in a growing place like Virginia City the
+Bishop thought might be paid up in four or five years, leaving the
+church free. He closed by asking the sense of the trustees as to the
+wisdom and practicability of making the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a general approval of the plan expressed by all present
+except Abe, who was silent until his opinion was directly asked by the
+Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why &mdash;&mdash; it, Bishop,' said he, 'I told you that I knew nothing about
+church business, but I don't like the plan. If you were to get money at
+fifteen per cent per annum, which is only half the regular banking rate,
+your interest would amount to nearly $1,200 a year, or almost as much as
+you hope to raise for a commencement. I am afraid, Bishop, you would
+never live long enough to get out of debt. You want a church, why &mdash;&mdash;
+it, why don't you work the business as though you believed it would pay?
+That is the only way you can get up any confidence in the scheme.'</p>
+
+<p>"Abe sat down and the Bishop's heart sank with him.</p>
+
+<p>"With a smile, one of the other gentlemen asked Abe what his plan for
+getting a church would be.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will tell you,' said Abe, 'I move that an assessment of one thousand
+dollars be levied upon each of the trustees, payable immediately.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was a startling proposition to the Bishop, who was just from the
+East and who had not become accustomed to Comstock ways. With a
+faltering voice he said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. E., I fear that I cannot at present raise $1,000.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Never mind, Bishop,' said Abe, 'we will take yours out in preaching;
+but there is no rebate for any of the rest of you. If you are going to
+serve the Lord, you have got to be respectable about it. Your checks if
+you please, gentlemen.'</p>
+
+<p>"All were wealthy men, the checks were laughingly furnished, with joking
+remarks that it was the first company ever formed in Virginia City where
+the officers really invested any money.</p>
+
+<p>"'Abe took the checks, added his own to the number, begged the Bishop to
+excuse him, remarking as he went out that while he had every faith in
+the others still he was anxious to reach the bank a little in advance of
+them, and started up town.</p>
+
+<p>"He met this man and that and demanded of each a check for from $50 to
+$250, as he thought they could respectively afford to pay.</p>
+
+<p>"When asked how long he would want the money his reply was: 'I want it
+for keeps, &mdash;&mdash; it. I am building a church.' In forty minutes he had the
+whole sum. He took the checks to the bank and for them received a
+certificate of deposit in the Bishop's name. Carrying this to the
+Bishop's house he rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"'The Bishop had seen his coming and answered the summons in person.
+Handing him the certificate Abe said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Take that for a starter, Bishop. It won't be enough, for a church is
+like an old quartz mill. The cost always exceeds the estimates a good
+deal, but go ahead, and when you need more money we will levy another
+assessment on the infernal sinners.'"</p>
+
+<p>Strong, who had been listening attentively said: "I heard the Bishop
+preach and pray over Abe's dead body three years ago, and watched him as
+he took a last, long look at Abe's still, clear-cut splendid face as it
+was composed in death. Abe never joined the church, and I am told that
+he swore a little to the last. His part in building the church was
+simply one of his whims, but for years he was a Providence here to
+scores of people. No one knew half his acts of bountiful, delicate
+charity, or in how many homes bitter tears were shed when he died.</p>
+
+<p>"But the Bishop knew enough to know and feel as he was praying over his
+remains, that while it was well as a matter of form, it was quite
+unnecessary; that, so far as Abe was concerned, he was safe; that in the
+Beyond where the mansions are and where the light is born; where, over
+all, are forever stretched out the brooding wings of celestial peace,
+Abe had been received, and that, upon his coming, while the welcomes
+were sounding and the greetings were being made to him, flowers burst
+through the golden floor and blossomed at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Among the royal ones of the earth, the soul of Abe E&mdash;&mdash; bore the
+sceptre of perfect sovereignty."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew him," said Corrigan, "may his soul rest in peace, for he was a
+noble man."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew him," interposed Carlin, "no words give an idea of how sterling
+and true a man he was."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew him," added Wright. "When he died Virginia City did not realize
+the loss which his death entailed."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew him," concluded Strong. "His heart was a banyan tree, its limbs
+were perpetually bending down and taking root, till it made shade for
+the poor of the city."</p>
+
+<p>Then Carlin, opening the door to the kitchen, called Yap Sing to bring
+glasses. A night-cap toddy was made and as it was drank the good nights
+were spoken.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+
+<p>With the lighting of the pipes the next night Miller said:</p>
+
+<p>"All your royal people so far, though not perfect men, have had
+redeeming traits. I once knew one who had not a single characteristic,
+except, perhaps, some pluck. My man was simply a royal liar. In Western
+parlance, 'he was a boss.' His name was Colonel Jensen.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, in my judgment, lying is the very grossest of human evils. A
+common liar is a perpetual proof of the truth of the doctrine of
+original sin. By that vice more friendships are broken and more real
+misery is perpetrated and perpetuated in the world than comes through
+any other channel.</p>
+
+<p>"But as genius excites admiration even when exerted for sinister
+purposes, so when the art of lying is reduced to an absolute science
+there is something almost fine about it.</p>
+
+<p>"My liar, when I first knew him, seemed to be between fifty and sixty
+years of age; but no one ever knew what his real age was.</p>
+
+<p>"But he was quite an old man, for his hair was perfectly white, and
+that, with a singularly striking face and fine faculty of expressing his
+ideas, gave him an appearance at once venerable and engaging. It was
+hard to look into his almost classical face and to think that if he had
+told the truth within twenty years, it must have been an accident; but
+such was the fact, nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>"He was indeed a colossal prevaricator. He was at home, too, on every
+theme, and there was the charm of freshness to every new falsehood, for
+he spoke as one who was on the spot&mdash;an actor. If it was an event that
+he was describing, he was a participant; if a landscape or a structure,
+it was from actual observation; if it chanced to be a scientific theme,
+he invariably reported the words of some great scientist 'just as they
+fell from his lips.'</p>
+
+<p>"He knew and had dined with all the great men of his generation&mdash;that
+is, he said so. He always spoke with particularly affectionate
+remembrance of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, always referring to them
+as 'Hank' and 'Dan,' so intimate had he been with them.</p>
+
+<p>"My introduction to him was on a stormy winter night, in the early years
+of the Washoe excitement. A few of us were conversing in a hotel. One
+gentleman was describing something that he had witnessed in his boyhood,
+in Columbus, Ohio.</p>
+
+<p>"As he finished his story, a venerable gentleman, who was a stranger in
+Washoe, and who had, for several minutes, been slowly pacing up and down
+the room, suddenly stopped and inquired of the gentleman who had been
+talking if he was from Columbus? When answered in the affirmative, the
+stranger extended his hand, dropped into a convenient seat as he spoke,
+and expressed his pleasure at meeting a gentleman from Columbus, at the
+same time introducing himself as Colonel Jensen and remarking that one
+of the happiest recollections of his life was of a day in Columbus, on
+which day all his prospects in life were changed and wonderfully
+brightened.</p>
+
+<p>"With such an exordium, the rest could do no less than to press the old
+gentleman to favor the company with a rehearsal of what had transpired.</p>
+
+<p>"The story was as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"I had just returned with the remnant of my regiment from Mexico, and
+had received the unanimous thanks of the Legislature of Ohio for&mdash;so the
+resolution was worded&mdash;"the magnificent ability and steadfast and
+desperate courage displayed by Colonel Jensen for twelve consecutive
+hours on the field of Buena Vista." I was young at the time and had not
+got over caring for such things. The day after this resolution of thanks
+was passed the Governor of the State ordered a grand review, at the
+capital, of the militia of the State in honor of the soldiers who had
+survived the war. As a mark of especial honor I was appointed
+Adjutant-General on the Governor's staff. My place at the review was
+beside the Governor&mdash;who was, of course, Commander-in-Chief&mdash;except when
+my particular regiment was passing.</p>
+
+<p>"'There are a few things which I have never outgrown a weakness for. One
+is a real Kentucky blood horse. I had sent to Kentucky and paid four
+thousand dollars for a son of old Gray Eagle. I bought him cheap, too,
+because of his color. He was a dappled gray. The Boston stock of horses
+was just then becoming the rage, and gray was beginning to be an off
+color for thoroughbreds. My horse was a real beauty. He had been trained
+on the track, and from a dead stand would spring twenty-two feet the
+first bound. But he was thoroughly broken and tractable, though he had
+more style than a peacock, and when prancing and careering, though not
+pulling five pounds on the bit, he looked as though in a moment he would
+imitate Elijah's chariot and take to the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>"'As the hour for the review approached I mounted my horse and took my
+position, as assigned, beside the Governor.</p>
+
+<p>"'I was quietly conversing with him and with our Brigadier-General, when
+a runaway team, attached to an open carriage in which were two ladies,
+dashed past us.</p>
+
+<p>"'What followed was instinct. I gave Gray Eagle both rein and spur. In a
+few seconds he was beside the running horses. I sprang from his back
+upon the back of the near carriage horse, gathered the inside reins of
+the team, drew the heads of the two horses together and brought them to
+a standstill only a few feet from the bluffs, which any one from that
+city will remember, and over which the team would have dashed in a
+moment more.</p>
+
+<p>"'People gathered around instantly, took the horses in hand and helped
+the ladies from the vehicle. Being relieved, I caught and remounted my
+horse, took my place and the review proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>"'After the review, I received a note from the Governor asking me to
+dine with him that evening.</p>
+
+<p>"'I accepted, supposing the invitation was due to my Mexican record.
+Judge my surprise, then, when going to the Governor's mansion, I was
+shown into the parlor, and, on being presented to the Governor's wife
+and her beautiful unmarried sister, in a moment found myself being
+overwhelmed by the grateful thanks of the two ladies, learning for the
+first time, from their lips, that they were the ladies I had rescued.</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course, after that, I was a frequent visitor at the house, and in a
+few months the young lady became my wife.'</p>
+
+<p>"His story was told with an air of such modest candor and at the same
+time with such dramatic effect, that what might have seem improbable or
+singular about it, had it been differently related, was not thought of
+at the time. The old man was a real hero for a brief moment at least.</p>
+
+<p>"When, later, we knew the Colonel had never been in the Mexican war or
+any other war; that he had never been married; that if he had ever
+witnessed a military review it was from a perch on a fence or tree; that
+he had never possessed four thousand or four hundred dollars with which
+to buy a horse, and that his oldest acquaintances did not believe that
+he had ever been on a horse's back, still, while the admiration for the
+man was somewhat chilled, there was no difference of opinion as to the
+main fact, which was that as a gigantic and dramatic liar, on merit, he
+was entitled to the post of honor on a day when the Ananiases of all the
+world were passing in review.</p>
+
+<p>"Old and middle-aged men in the West will remember the delightful
+letters, which Lieut. B., under the <i>nom de plume</i> of 'Ching Foo,' used
+to write to the Sacramento <i>Union</i>. Once in the presence of Colonel
+Jensen these letters were referred to as masterpieces. The Colonel
+smiled significantly and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'They were delicious letters, truly. Take him all in all, Ching Foo was
+the most intelligent Chinaman I ever saw. He cooked for me three years
+in California. I taught him reading and writing. I reckon he would have
+been with me still, but the early floods in '54 washed out my bed-rock
+flume in American River and I had to break up my establishment. I had a
+ton of gold in sight in the river bed, but next morning the works were
+all gone and with them $125,000 which I had used in turning the river.'</p>
+
+<p>"One day an Ohio man and a Tennessee man engaged in a warm dispute over
+the relative excellencies of the respective State houses in Ohio and
+Tennessee. Finally they appealed to Colonel Jensen for an opinion. The
+Colonel, with his sovereign air, said to the Ohio man:</p>
+
+<p>"'You are wrong, Tom. I had just completed the State house at Columbus,
+when I was sent for to go and make the plans and superintend the
+construction of the State house at Nashville. It would have been strange
+if I had not made a great many improvements over the Ohio structure, in
+preparing plans for the one to be erected in Tennessee.'</p>
+
+<p>"The Colonel was a bungling carpenter by trade, and never built anything
+more complicated or imposing than a miner's cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"One more anecdote and I will positively stop. Two neighbors had a law
+suit in Washoe City. One was an honest man, the other a scoundrel. As is
+the rule in Nevada, both the plaintiff and defendant testified. The
+defendant denied point blank the testimony of the plaintiff. It was
+plain that one or the other had committed terrible perjury. Some other
+witnesses were called, the case was closed and the jury retired to
+consider upon a verdict. But how to decide was the question. Which was
+the honest man and which the scoundrel?</p>
+
+<p>"At last one juror hit upon a happy thought. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, did you notice closely the last witness for the defendant?
+His hair was white as snow, his body bent, his steps were feeble and
+tottering. That man has already one foot in the grave; he will not
+survive another month. Surely a man in his condition would tell the
+truth.' The argument seemed logical and the reasoning sound. The verdict
+was unanimous for the defendant.</p>
+
+<p>"No case ever showed clearer the 'infallibility' of a jury. The witness
+was Colonel Jensen. The defendant was the perjurer, and all the Colonel
+knew of the case was what the defendant had, that morning, out behind a
+hay corral, drilled him to know and to swear to, for a five-dollar
+piece.</p>
+
+<p>"The Colonel has gone now to join his ancestors on the other side. In
+the old orthodox days there would not have been the slightest doubt as
+to who his original ancestor was, or of the temperature of his present
+quarters, but who knows?</p>
+
+<p>"I only know that, while upon the earth, he was one of the few men whom
+I have known that I believed was a native genius; a very Shakespeare (or
+Bacon) in language; a Michael Angelo in coloring; a colossal,
+all-embracing, magnificent, measureless liar."</p>
+
+<p>"He was a good one, sure," said Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a bad one, sure," remarked Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>Then Brewster, taking up the theme, said: "He had a chronic disease,
+that was all. He was as much of an inebriate in his way as ever was
+drunkard a slave to alcohol. He had great vanity and self-esteem and a
+flowery imagination. These were chastened or disciplined by no moral
+attributes. He could no more help being what he was than can the raven
+avoid being black."</p>
+
+<p>"There was bad stock in the mon," said Corrigan. "He should have been
+strangled in his cradle; for sich a mon is forever making bitterness in
+a neighborhood, and is not fit to live."</p>
+
+<p>"Boys," asked the Colonel, "do you believe that lying is ever
+justifiable?"</p>
+
+<p>Brewster, Harding and Ashley simultaneously answered "No."</p>
+
+<p>"It depends," said Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly iver," said Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>Miller thought it might be necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"For one's self, no; for another, perhaps yes," said the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>"That is just the point," remarked the Colonel. "Let me tell you about a
+case which transpired right here in this city. There were two men whose
+first names were the same, while their surnames were similar. Their
+given names were Frank and their surnames were, we will say, Cady and
+Carey, respectively. Cady was a young married man. He had a beautiful
+wife, a lovely little girl three years of age and a baby boy a year old
+at the time I am speaking of. Carey was five or six years younger and
+single. They were great friends, notwithstanding that Cady was pretty
+fast while Carey was as pure-hearted a young man as ever came here.
+More, he was devotedly attached to a young lady who was a close friend
+of the wife of Cady. The young couple were expecting to be married in a
+few weeks at the time the incident happened which I am going to relate.</p>
+
+<p>"Cady was wealthy, while Carey was poor and a clerk in a mercantile
+establishment. One day Cady said to his friend: 'Carey, I bought some
+Con. Virginia stock to-day at $55. I have set aside eighty shares for
+you. Some people think it is going to advance before long. If it does
+and there is anything made on the eighty shares it shall be yours.'
+Sixty days later the stock struck $463, when it was sold and the bank
+notified Carey that there was a deposit of $32,000 to his credit. When
+this stroke of good fortune came the youth hastened to tell the good
+news to the girl of his heart, and before they separated their troth was
+plighted and the marriage day fixed.</p>
+
+<p>"During this delicious period, one morning Carey stepped into the outer
+office of Cady and was horrified to hear from behind the glass screen
+which separated the inner office from the main office the wife of Cady
+upbrading her husband in a most violent manner. Her back was to the
+front of the building. She was holding a letter in her hand, and as
+Carey entered the building she began and read the letter through, and
+wound up by crying: 'Who is this Marie who is writing to you and
+directing the letters simply to Frank, Postoffice box 409? You are
+keeping a private box, are you? But you are too careless by half; you
+left this letter in your overcoat pocket, and when I went to sew a
+button on the coat this morning it fell out, so I could not help but see
+it.'</p>
+
+<p>"Just then Cady looked up and saw Carey through the glass petition. The
+latter with a swift motion touched a finger to his lips and shook his
+head, which in perfect pantomime said: 'Don't give yourself away,' then
+in a flash slipped noiselessly from the building.</p>
+
+<p>"Once outside, he hastily, on a leaf of his memorandum book, wrote to
+the postmaster that if he called with a lady and asked what his
+postoffice box was to answer 409; to at once take out anything that
+might be in the box, and if he had time to seal and stamp an envelope,
+direct it to him and put it in 409, and he added: 'Don't delay a
+moment.'</p>
+
+<p>"Calling a bootblack who was standing near, he gave him the note and a
+silver dollar, bade him run with the letter to the postoffice and to be
+sure to deliver the note only to some of the responsible men there, to
+the postmaster himself if possible.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, with a good deal of noise, he rushed into his friend's place of
+business again.</p>
+
+<p>"As he entered he heard his friend's wife, through her sobs, saying:
+'Oh, Frank! I should have thought that respect for our children would
+have prevented this, even if you have no more love for me.'</p>
+
+<p>"Carey dashed through the sash door, seemed taken all aback at seeing
+Cady's wife in the office. In great apparent confusion he advanced and
+said: 'Excuse me, Cady, but I am in a little trouble this morning. I was
+expecting a letter last night directed simply to my first name and my
+postoffice box. It has not come, and as you and myself have the same
+first name, I did not know but the mistake might have been made at the
+postoffice.' He was apparently greatly agitated and unstrung and seemed
+particularly anxious about the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Cady replied: 'With my mail last night a letter came directed as you
+say. I opened and glanced over it, thought it was some joke, put it in
+my pocket and thought no more about it until my wife brought it in this
+morning. Somehow she does not seem satisfied at my explanation.'</p>
+
+<p>"At this the lady sprang up, and, confronting the young man, said:
+'Frank Carey, what is the number of your box in the postoffice?'</p>
+
+<p>"With steady eyes and voice he answered; '409.' The woman was dumfounded
+for a moment, but she quickly rallied.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come with me,' she said. The young man obeyed. She took her way
+directly to the postoffice. Arriving, she tapped at the delivery window
+and asked if she could see the postmaster in person. The boy delivered
+the message and in a moment the door opened and the pair were ushered
+into the private office of the postmaster. Hardly were they seated when
+the lady said abruptly: 'We have come, Judge, on a serious business.
+Will you be kind enough to tell me the number of this gentleman's
+postoffice box?'</p>
+
+<p>"The postmaster looked inquiringly at Carey, who nodded assent. Then in
+response to the lady, he replied: 'I do not exactly remember. I will
+have to look at the books.'</p>
+
+<p>"He passed into the main office, but returned in a moment with a petty
+ledger containing an alphabetical index. He opened at the 'C's' and
+read: 'Frank Carey, box 409; paid for one quarter from Jan&mdash;&mdash;'
+Continuing, he said: 'I remember now, Frank, you hired the box about the
+time you realized on Con. Virginia, and the quarter has about a month
+more to run.'</p>
+
+<p>"This he said with an imperturbable, and incorruptible face, and with an
+air of mingled candor and business which it was charming to behold.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady was nearly paralyzed, but she made one more effort.</p>
+
+<p>"'There can be no possible mistake in what you have told me, Judge?' she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'I think not the least in the world,' was the reply, and, rising, he
+continued: 'Please step this way.' He led the way to the boxes, and
+there over 409 was the name of Frank Carey. More, there was a sprinkle
+of dust over it, showing that it had been there for some time.</p>
+
+<p>"'By the way,' said the postmaster, you have a letter, Frank. It must be
+a drop letter, as no mail has been received this morning.' He took the
+letter from the box in a manner so awkward that the lady could not help
+seeing that it had evidently been directed in a disguised female hand,
+and that the superscription was simply 'Frank, P. O. Box 409.'</p>
+
+<p>"Arrived again in the private office, the lady said to the young man, in
+a latitude 78-degree north tone, 'I see, sir, you have a very extensive,
+and I have no doubt, very <i>select</i> correspondence.'</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time she caught up her skirts&mdash;the ladies wore long skirts
+that year&mdash;and, with a 'I thank you, Judge; good morning,' started
+toward the door. As she passed Carey she drew close to the wall, as
+though for her robes to touch the hem of his garments would be
+contamination, and passed haughtily into the street.</p>
+
+<p>"When she had disappeared Carey sank into a chair and drew a long breath
+of relief, while the grave face of the ancient 'Nasby' unlimbered and
+warmed into a smile which shone like virtue's own reward.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lord! Lord!' he said, 'but it was a close shave. I had just got things
+fixed when you came. And was not she mad though? She looked like the
+prospectus of a cyclone. But tell me, Carey, am I not rather an
+impressive liar, when, in the best interests of domestic peace, my duty
+leads me into that channel?'</p>
+
+<p>"Frank answered, 'As Mark Twain told those wild friends of his who
+perpetrated the bogus robbery upon him, "You did a marvelous sight too
+well for a mere amateur." But now, Judge, mum is the word about this
+business.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Mum is the word,' was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"That evening Carey called at the home of his betrothed. A servant
+showed him into the parlor, but for the first time the young lady did
+not put in an appearance. In her stead her mother came. The elder lady,
+without sitting, in a severe tone said: 'Mr. Carey, my daughter has
+heard something to-day from Mrs. Cady. Until you explain that matter to
+my satisfaction my daughter will beg to decline to see you.'</p>
+
+<p>"Carey replied: 'Since your daughter has heard of the matter, it does
+concern <i>her</i>, and I shall very gladly explain to her; but I cannot to
+any one else, not even to you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You could easily impose upon a silly girl who is in love, but I am no
+silly girl, and am not in love, especially not with <i>you</i>, and you will
+have to explain to <i>me</i>,' said the lady.</p>
+
+<p>"'My dear madam,' said Carey, mildly, 'in one sense there is nothing in
+all that gossip. In another sense so much is involved that I would not
+under the rack whisper a word of it to any soul on earth save she who
+has promised to give her happiness into my keeping. When your daughter
+becomes my wife your authority as mother in our home shall never be
+questioned by me. Until then my business is not with you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It is not worth while to prolong this discussion,' said the old lady,
+excitedly. 'If you have nothing more to say, I will bid you good
+evening.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Good evening, madam,' said Carey, and went out into the night.</p>
+
+<p>"A year later the young lady married the wildest rake on the Comstock,
+but Carey never married, and died last year.</p>
+
+<p>"When Cady saw how things were going, he went to Carey and said: 'Carey,
+let me go and explain to those ladies. It kills me to see you as your
+are.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It will never do,' was the reply. 'They would not keep the secret,
+especially the elder one never would. It would kill her not to get even
+with your wife. It worried me a little at first, for I feared that &mdash;&mdash;
+might grieve some and be disappointed; but she is all right. I watched
+her covertly at the play last night. She will forget me in a month. She
+will be married within the year. We will take no chance of having your
+home made unhappy. Dear friend, it is all just as I would have it.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It was too bad," said Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"That Carey was a right noble fellow," was Wright's comment.</p>
+
+<p>Miller thought if he had been right game he would have seen that girl,
+old woman or no old woman.</p>
+
+<p>"He was punished for his falsehood. He had to atone for his own and his
+friend's sins," was Brewster's conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>"O, murther! I think he had a happy deliverance from the whole family
+intoirely," said Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>Carlin, addressing Brewster, said: "You say he was punished for the sins
+of himself and his friend; how do you dispose of the wickedness of the
+postmaster?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," was the response, "he is wicked by habit, and it may be he
+is being reserved for some particular judgment."</p>
+
+<p>"All that I see remarkable about Carey's case," said Ashley, "is that he
+made the money in the first place. Had that stock been carried for me,
+the mine would have been flooded the next week and my work would have
+been mortgaged for a year to come to make good the loss."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a hard case, no doubt," said Strong, "but I think with Corrigan,
+that the punishment was not without its compensations."</p>
+
+<p>"He had his mirage and it was worse than wild Injuns, was it not,
+Wright?" asked Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"Or worse, Barney," said Wright, "than a blacksmith, a foine mon and a
+mon of property."</p>
+
+<p>"O, murther, Wright," said Corrigan; "stop that. There go the whistles.
+Let us say good night."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>About this time Virginia City was visited one day by a heavy rain storm
+accompanied with thunder. But as the sun was disappearing behind Mount
+Davidson, the clouds broke and rolled away from the west, while at the
+same time a faint rainbow appeared in the East, making one of those
+beautiful spectacles common to mountainous regions.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the flag on Mount Davidson caught the beams from the
+setting sun and stood out a banner of fire. This, too, is not an
+unfrequent spectacle in Virginia City, and long ago inspired a most
+gifted lady to write a very beautiful poem, "The Flag on Fire."</p>
+
+<p>The storm and the sunset turned the minds of the Club to other beautiful
+displays of nature which they had seen. Said Miller, "I never saw
+anything finer than a sunset which I witnessed once at sea down off the
+Mexican coast.</p>
+
+<p>"We were in a tub of a steamship, the old "Jonathan." We had been in a
+storm for four days, three of which the steamer had been thrown up into
+the wind, the machinery working slowly, just sufficient to keep
+steerageway on the ship.</p>
+
+<p>"There were 600 passengers on board, with an unusual number of women and
+children, and we had been miserable past expression. But at last, with
+the coming of the dawn, the wind ceased; as soon as the waves ran down
+so that it was safe to swing the ship, she was turned about and put upon
+her course.</p>
+
+<p>"In a few hours the sea grew comparatively smooth, and the passengers by
+hundreds sought the deck.</p>
+
+<p>"All the afternoon the Mexican coast was in full view, blue and
+rock-bound and not many miles away.</p>
+
+<p>"Just before the sun set its bended rays struck those blue head-lands
+and transfigured them. They took on the forms of walls and battlements
+and shone like a city of gold rising out of the sea in the crimson East,
+and looked as perhaps the swinging gardens of Semiramis did from within
+the walls of Babylon. In the West the disc of the sun, unnaturally
+large, blazed in insufferable splendor, while in glory this seeming city
+shone in the East. Between the two pictures the ship was plunging on her
+course and we could feel the pulses of the deep sea as they throbbed
+beneath us. The multitude upon the deck hardly made a sound; all that
+broke the stillness was the heavy respirations of the engines and the
+beating of the paddles upon the water. The spell lasted but a few
+minutes, for when the sun plunged beneath the sea, the darkness all at
+once began as is common in those latitudes, but while it lasted it was
+sublime.</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking of Nature's pictures, in my judgment about the most impressive
+sight that is made in this world, is a storm at sea. I mean a real storm
+in which a three thousand ton ship is tossed about like a cork, when the
+roar of the storm makes human voices of no avail, and when the billows
+give notice that 'deep is answering unto deep.'</p>
+
+<p>"When a boy I often went down under the overhanging rock over which the
+current of Niagara pours. As I listened to the roar and tried to compute
+the energy which had kept those thunders booming for, heaven only knows
+how many thousands of years, it used to make me feel small enough; but
+it never influenced me as does an ocean storm. When all the world that
+is in sight goes into the business of making Niagaras, and turns out a
+hundred of them every minute, I tell you about all an ordinary landsman
+can do is to sit still and watch the display.</p>
+
+<p>"A real ocean storm&mdash;a shore shaker&mdash;is about the biggest free show that
+this world has yet invented."</p>
+
+<p>Corrigan spoke next; said he: "Spakin' of storms, did you iver watch the
+phenomenon of a ragin' snow storm high up in the Sierras? When it is
+approaching there is a roar in the forest such as comes up a headland
+when the sea is bating upon its base. This will last for hours, the
+pines rocking like auld women at a wake, and thin comes the snow. Its no
+quiet, respectable snow such as you see in civilized countries, but it
+just piles down as though a new glacial period had descinded upon the
+worreld. As it falls all the voices of the smaller streams grow still
+and the wind itself grows muffled as though it had a could in the head.
+The trees up there are no shrubs you know. They grow three hundred feet
+high and have branches in proportion, and whin they git to roarin' and
+rockin', it is as though all the armies of the mountains were presentin'
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"When the storm dies away, thin it is you see a picture, if the weather
+is not too cold. The snow masses itself upon the branches, and thin you
+stand in a temple miles in extent, the floor of which is white like
+alabaster while the columns that support it are wrought in a lace-work
+of emerald and of frost more lofty and dilicate than iver was traced out
+by the patient hand of mortal in grand cathadrals."</p>
+
+<p>Here Carlin interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Barney, is there not a great deal of frieze to one of those Sierra
+temples?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might same so, lookin' from the standpoint of the nave," was
+Barney's quick reply.</p>
+
+<p>Groans followed this outbreak, from various members of the Club. They
+were the first puns that had been fired into that peaceful company and
+they were hailed as omens of approaching trouble.</p>
+
+<p>The gentle voice of Brewster next broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw," he said, "in Salt Lake City, three years ago on a summer
+evening, a sunset scene which I thought was very beautiful. The electric
+conditions had been strangely disturbed for several days; there had been
+clouds and a good deal of thunder and lightning. You know Salt Lake City
+lies at the western base of the Wasatch range. On this day toward
+evening the sky to the west had grown of a sapphire clearness, but in
+the east beyond the first high hills of the range a great electric storm
+was raging. The clouds of inky blackness which shrouded the more distant
+heights, and through which the lightnings were incessantly zigzaging,
+were in full view from the city, though the thunders were caught and
+tied in the deep caverns of the intervening hills. To the southeast the
+range with its imposing peaks was snow-crowned and under a clear sky. In
+the southwest the Oquirrh range was blue and beautiful. Just then from
+beyond the great lake the setting sun threw out his shafts of fire, and
+the whole firmament turned to glory. The sun blazed from beyond the
+waters in the west, the lightnings blazed beyond the nearer hills in the
+east, the snowy heights in the southeast were turned to purple, while in
+the city every spire, every pane of glass which faced the west, every
+speck of metal on house and temple in a moment grew radiant as burnished
+gold, and there was a shimmer of splendor in all the air. Then suddenly
+over the great range to the east and apparently against the black clouds
+in which the lightnings were blazing the glorious arch of a magnificent
+rainbow was upreared. All the colors were deep-dyed and perfectly
+distinct. There was neither break nor dimness in all the mighty arch.
+There it stood, poised in indescribable splendor for quite five minutes.
+So wonderful was the display that houses were deserted: men and women
+came out into the open air and watched the spectacle in silence and with
+uncovered heads.</p>
+
+<p>"No one stopped to think that the glory which shone on high was made
+merely by sunlight shining through falling water; the cold explanation
+made by science was forgotten, and hundreds of eyes furtively watched,
+half expecting to catch glimpses of a divine hand and brush, for the
+pictures were rare enough to be the perfect work of celestial beings
+sent to sketch for mortals a splendor which should kindle within them
+dim conceptions of the glories which fill the spheres where light is
+born.</p>
+
+<p>"Salt Lake City is famous for its sunsets, but to this one was added new
+and unusual enchantments by the storm which was wheeling its sable
+squadrons in the adjacent mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"As I watched that display I realized for the first time how it was that
+before books were made men learned to be devout and to pray; for the
+picture was as I fancy Sinai must have appeared, when all the elements
+combined to make a spectacle to awe the multitude before the mountain;
+and when they were told that the terrible cloud on the mountain's crest
+was the robe which the infinite God had drawn around Himself in mercy,
+lest at a glimpse of His unapproachable brightness they should perish,
+it was not strange if they believed it."</p>
+
+<p>It was not often that Brewster talked, but when he did there was about
+him a grave and earnest manner which impressed all who heard him with
+the perfect sincerity of the man.</p>
+
+<p>After he ceased speaking the room was still for several seconds. At
+length the Colonel broke the silence:</p>
+
+<p>"Brewster, you spoke of Sinai. What think you of that story; of the Red
+Sea affair; of the Sinai incident, and the golden calf business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Believed literally," Brewster continued, "it is the most impressive of
+earthly literature; looked upon allegorically, still it is sublime. Its
+lesson is, that when in bondage to sorrow and to care, if we but bravely
+and patiently struggle on, the sea of trouble around us will at length
+roll back its waves into walls and leave for us a path. Unless we keep
+straining onward and upward, no voice of Hope, which is the voice of
+God, will descend to comfort us. If we are thirsty we must smite the
+rock for water; that is, for what we have we must work, and if we cease
+our struggle and go into camp, we not only will not hold our own, but in
+a little while we will be bestowing our jewels upon some idol of our own
+creation. If we toil and never falter, before we die we shall climb
+Pisgah and behold the Promised Land; that is, we shall be disciplined
+until we can look every fate calmly in the face and turn a smiling brow
+to the inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>"I found a man once, living upon almost nothing, in a hut that had not
+one comfort. He had graded out a sharp hillside, set some rude poles up
+against the bank, covered them with brush, and in that den on a bleak
+mountain's crest he had lived through a rough winter. I asked him how he
+managed to exist without becoming an idiot or a lunatic. His answer was
+worthy of an old Roman. 'Because,' said he, 'I at last am superior to
+distress.'</p>
+
+<p>"He had reached the point that Moses reached when he gained the last
+mountain crest. After that the Promised Land was forever in sight."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose," asked Savage, "you buy stocks when they are high and sell
+them, or have them sold for you, when they are low, where does the
+Promised Land come in?"</p>
+
+<p>"What becomes of the 'superior to distress' theory," asked Carlin, "when
+a man in his fight against fate gets along just as the men do in the
+Bullion shaft, finding nothing but barren rock, and all the time the air
+grows hotter and there is more and more hot water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother the stocks and the hot water," said Strong. "Professor, we
+have heard about the Wasatch Range and Mount Sinai, shake up your memory
+and tell us about old Mount Shasta! I heard you describe it once. It is
+a grand mountain, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"The grandest in America, so far as I have seen," was the reply. "It is
+said that Whitney is higher, but Whitney has for its base the Sierras,
+and the peaks around it dwarf its own tremendous height. But Shasta
+rises from the plain a single mountain, and while all the year around
+the lambs gambol at its base, its crown is eternal snow. Men of the
+North tell me that it is rivaled by Tacoma, but I never saw Tacoma. In
+the hot summer days as the farmers at Shasta's base gather their
+harvests, they can see where the wild wind is heaping the snow drifts
+about his crest. The mountain is one of Winter's stations, and from his
+forts of snow upon its top he never withdraws his garrison. There are
+the bastions of ice, the frosty battlements; there his old bugler, the
+wind, is daily sounding the advance and the retreat of the storm. The
+mountain holds all latitudes and all seasons at the same time in its
+grasp. Flowers bloom at its base, further up the forest trees wave their
+ample arms; further still the brown of autumn is upon the slopes and
+over all hangs the white mantle of eternal winter.</p>
+
+<p>"Standing close to its base, the human mind fails to grasp the immensity
+of the butte. But as one from a distance looks back upon it, or from
+some height twenty miles away views it, he discovers how magnificent are
+its proportions.</p>
+
+<p>"For days will the mountain fold the mist about its crest like a vail
+and remain hidden from mortal sight, and then suddenly as if in
+deference to a rising or setting sun, the vapors will be rolled back and
+the watcher in the valley below will behold gems of topaz and of ruby
+made of sunbeams, set in the diadem of white, and towards the sentinel
+mountain, from a hundred miles around, men will turn their eyes in
+admiration. In its presence one feels the near presence of God, and as
+before Babel the tongues of the people became confused, so before this
+infinitely more august tower man's littleness oppresses him, and he can
+no more give fitting expression to his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"It frowns and smiles alternately through the years; it hails the
+outgoing and the incoming centuries, changeless amid the mutations of
+ages, forever austere, forever cold and pure. The mountain eagle strains
+hopelessly toward its crest; the storms and the sunbeams beat upon it in
+vain; the rolling years cannot inscribe their numbers on its naked
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the mountains that I have seen it has the most sovereign look;
+it leans on no other height; it associates with no other mountain; it
+builds its own pedestal in the valley and never doffs its icy crown.</p>
+
+<p>"The savage in the long ago, with awe and trembling, strained his eyes
+to the height and his clouded imagination pictured it as the throne of a
+Deity who issued the snow, the hoar frost and the wild winds from their
+brewing place on the mountain's top.</p>
+
+<p>"The white man, with equal awe, strains his eye upward to where the
+sunlight points with ruby silver and gold the mimic glaciers of the
+butte, and is not much wiser than the unlettered savage in trying to
+comprehend how and why the mighty mass was upreared.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a blessing as well as a splendor. With its cold it seizes the
+clouds and compresses them until their contents are rained upon the
+thirsty fields beneath; from its base the Sacramento starts, babbling on
+its way to the sea; despite its frowns it is a merciful agent to
+mankind, and on the minds of those who see it in all its splendor and
+power a picture is painted, the sheen and the enchantment of which will
+linger while memory and the gift to admire magnificence is left."</p>
+
+<p>"That is good, Professor," said Corrigan; "but to me there is
+insupportable loneliness about an isolated mountain. It sames always to
+me like a gravestone set up above the grave of a dead worreld. But
+spakin' of beautiful things, did yees iver sae Lake Tahoe in her glory?</p>
+
+<p>"I was up there last fall, and one day, in anticipation of the winter, I
+suppose, she wint to her wardrobe, took out all her winter white caps
+and tied them on; and she was a daisy.</p>
+
+<p>"Her natural face is bluer than that of a stock sharp in a falling
+market; but whin the wind 'comes a wooin' and she dons her foamy lace,
+powders her face with spray and fastens upon her swellin' breast a
+thousand diamonds of sunlight, O, but she is a winsome looking beauty,
+to be sure. Thin, too, she sings her old sintimintal song to her shores,
+and the great overhanging pines sway their mighty arms as though keeping
+time, joining with hers their deep murmurs to make a refrain; and thus
+the lake sings to the shore and the shore answers back to the song all
+the day long. Tahoe, in her frame of blue and grane, is a fairer picture
+than iver glittered on cathadral wall; older, fairer and fresher than
+ancient master iver painted tints immortal upon. There in the strong
+arms of the mountains it is rocked, and whin the winds ruffle the azure
+plumage of the beautiful wathers, upon wather and upon shore a splendor
+rists such as might come were an angel to descend to earth and sketch
+for mortals a sane from Summer Land."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Corrigan," said Ashley. "If the thirst for money does
+not denude the shores of their trees, and thus spoil the frame of your
+wonderful picture, Lake Tahoe will be a growing object of interest until
+its fame will be as wide as the world.</p>
+
+<p>"But while on grand themes, have you ever seen the Columbia River? To me
+it is the glory of the earth. It is a great river fourteen hundred miles
+above its mouth, and from thence on it rolls to the sea with increasing
+grandeur all the way. Where it hews its way through the Cascades a new
+and gorgeous picture is every moment painted, and when the mountain
+walls are pierced, with perfect purity and with mighty volume it sweeps
+on toward the ocean. It is, through its last one hundred and fifty
+miles, watched over by great forests and magnificent mountains. There
+are Hood and St. Helens and the rest, and where, upon the furious bar,
+the river joins the sea, there is an everlasting war of waters as
+beautiful as it is terrible.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes a man a better American to go up the Columbia to the Cascades
+and look about him. He is not only impressed with the majesty of the
+scene, but thoughts of empire, of dominion and of the glory of the land
+over which his country's flag bears sovereignty, take possession of him.
+He looks down upon the rolling river and up at Mount Hood, and to both
+he whispers, 'We are in accord; I have an interest in you,' and the
+great pines nod approvingly, and the waterfalls babble more loud.</p>
+
+<p>"The Mississippi has greater volume than the Oregon, the Hudson makes
+rival pictures which perhaps are as beautiful as any painted in the
+Cascades; but there is a power, a beauty, a purity and a wildness about
+the river of the West which is all its own and which is unapproachable
+in its charms.</p>
+
+<p>"More than that. To me the river is the emblem of a perfect life.
+Through all the morning of its career it fights its way, blazing an
+azure trail through the desert. There is no green upon its banks, hardly
+does a bird sing as it struggles on. But it bears right on, and so
+austere is its face that the desert is impotent to soil it. Then it
+meets a rocky wall and breaks through it, roaring on its way. Then it
+takes the Willamette to its own ample breast, and it bears it on until
+it meets the inevitable, and then undaunted goes down to its grave.</p>
+
+<p>"It fights its way, it bears its burdens, it remains pure and brave to
+the last. That is all the best man that ever lived could do."</p>
+
+<p>As Ashley concluded Strong said: "Why, Ashley! that is good. Why do you
+not give up mining and devote yourself to writing?"</p>
+
+<p>Ashley laughed low, and said: "Because I have had what repentant sinners
+are said to have had, my experience. Let me tell you about it.</p>
+
+<p>"It was in Belmont in Eastern Nevada, during that winter when the small
+pox was bad. It took an epidemic form in Belmont, and a good many died.</p>
+
+<p>"Among the victims was Harlow Reed. Harlow was a young and handsome
+fellow, a generous, happy-hearted fellow, too, and when he was stricken
+down, a 'soiled dove,' hearing of his illness, went and watched over him
+until he died.</p>
+
+<p>"The morning after his death, Billy S. came to me, and handing me a slip
+of paper on which was Reed's name, age, etc., asked me to prepare a
+notice for publication. I fixed it as nearly as I could, as I had seen
+such things in newspapers. It read:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>DIED&mdash;In Belmont, Dec. 17, Harlow Reed, a native of New Jersey
+aged twenty-three years.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Billie glanced at the paper and then said: 'Harlow was a good fellow
+and a good friend of ours, can you not add something to this notice?'</p>
+
+<p>"In response I sat down and wrote a brief eulogy of the boy, and closed
+the article in these words:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>And for her, the poor woman, who braving the dangers of the
+pestilence, went and sat at the feet of the man she loved,
+until he died; for her, though before her garments were soiled,
+we know that this morning, in the Recording Angel's book it is
+written "her robes are white as snow."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Billie took the paper to the publisher, and as he went away, I had a
+secret thought that, all things being considered, the notice was not
+bad.</p>
+
+<p>"Next morning I went into a restaurant for breakfast and took a seat at
+a small table on one side of the narrow room. Directly opposite me were
+two short-card sharps. One was eating his breakfast, while the other,
+leaning back to catch the light, was reading the morning paper. Suddenly
+he stopped, and peering over his paper, though with chair still tilted
+back, said to his companion: 'Did you see this notice about that woman
+who took care of Harlow Reed while he was sick?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' was the reply. 'What is it?' asked the companion.</p>
+
+<p>"'It's away up,' said the first speaker. 'But what is it?' asked the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"The first speaker then threw down the paper, leaned forward, and,
+seizing his knife and fork, said shortly:</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, it's no great shakes after all. It says the woman while taking
+care of Harlow got her clothes dirty, but after he died she changed her
+clothes and she's all right now.'</p>
+
+<p>"Since then I have never thought that I had better undertake a literary
+career so long as I could get four honest dollars a day for swinging a
+hammer in a mine; but I have always been about half sorry that I did not
+kill that fellow, notwithstanding the lesson that he taught me."</p>
+
+<p>There was a hearty laugh at Ashley's expense, and then Strong roused
+himself and said:</p>
+
+<p>"The Columbia is very grand, but you must follow it up to its chief
+tributary if you would find perfect glory&mdash;follow it into the very
+desert. You have heard of the lava beds of Idaho. They were once a river
+of molten fire from 300 feet to 900 feet in depth, which burned its way
+through the desert for hundreds of miles. To the east of the source of
+this lava flow, the Snake River bursts out of the hills, becoming almost
+at once a sovereign river, and flowing at first south-westerly, and then
+bending westerly, cuts its way through this lava bed, and, continuing
+its way with many bends, finally, far to the north merges with the
+Columbia. On this river are several falls. First, the American Falls,
+are very beautiful. Sixty miles below are the Twin Falls, where the
+river, divided into two nearly equal parts, falls one hundred and eighty
+feet. They are magnificent. Three miles below are the Shoshone Falls,
+and a few miles lower down the Salmon Falls. It was of the Shoshone
+Falls that I began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"They are real rivals of Niagara. Never anywhere else was there such a
+scene; never anywhere else was so beautiful a picture hung in so rude a
+frame; never anywhere else on a background so forbidding and weird were
+so many glories clustered.</p>
+
+<p>"Around and beyond there is nothing but the desert, sere, silent,
+lifeless, as though Desolation had builded there everlasting thrones to
+Sorrow and Despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Away back in remote ages, over the withered breast of the desert, a
+river of fire one hundred miles wide and four hundred miles long, was
+turned. As the fiery mass cooled, its red waves became transfixed and
+turned black, giving to the double desert an indescribably blasted and
+forbidding face.</p>
+
+<p>"But while this river of fire was in flow, a river of water was fighting
+its way across it, or has since made the war and forged out for itself a
+channel through the mass. This channel looks like the grave of a volcano
+that has been robbed of its dead.</p>
+
+<p>"But right between its crumbling and repellant walls a transfiguration
+appears. And such a picture! A river as lordly as the Hudson or the
+Ohio, springing from the distant snow-crested Tetons, with waters
+transparent as glass, but green as emerald, with majestic flow and
+ever-increasing volume, sweeps on until it reaches this point where the
+august display begins.</p>
+
+<p>"Suddenly, in different places in the river bed, jagged, rocky reefs are
+upraised, dividing the current into four rivers, and these, in a mighty
+plunge of eighty feet downward, dash on their way. Of course, the waters
+are churned into foam and roll over the precipice white as are the
+garments of the morning when no cloud obscures the sun. The loveliest of
+these falls is called "The Bridal Veil," because it is made of the lace
+which is woven with a warp of falling waters and a woof of sunlight.
+Above this and near the right bank is a long trail of foam, and this is
+called "The Bridal Train." The other channels are not so fair as the one
+called "The Bridal Veil," but they are more fierce and wild, and carry
+in their furious sweep more power.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the reefs which divides the river in mid-channel runs up to a
+peak, and on this a family of eagles have, through the years, may be
+through the centuries, made their home and reared their young, on the
+very verge of the abyss and amid the full echoes of the resounding boom
+of the falls. Surely the eagle is a fitting symbol of perfect
+fearlessness and of that exultation which comes with battle clamors.</p>
+
+<p>"But these first falls are but a beginning. The greater splendor
+succeeds. With swifter flow the startled waters dash on and within a few
+feet take their second plunge in a solid crescent, over a sheer
+precipice, two hundred and ten feet to the abyss below. On the brink
+there is a rolling crest of white, dotted here and there, in sharp
+contrast, with shining eddies of green, as might a necklace of emerald
+shimmer on a throat of snow, and then the leap and fall.</p>
+
+<p>"Here more than foam is made. Here the waters are shivered into fleecy
+spray, whiter and finer than any miracle that ever fell from India loom,
+while from the depths below an everlasting vapor rises&mdash;the incense of
+the waters to the water's God. Finally, through the long, unclouded
+days, the sun sends down his beams, and to give the startling scene its
+crowning splendor, wreaths the terror and the glory in a rainbow halo.
+On either sullen bank the extremities of its arc are anchored, and there
+in its many-colored robes of light it stands outstretched above the
+abyss like wreaths of flowers above a sepulcher. Up through the glory
+and the terror an everlasting roar ascends, deep-toned as is the voice
+of Fate, a diapason like that the rolling ocean chants when his eager
+surges come rushing in to greet and fiercely woo an irresponsive
+promontory.</p>
+
+<p>"But to feel all the awe and to mark all the splendor and power that
+comes of the mighty display, one must climb down the steep descent to
+the river's brink below, and, pressing up as nearly as possible to the
+falls, contemplate the tremendous picture. There something of the energy
+that creates that endless panorama is comprehended; all the deep
+throbbings of the mighty river's pulses are felt; all the magnificence
+is seen.</p>
+
+<p>"In the reverberations that come of the war of waters one hears
+something like God's voice; something like the splendor of God is before
+his eyes; something akin to God's power is manifesting itself before
+him, and his soul shrinks within itself, conscious as never before of
+its own littleness and helplessness in the presence of the workings of
+Nature's immeasurable forces.</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite so massive is the picture as is Niagara, but it has more
+lights and shades and loveliness, as though a hand more divinely skilled
+had mixed the tints, and with more delicate art had transfixed them upon
+that picture suspended there in its rugged and sombre frame.</p>
+
+<p>"As one watches it is not difficult to fancy that away back in the
+immemorial and unrecorded past, the Angel of Love bewailed the fact that
+mortals were to be given existence in a spot so forbidding, a spot that
+apparently was never to be warmed with God's smile, which was never to
+make a sign through which God's mercy was to be discerned; that then
+Omnipotence was touched, that with His hand He smote the hills and
+started the great river in its flow; that with His finger He traced out
+the channel across the corpse of that other river that had been fire,
+mingled the sunbeams with the raging waters and made it possible in that
+fire-blasted frame of scoria to swing a picture which should be, first
+to the red man and later to the pale races, a certain sign of the
+existence, the power and the unapproachable splendor of the Great First
+Cause.</p>
+
+<p>"And as the red man through the centuries watched the spectacle,
+comprehending nothing except that an infinite voice was smiting his
+ears, and insufferable glories were blazing before his eyes; so through
+the centuries to come the pale races will stand upon the shuddering
+shore and watch, experiencing a mighty impulse to put off the sandals
+from their feet, under an overmastering consciousness that the spot on
+which they are standing is holy ground.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing elsewhere like it; nothing half so weird, so wild, so
+beautiful, so clothed in majesty, so draped with terror; nothing else
+that awakens impressions at once so startling, so winsome, so profound.
+While journeying through the desert to come suddenly upon it, the
+spectacle gives one something of the emotions that would be experienced
+to behold a resurrection from the dead. In the midst of what seems like
+a dead world, suddenly there springs into irrepressible life something
+so marvelous, so grand, so caparisoned with loveliness and irresistible
+might, that the head is bowed, the strained heart throbs tumultuously
+and the awed soul sinks to its knees."</p>
+
+<p>The whistles had sounded while Strong was speaking, and as he finished
+the good nights were spoken and the lights put out.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>With the lighting of the pipes one evening, the conversation of the Club
+turned upon what constituted courage and a high sense of honor; whether
+they were native or acquired gifts. A good deal of talk ensued, until at
+last Wright's opinion was asked:</p>
+
+<p>"You are all right," said he, "and all wrong. Some men are born
+insensible to fear, and some have a high sense of honor through
+instinct. But this, I take it, is not the rule and comes, I think,
+mostly as an hereditary gift, through long generations of proud
+ancestors. In my judgment, no gift to mortals is as noble as a lofty,
+honest pride. I do not mean that spurious article which we see so much
+of, but the pride which will not permit a man or woman to have an
+unworthy thought, because of the sense of degradation which it brings to
+the breast that entertains it. This, I believe, is more common in women
+than in men, and I suppose that it was this divine trait, manifesting
+itself in a brutal age, which gave birth to the chivalry of the Middle
+Ages.</p>
+
+<p>"I have known a few men who, I believe, were born without the instinct
+of fear. Charley Fairfax was one of these. He was a dead shot with a
+pistol. He had some words with a man one day on the street in
+Sacramento, and the man being very threatening, Fairfax drew and cocked
+his Derringer. At the same moment the man drove the blade of a sword
+cane through one of the lungs of Fairfax, making a wound which
+eventually proved fatal. Fairfax raised his Derringer and took a quick
+aim at the heart of the murderer, but suddenly dropped the weapon and
+said: 'You have killed me, but you have a wife and children; for their
+sakes I give you your life,' and sank fainting and, as he thought,
+dying, into the arms of a friend who caught him as he was falling.</p>
+
+<p>"There are other men as generous as Fairfax was, but to do what he did,
+when smarting under a fatal wound, requires the coolness and the nerve
+of absolute self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"Not one man in a million under such circumstances could command himself
+enough to think to be generous. Many a man has, for his courage, had a
+statue raised to his memory who never did and never could have given any
+such proof of a manhood absolutely self-contained as did Fairfax on that
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"But, as a rule, we are all mere creatures of education. A friend of
+mine came 'round the Horn in a clipper ship. He told me that when off
+the cape they encountered a gale which drove the ship far to the
+southward; that the weather was so dreadfully cold that the ship's
+rigging was sheeted with ice from sleet and frozen spray.</p>
+
+<p>"One evening the gale slackened a little and some sails were bent on,
+but toward the turn of the night the wind came on again and the sails
+had to be taken in. Said my friend: 'The men went up those swaying masts
+and out upon those icy yards apparently without a thought of danger,
+while I stood upon the deck fairly trembling with terror merely watching
+them.' After awhile the storm was weathered, the cape was rounded and
+the ship put into Valparaiso for fresh supplies.</p>
+
+<p>"The sailors were given a holiday. They went ashore and hired saddle
+horses to visit some resort a few miles out of town. They mounted and
+started away, but within three minutes half of them returned leading
+their horses, and one spoke for all when he said: 'The brute is crank; I
+am afraid he will broach to and capsize.'</p>
+
+<p>"The men who rode the icy spars off Cape Horn on that inky midnight were
+afraid to ride those gentle mustangs.</p>
+
+<p>"There are, I suppose, in this city to-night one hundred men who, with
+knife or pistol, would fight anybody and not think much about it. But
+what would they do were they placed where I saw Corrigan unconcernedly
+working to-day?</p>
+
+<p>"He was sitting on a narrow plank which had been laid across a shaft at
+the eight hundred-foot level, repairing a pump column. He was eight
+hundred feet from the surface, and there was only that plank between him
+and the bottom of that shaft nine hundred feet below. Put the ordinary
+ruffian who cuts and shoots on that plank and he would faint and fall
+off through sheer fright."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you are right," interposed Carlin. "There is the Mexican who
+lives across the street from us. If I were to take a revolver and go
+over there in the morning and attack him, the chances are I would scare
+him to death; were I to try the same experiment with a bowie knife the
+chances are more than even that he would give me more of a game than I
+would want, and simply because he is accustomed to a knife and not to a
+pistol.</p>
+
+<p>"So the mountain trapper will attack a grizzly bear with perfect
+coolness, or cross the swiftest stream in a canoe without any fear, but
+bring the same man for the first time here to the mine and ask him to
+get on a cage with you and go down a shaft, and he will grow pale and
+tremble like a girl."</p>
+
+<p>"An Indian," suggested the Professor, "at the side of a white man will
+go into a desperate battle and never flinch; so long as the white man
+lives he will fight even unto death. But let a white man engage in a
+hand to hand fight with two or three Indians, and if he has the nerve to
+hold him up to the fight for two or three minutes he will conquer,
+because an hereditary fear overcomes the savage that the pale face will
+conquer in the end. That is really the cowardice which Falstaff assumed
+to feel, the cowardice of instinct in the presence of the true prince,
+and is the mark which the Indian mothers have impressed upon their babes
+for ten generations.</p>
+
+<p>"The rule is that we follow our trades!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then some men are brave at one time and cowardly at another," said the
+Colonel. "Men who will fight without shrinking, by day, are often
+completely demoralized by a night attack. With such men the trouble is,
+they cannot see to estimate their danger, and their imaginations
+multiply and magnify it a hundred fold. I know a man in this city who
+has been in a hundred fights, many of them most desperate encounters. He
+told me once that he believed it would frighten him to death to be
+awakened at night by a burglar in his room.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the fear, too, which paralyzes men in the presence of an
+earthquake. The sky may be clear and the air still, but the thought that
+in a moment chaos may come is too much for the ordinary nerves of
+mortals."</p>
+
+<p>"The bravest act I ever witnessed was on C street in this city,"
+responded Strong. "It was a little Hebrew dunning a desperado for the
+balance due on a pair of pantaloons. The amount was six dollars and
+fifty cents. I would not have asked the fighter for the money for six
+times the sum, but the little chap not only asked for it, but when the
+fighter tried to evade him, he seized him by the arm with one hand and
+putting the forefinger of his other hand alongside his own nose, in the
+most insulting tone possible said: 'You does not get avay. Der man vot
+does not bay for his glose is, vots yer call him? one d&mdash;&mdash;d loafer. I
+vants my monish.'</p>
+
+<p>"The fighter could no more escape from that eye than a chicken hawk can
+from the spell of the eye of the black snake, and so he settled.</p>
+
+<p>"That was the courage which it required the hardships and persecutions
+of one hundred generations of suffering men to acquire, and I tell you
+there was something thrilling in the way it was manifested."</p>
+
+<p>"So, too, men's ideas of honor are often warped strangely by education,"
+Miller said. "Do you remember there was a Frenchman hanged in this city
+a few years ago? On the scaffold, with a grandiloquent air, just before
+the cap was drawn over his face, he said: 'Zey can hang me, but zey
+cannot hang Frawnce.' He had from childhood entertained the belief that
+there was but one entirely invincible nation on this earth, and that was
+France; and the thought that to the last France must be honored
+possessed him.</p>
+
+<p>"That man had murdered a poor woman of the town for her money."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say there were some queer ideas of honor in this country,"
+chipped in the Colonel. "I believe the rule among some or all sporting
+men is, that it is entirely legitimate to practice any advantage on an
+opponent in a game, so long as the same idea controls the opponent.
+Still those men have most tenacious ideas of honor. Indeed they have a
+code of their own. If one borrows money of another he pays it if he has
+to rob someone to do it. If one stakes another&mdash;that is gives him money
+to play&mdash;and a winning is made, the profits are scrupulously divided. If
+one loses more at night than he has money to pay, he must have it early
+next morning or go into disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of mine who lived on Treasure Hill during that first fearful
+winter, told me that during that season a faro game was running, and the
+owners of the bank had won some thirty-five hundred dollars. The
+dealer's habit was to lock up his place in the forenoon and not return
+until evening. The interval was his only time for sleep, as the game
+frequently ran all night.</p>
+
+<p>"Three or four 'sports' who lived together in a house, had lost heavily
+at this game. One morning, one of them said that if he could only get
+that dealer's cards for half an hour he believed he could 'fix' them so
+that the luck of the boys would change.</p>
+
+<p>"They had for a cook and servant a young man who had confessed that he
+left the East without any extensive or extended preparations, and that
+he did it to avoid paying a penalty for picking a lock and robbing a
+till.</p>
+
+<p>"He was called up, it was explained to him what was wanted and for what
+reason, and asked if it was not possible for him to procure those cards.</p>
+
+<p>"The youth took kindly to the proposition, went away, and in a few
+minutes returned&mdash;not with the cards&mdash;but with the dealer's sack of
+coin, saying as he laid down the sack: 'As I picked the lock of the
+drawer I found the sack and the cards lying side by side. I thought it
+would be easier to take the coin than to fool with the cards, and here
+it is.'</p>
+
+<p>"Instantly there was a commotion, and a perfect storm of imprecations
+was poured out upon the thief. On every side were shouts of: 'Take back
+that money! you miserable New York thief! What do you take us for? Take
+back that sack or we will sell you for headcheese before night!'</p>
+
+<p>"The youth carried back the coin and brought the cards. They were found
+to be 'fixed'; they were 'fixed' over and returned, and that night 'on
+the dead square,' the bank was broken. The boys had the sack for the
+second time, but this time the transaction, according to their code, was
+entirely legitimate.</p>
+
+<p>"By the operation the professional thief obtained new ideas of the nice
+distinctions which are made in the gamblers' code of honor."</p>
+
+<p>"I once in Idaho knew a most conscientious judge," said Miller. "In his
+court a suit involving the title of some mining ground was pending
+between two companies. In another part of the district the Judge had
+some claims which were looked upon as mere 'wild cat.'</p>
+
+<p>"He had for a year been trying to raise money to open his claims, but
+without avail. He had incorporated with 40,000 shares and held his
+shares at one dollar, with the understanding that twenty per cent. of
+the stock should be set aside as a working capital. But no one could see
+the ground with the sanguine eyes of the Judge, so he still had all his
+stock.</p>
+
+<p>"But one night quite late the Judge heard a soft knock on the door. In
+answer to his 'come in,' the president of the company that was plaintiff
+in the mining suit entered, when this conversation ensued:</p>
+
+<p>"'I was looking at your claims over on the east side to-day,' said the
+President, 'and I believe they are good and would like some of the
+stock.'</p>
+
+<p>"There is some of it for sale at one dollar,' was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will take ten thousand shares,' said the President. 'If you please,
+have the stock ready and I will call at nine o'clock to-morrow morning
+with the money.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I suppose this transaction had better be kept secret at present,'
+suggested the Judge.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, yes. It is a private speculation of my own and I would rather my
+company would not hear of it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Very well, the stock will be ready.'</p>
+
+<p>"The money was promptly paid and the stock delivered.</p>
+
+<p>"The day of trial drew near, when one day the Judge met the
+superintendent of the company which was defendant in the suit. The Judge
+told the superintendent that he had some promising claims, and added
+impressively that if he could afford to purchase about 10,000 shares he
+felt sure that he would do well. The superintendent admitted that he had
+examined the claims with considerable care, and believed with the Judge,
+that there was promise in them. The result was that the next day another
+ten thousand dollars was paid to the Judge and ten thousand more shares
+delivered. The Judge deposited sixteen thousand dollars to his own
+account and four thousand dollars to the credit of the company. With the
+four thousand dollars he let a contract for work on the mine.</p>
+
+<p>"In due time the case in court came on and was decided in favor of the
+plaintiff and an appeal provided for. The plaintiff kept still about the
+stock transaction, but the superintendent of the defendant company did
+not hesitate to declare that the Judge was a thief. So matters ran along
+for some months, when one day the aforesaid president and superintendent
+each received a note asking them to call at the office of the Judge at a
+certain hour. Both responded, and each was greatly surprised to see the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"The Judge opened the business by saying that a grand deposit of ore had
+been struck on one of the claims from which enough ore had already been
+taken to enable the company to pay a dollar per share dividend on the
+capital stock, upon which he pushed a check for ten thousand dollars to
+each of the men. He then went on to say that he had that morning
+received an offer of two hundred thousand dollars for the property,
+which he thought was a fair price, and asked the opinion of the others.
+They thought so too, and in a few days the money was paid over and each
+of the two received fifty thousand dollars.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now,' said the Judge, 'let me give you some advice. Settle up that
+foolish lawsuit outside of court. The claim is not worth what either one
+of you will pay out in attorneys' fees if you fight it out in the
+courts.'</p>
+
+<p>"By this time the three men had grown familiar, so the superintendent
+ventured to say:</p>
+
+<p>"'Judge, will you tell me what caused you to urge me to buy those
+shares?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I thought it was a good investment,' was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"'But was not there something else?' asked the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"'To tell you the truth,' replied the Judge, 'I had received ten
+thousand dollars from the President here, and I was afraid if the matter
+went that way into the court I might be prejudiced, so I sold you a like
+amount that I might go upon the bench, to try the case, <i>entirely
+unbiased</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"He was a good judge, no doubt, but he ividently had a leaning toward
+the east side," said Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"That was one case where the only justification was success," said
+Brewster.</p>
+
+<p>"He took his chances, that was all," Miller remarked, "and that is the
+corner-stone on which every fortune on the coast has been builded. I
+mean every fortune in mining."</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," chimed in Carlin. "Mining is simply a grand lottery and is
+about as much of a game of chance as poker or faro."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Carlin," said Strong. "You have picked up the idea that is
+popular, but there is nothing to it. I am not referring to mining on
+paper, that mining which is done on Pine and California streets. That is
+not only gambling, but it is, nine times out of ten, pure stealing. But
+what I mean is where a man, or a few men, from the unsightly rock, by
+honest labor, wrest something, which all men, barbarous and civilized
+alike, hold as precious; something which was not before, but which when
+found, the whole world accepts as a measure of values, and the
+production of which makes an addition to the world's accumulated wealth,
+and not only injures none, but quickens the arteries of trade
+everywhere; that is not gambling. Of course there are mistakes, of
+course worlds of unnecessary work have been performed, of course hopes
+have been blasted and hearts broken through the business, but in this
+world men have to pay for their educations. Twenty years ago there was
+not a man in America who could work Comstock ores up to seventy-five per
+cent. of their money value; only a scholarly few knew anything about the
+formations in which ore veins are liable to be found; processes to work
+ores and economical methods to open and work mines had to be invented;
+so far as the West was concerned the business of mining and reducing
+ores had to be created. The results do not justify any man in calling
+mining a lottery. In my judgment, it is the most legitimate business in
+the world; the only one in which there can be no overproduction, and the
+one which, above all others, advances every other industry of the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>"When the steam engine was first invented steam boilers blew up every
+day. This was no argument against the engine, but was a notice to men to
+build better boilers. For the same reason the sixty-pound steel rail has
+been substituted for the old wooden rail with an iron strap on top on
+railways, and the sixteen ton Pullman car for the old rattle trap that
+the slightest collision would smash. The Westinghouse air brake and the
+Miller platform are part of the same education.</p>
+
+<p>"By and by men will learn to know the rocks, and when their marks and
+signs are reduced to a perfect alphabet the crude work of mining as
+carried on now will take on the dignity of a science, and mining will
+become what it deserves to be, the most honored of industries."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>At length the first sorrow fell upon the Club. The mail brought to
+Corrigan one day the news of the death of his mother in New York. It was
+a terrible blow to him. It had been his dream all through the years that
+he had been absent from his home that some time he would accumulate
+money enough to provide her with a home, where around her life every
+comfort would be drawn, and from her life every heart-breaking care
+would be driven away. But time would not wait for him, and the letter,
+which only in gentle words told him of his mother's death, kindled in
+his heart such bitter self-reproaches that for awhile the warm-hearted
+man's grief was inconsolable.</p>
+
+<p>The Club heartily sympathized with him, but there was little said. The
+men who face death daily in a deep mine either come to think, after
+awhile, that this life hangs on too tender a thread to be grieved over
+so very much when that thread is broken, or, because of the nature of
+their occupation, which is necessarily carried on mostly in silence,
+they lose the faculty to say the words which in society circles are
+intruded upon people who are in deep sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>On this evening the supper was eaten in silence, Corrigan hardly tasting
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>As the Club took their seats Ashley found opportunity to covertly
+whisper to Yap Sing that Corrigan had received bad news and he must
+prepare something especially tempting for him to eat. When the meal was
+nearly finished Yap Sing brought a mammoth dish of strawberries, a bowl
+of sugar and pitcher of cream, and after the noiseless manner of his
+race, set them in front of Corrigan's plate. No one else at the table
+seemed to notice the act of the Chinaman. Corrigan gave a quick glance
+around the table and when he saw that no one else was to be served with
+the berries&mdash;that it was meant as a special act of sympathy for him&mdash;his
+eyes filled with tears and he hastily withdrew from the room.</p>
+
+<p>At his leisure during the evening Yap Sing ate the berries and the
+cream, remarking to himself as he did so:</p>
+
+<p>"Me heap slory Meester Clorigan; me likee be heap slory ebbly day."</p>
+
+<p>For an hour after supper the Club did little but smoke. At length,
+however, Harding, who usually spent his evenings absorbed in reading,
+laid aside his book and in his low and kindly voice, began to talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Often when a boy I heard my father tell a story of a woman, a Sister of
+Charity, which, I think, may be, it will be good to tell to-night. In
+one of the mountain towns of Northern California a good many years ago,
+while yet good women, compared to the number of the men, were so
+disproportionately few, suddenly one day, upon the street, clad in the
+unattractive garb of a Sister of Charity, appeared a woman whose
+marvelous loveliness the coarse garments and uncouth hood peculiar to
+the order could not conceal.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a Sisters' Hospital in the place and this nun was one of the
+devoted women who had come to minister to the sick in that hospital.</p>
+
+<p>"She was of medium size and height, and despite her shapeless garments
+it was easy to see that her form was beautiful. The hand that carried a
+basket was a delicate one; under her unsightly hood glimpses of a brow
+as white as a planet's light could be caught; the coarse shoes upon her
+feet were three sizes too large. When she raised her eyes from the inner
+depths a light like that of kindly stars shone out, and though a Sister
+of Charity, there was something about her lips which seemed to say that
+of all famines a famine of kisses was hardest to endure. There was a
+stately, kindly dignity in her mien, but in all her ways there was a
+dainty grace which, upon the hungry eyes of the miners of that mountain
+town, seemed like enchantment. She could not have been more than twenty
+years of age.</p>
+
+<p>"It was told that she was known as 'Sister Celeste,' that she had
+recently come to the Western Coast, it was believed, from France, and
+that was all that was known of her. When the Mother Superior at the
+hospital was questioned about the new sister, she simply answered:
+'Sister Celeste is a sister now; she will be a glorified saint by and
+by.'</p>
+
+<p>"The first public appearance of Sister Celeste in the town was one
+Sunday afternoon. She emerged from her hospital and started to carry
+some delicacy to a poor, sick woman, a Mrs. De Lacy, who lived on the
+opposite side of the town from the hospital; so to visit her the nun was
+obliged to walk almost the whole length of the one long, crooked street
+which, in the narrow canon, included all the business portion of the
+town.</p>
+
+<p>"When the nun started out from the hospital the town was full of miners,
+as was the habit in those days on Sunday afternoons, and as the Sister
+passed along the street hundreds of eyes were bent upon her. She seemed
+unconscious of the attention she was attracting; had she been walking in
+her sleep she could not have been more composed.</p>
+
+<p>"Many were the comments made as she passed out of the hearing of
+different groups of men. One big, rough miner, who had just accepted an
+invitation to drink, caught sight of the vision, watched the Sister as
+she passed and then said to the companion who had asked him:</p>
+
+<p>"'Excuse me, Bob, I have a feeling as though my soul had just partaken
+of the sacrament. No more gin for me to-day.'</p>
+
+<p>"Said another: 'It is a fearful pity. That woman was born to be loved,
+and to love somebody better than nine hundred and ninety out of every
+thousand could. Her occupation is, in her case, a sin against nature.
+Every hour her heart must protest against the starvation which it feels;
+every day she must feel upon her robes the clasp of little hands which
+are not to be.'</p>
+
+<p>"One boisterous miner, a little in his cups, watched until the Sister
+disappeared around a bend in the crooked street, and then cried out:
+'Did you see her, boys? That is the style of a woman that a man could
+die for and smile while dying. Oh! Oh!' Then drawing from his belt a
+buckskin purse, he held it aloft and shouted: 'Here are eighty ounces of
+the cleanest dust ever mined in Bear Gulch; it's all I have in the
+world, but I will give the last grain to any bruiser in this camp who
+will look crooked at that Sister when she comes back this way, and let
+me see him do it. In just a minute and a half&mdash;but no matter, I'm better
+that I have seen her.'</p>
+
+<p>"After that, daily, for all the following week, Sister Celeste was seen
+going to and returning from the sick woman's house. It suddenly grew to
+be a habit with everybody to uncover their heads as Sister Celeste came
+by.</p>
+
+<p>"Sunday came around again, and it was noticed that on that morning the
+nun went early to visit her charge and remained longer than usual. On
+her return, when just about opposite the main saloon of the place, a
+kindly, elderly gentleman, who was universally known and respected,
+ventured to cross the path of the Sister, and address her as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"'I beg pardon, good Sister, but you are attending upon a sick person.
+We understand that it is a woman. May I not ask if we can not in some
+way assist you and the woman?'</p>
+
+<p>"A faint flush swept over the glorious face of Sister Celeste as she
+raised her eyes, but simply and frankly, and with a slight French
+accent, she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"'The lady, kind sir, is very ill. Unless, in some way, we can manage to
+remove her to the hospital, where she can have an evenly warmed room and
+close nursing, I fear she will not live; but she is penniless and we are
+very poor, and, moreover, I do not see how she can be moved, for there
+are no carriages.'</p>
+
+<p>"She spoke with perfect distinctness, notwithstanding the slight foreign
+accent. The accent was no impediment; rather from her lips it gave her
+words a rhythm like music.</p>
+
+<p>"The man raised his voice: 'Boys,' he shouted, 'there is a suffering
+woman up the street. She is very destitute and very ill, and must be
+removed to the hospital. The first thing required is some money.' Then,
+taking off his hat with one hand, with the other he took from his pocket
+a twenty-dollar piece, put the money in the hat, then sprang upon a low
+stump that was standing by the trail and added: 'I start the
+subscription, those who have a trifle that they can spare will please
+pass around this way and drop the trifle into the hat.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then Sister Celeste had a new experience. In an instant she was
+surrounded by a shouting, surging, struggling crowd, all eager to
+contribute. There was a Babel of voices, but for once a California crowd
+were awakened to full roar without an oath being heard. The boys could
+not swear in the presence of Sister Celeste.</p>
+
+<p>"In a few minutes between seven and eight hundred dollars was raised. It
+was poured out of the hat into a buckskin purse, the purse was tied, and
+handed, by the man who first addressed her, to Sister Celeste, with the
+remark that it was for her poor and that when she needed more the boys
+would stand in.</p>
+
+<p>"Again the nun raised her eyes and in a low voice which trembled a
+little, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Please salute the gentlemen and say to them that God will keep the
+account.'</p>
+
+<p>"The man turned around and with an awkward laugh said: 'Boys! I am
+authorized, by one of His angels, to say that for your contribution, God
+has taken down your names, and given you credit.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then a wild fellow cried out from the crowd:</p>
+
+<p>"'Three cheers for the Angel!'</p>
+
+<p>"The cheers rang out like the braying of a thousand trumpets in accord.
+Then in a hoarse under-tone a voice shouted 'Tiger!' and the deep-toned
+old-day California 'Tiger' rolled up the hillsides like an ocean roar.
+It would have startled an ordinary woman, but Sister Celeste was looking
+at the purse, and it is doubtful if she heard it at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the first speaker called from the crowd eight men, by name, and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"'You were all married men in the States and for all that I know to the
+contrary, were decent, respectable gentlemen. As master of ceremonies I
+delegate you, as there are no carriages in this camp, to go to the sick
+woman's house, and carry her to the hospital, while the good Sister
+proceeds in advance and makes a place for her.'</p>
+
+<p>"This was agreed to, and the Sister was told that in half an hour she
+might expect her patient.</p>
+
+<p>"Then she hurried away, the crowd watching her and remarking that her
+usual stately step seemed greatly quickened.</p>
+
+<p>"Long afterward, the Mother Superior related that, when Sister Celeste
+reached the hospital on that day, she fell sobbing into the Mother's
+arms, and when she could command her voice, said: 'Those shaggy men that
+I thought were all tigers are all angels disguised. O, Mother, I have
+seen them as Moses and Elias were, transfigured.'</p>
+
+<p>"The eight men held a brief consultation in the street, then going to a
+store they bought a pair of heavy white blankets, an umbrella and four
+pick handles. Borrowing a packer's needle and some twine they began to
+sew the pick handles into the sides of the blanket, first rolling the
+handles around once or twice in the edges of the blanket. They then
+proceeded to the sick woman's house; one went in first and told the sick
+woman, gently, what they had come to do, and bade her have no fears,
+that she was to be moved so gently that if she would close her eyes she
+would not know anything about it. The others were called in; the blanket
+was laid upon the floor; the bed was lifted with its burden from the
+bedstead and laid on the blanket; the covers were neatly tucked under
+the mattress; four men seized the pickhandles at the sides, lifted the
+bed, woman and all from the floor, a fifth man stepped outside, raised
+the umbrella and held it above the woman's face, and so, as gently as
+ever mother rocked her babe to sleep, the sick woman was carried the
+whole length of the street to the hospital, where Sister Celeste and the
+Mother Superior received her.</p>
+
+<p>"Then all hands went up town and talked the matter over, and I am afraid
+that some of them drank a little, but the burden of all the talk and all
+the toasts, was Sister Celeste.</p>
+
+<p>"After that the nun was often seen, going on her errands of mercy, and
+it is true that some men who had been rough and who had drank hard for
+months previous to the coming of the Sister, grew quiet in their lives
+and ceased to go to the saloons.</p>
+
+<p>"One day a most laughable event transpired. Two men got quarrelling in
+the street which in a moment culminated in a fight. The friends of the
+respective men joined and soon there was a general fight in which
+perhaps thirty men were engaged. When it was at its height (and such a
+fight meant something) Sister Celeste suddenly turned the sharp bend of
+the street and came into full view not sixty yards from where the melee
+was raging in full fury.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the fighters saw her and made a sound between a hiss and a low
+whistle, a peculiar sound of alarm and warning, so significant that all
+looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"In an instant the men clapped their hands into their side pockets, and
+commenced moving away, some of them whistling low and dancing as they
+went, as though the whole thing was but a jovial lark. When Sister
+Celeste reached the spot a moment afterward, the street was entirely
+clear. The men washed their faces, some wag began to describe the
+comical scene which they made when they concluded that the street under
+certain circumstances was no good place for a fight; good humor was
+restored, the chief combatants shook hands with perfect cordiality, a
+drink of reconciliation was ordered all around, and when the glasses
+were emptied, a man cried out: 'Fill up once more, boys. I want you to
+drink with me the health of the only capable peace officer that we have
+ever had in town&mdash;Sister Celeste.' The health was drank with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"The winter came on at length and there was much sickness. Sister
+Celeste redoubled her exertions; she was seen at all hours of the day,
+and was met, sometimes, as late as midnight, returning from her watch
+beside a sick bed.</p>
+
+<p>"The town was full of rough men; some of them would cut or shoot at a
+word, but Sister Celeste never felt afraid. Indeed, since that Sabbath
+when the subscription was taken up in the street she had felt that
+nothing sinister could ever happen to her in that place.</p>
+
+<p>"Once, however, she met a jolly miner who had been in town too long, and
+who had started for home a good deal the worse for liquor. She met him
+in a lonely place where the houses had been a few days previous burned
+down on both sides of the street. Emboldened by rum, the man stepped
+directly in front of the nun and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'My pretty Sister, I will give your hospital a thousand dollars for one
+kiss.'</p>
+
+<p>"The Sister never wavered; she raised her calm and undaunted eyes to the
+face of the man, an incandescent whiteness warmed upon her cheek, giving
+to her striking face unwonted splendor. For a moment she held the man
+under the spell of her eyes, then stretching her right arm out toward
+the sky, slowly and with infinite sadness in her tones said:</p>
+
+<p>"'If your mother is watching from there, what will she think of her
+son?'</p>
+
+<p>"The man fell on his knees, crying 'pardon,' and Sister Celeste, with
+her accustomed stately step, passed slowly on her way.</p>
+
+<p>"Next day an envelope directed to Sister Celeste was received at the
+hospital. Within there was nothing but a certificate of deposit from a
+local bank for one thousand dollars, made to the credit of the hospital.</p>
+
+<p>"On another occasion the nun had a still harder trial to bear. A young
+man was stricken with typhoid fever and sent to the hospital. He was a
+rich and handsome man. He had come from the East only a few weeks before
+he was taken down. His business in California was to settle the estate
+of an uncle recently deceased, who had died leaving a large property.</p>
+
+<p>"When carried to the hospital Sister Celeste was appointed his nurse.
+The fever ran twenty-one days, and when it left him finally, he lay
+helpless as a child and hovering on the very threshhold of the grave for
+days.</p>
+
+<p>"With a sick man's whim, no one could do anything for him but Sister
+Celeste. She had to move him on his pillows, give him his medicines and
+such food as he could bear. In lifting him her arms were very often
+around him and her bosom was so near his breast that she could feel the
+throbbing of his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"As health slowly returned, the young man watched the nurse with
+steadily increasing interest.</p>
+
+<p>"At length the time came when the physician said that in another week
+the patient would require no further attendance, but that he ought, so
+soon as possible, to go to the seaside, where the salt air would furnish
+him the tonic that he needed most.</p>
+
+<p>"When the physician went away the young man said: 'Sister Celeste, sit
+down and let us talk.' She obeyed. 'Let me hold your hand,' he said: 'I
+want to tell you of my mother and my home, and with your hand in mine it
+will seem as though the dear ones there were by my side.' She gave him
+her hand in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he told her of his beautiful home in the East; of the love that
+had always been a benediction to that home; of his mother and little
+sister, of their daily life and their unbroken happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Insidiously the story flowed on until at length he said, with returning
+health, his business being nearly all arranged, he should return to
+those who awaited, anxiously, his coming. And before Sister Celeste had
+any time for preparation or remonstrance, the young man added:</p>
+
+<p>"'You have been my guardian angel; you have saved my life. The world
+will be all dark without you. You can serve God and, humanity better as
+my wife than as a lowly and poor Sister here. Some women have higher
+destinies and a nobler sphere to fill on earth than as Sisters of
+Charity; you were never meant to be a nun, but a loving wife. Be mine.
+If it is the poor you wish to serve, a thousand shall bless you where
+one blesses you here; but come with me, filling my mother's heart with
+joy and taking your rightful place as my wife. Be my guardian angel
+forever!'</p>
+
+<p>"The face of Sister Celeste was white as the pillow on which her hand
+lay; for a moment she seemed choking, while about her lips and eyes
+there was a tremulousness as though she was about to break into a storm
+of uncontrollable sobs. But she rallied under a tremendous effort at
+self-control, gently disengaged her hand from the hand that held it,
+rose to her feet and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I ought not to have permitted this; ought not to have heard what you
+said. However, we must bear our cross. I do not belong to the world; but
+do not misjudge me, I have not always been as you see me. I can only
+tell you this: To a woman now and then there comes a time when either
+her heart must break or she must give it to God. I have given mine to
+Him. I cannot take it back. I would not if I could.</p>
+
+<p>"'If you suffer a little now, you will forget it with returning
+strength. I only ask that when you are strong and well and far away, you
+will sometimes remember that the world is full of heart aches. Comfort
+as many as you can. And now, God bless you, and farewell.'</p>
+
+<p>"She laid her hand a moment on his brow, then drew it down upon his
+cheek, where it lingered for a moment like a caress, and then she was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>"After that the Mother Superior became the young man's nurse until he
+left the hospital. He tried hard, but never saw Sister Celeste again.
+While he remained in the place she ceased to appear on the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Another year passed by and Sister Celeste grew steadily in the love of
+the people. With the winter months some cases of smallpox broke out. The
+country was new, the people careless, and no particular alarm was felt
+until the breaking out of ten cases in one day awakened the people to
+the fact that the disease prevailed generally.</p>
+
+<p>"Sister Celeste labored almost without rest, night or day, until the
+violence of the contagion had passed; then she was stricken. She
+recovered, but was shockingly marked by the disease.</p>
+
+<p>"She was in a darkened room, and how to break to her the news of her
+disfigurement was a matter of sore distress to the other nuns. But one
+day, to a Sister who was watching by her bed side, she suddenly said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I am almost well now, Sister. Throw back the blinds and bring me a
+mirror,' and, with a gentle gaiety that never forsook her when with her
+sister nuns, she added: 'It is time that I began to admire myself.'</p>
+
+<p>"The nun opened the blinds, brought the glass, laid it upon the bed and
+sat down in fear and trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"Sister Celeste, without glancing at the mirror, laid one hand upon it,
+and, shading her eyes with the other hand, for a moment was absorbed in
+silent prayer. Then she picked up the glass and held it before her face.
+The watching nun; hardly breathing and in an agony of suspense, waited.
+After a long, earnest look, without a shade passing over her face,
+Sister Celeste laid down the glass, clasped her hands and said: 'God be
+praised! Now all is peace. Never, never again will my face bring sorrow
+to my heart.'</p>
+
+<p>"The waiting nun sank, sobbing, to her knees; but as she did so, she
+saw, on the face of the stricken woman, a smile which she declared was
+as sweet as the smile of God.</p>
+
+<p>"With the return of health, Sister Celeste again took up her work of
+mercy, and for a few months more her presence was a benediction to the
+place. At last, however, it began to be noticed that her presence on the
+street was less frequent than formerly, and soon an unwelcome rumor
+began to circulate that she was ill. The truth of this was soon
+confirmed, and then, day by day, for some weeks, the report was that she
+was growing weaker and weaker, and finally, one morning, it was known
+that she was dead.</p>
+
+<p>"A lady of the place who was greatly attached to Sister Celeste, because
+of that attachment and because of her devotion to 'Mother Church,' was
+permitted to watch through the last hours of the nun's life. Of the
+closing moments of the glorified woman's life she gave the following
+account:</p>
+
+<p>"For an hour the dying nun had been motionless, as though hushed in a
+peaceful sleep. When the first rays of the dawn struck on the window, a
+lark lighted on the sill, and in full voice warbled its greeting to the
+day. Then the Sister opened her eyes, already fringed by the death
+frost, and in faint and broken sentences murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"'A delicious vision has been sent me. <i>Deo gratias</i>, every act meant in
+kindness that I have ever done, in the vision had become a flower,
+giving out an incense ineffable. These had been woven into a diadem for
+me. Every word, meant in comfort or sympathy, that I have ever spoken,
+had been set to exquisite music, which voices and harps not of this
+world were singing and playing while I was being crowned. Every tear of
+mine shed in pity had become a precious gem. These were woven into the
+robes of light that they drew around me. A glass was held before me;
+from face and bosom the cruel scars were all gone, and to eye and brow
+and cheek the luster and enchantment of youth had returned, and near all
+radiant'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'The eyes, with a look of inexpressibly joyous surprise in them, grew
+fixed, and all was still save where on the casement the lark was
+repeating her song.'</p>
+
+<p>"Among the effects left by Sister Celeste was found a package addressed
+to the same lady who had watched during the closing hours of the dead
+nun's life. This was brought to her by the Mother Superior. On being
+opened, within was found another package, tied with silver strings,
+sealed with wax, and the seal bore the date on which she took her vows.
+This in turn was opened, and a large double locket was revealed. In one
+side was the picture of a young man in the uniform of a French colonel.
+From the other side a picture had evidently been hastily removed, as
+though in a moment of excitement, for there were scars upon the case
+which had been made by a too impetuous use of some sharp instrument. On
+the outer edge of the case was a half-round hole, such as a bullet
+makes, and there were dark stains on one side of the case. Below the
+picture in a woman's delicate hand-writing, were the words: 'Henrie.
+Died at Majenta.'</p>
+
+<p>"The lady called the Mother Superior aside and showed her the picture.
+Tears came to the faded eyes of the devoted woman.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now God be praised!' said she. 'Three nights since, as I watched by
+the poor child, I heard her murmur that name in her fevered sleep, and I
+was troubled, for I feared she was dreaming of the youth she nursed back
+to life here in the hospital. It was not so. Her work was finished on
+earth, she was nearing the spheres where love never brings sorrow; her
+soul was already outstretching its wings to join&mdash;' the poor nun
+stopped, breathed short and hard a few times, and then incoherently
+began to tell her beads in Latin.</p>
+
+<p>"While they were conversing the body of Sister Celeste lay dressed for
+the grave in another apartment, watched over by two Sisters. When the
+Mother Superior ceased speaking, the lady said to her:</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, come with me to where Sister Celeste is sleeping! When we reach
+the room, send the watchers away, and then do not look at me. I want to
+put this picture away.'</p>
+
+<p>"The Mother Superior was strangely agitated, but she led the way to the
+room, bade the nuns there go and get some rest, then knelt by the foot
+of the casket, and bowed her head in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady slipped the locket beneath the folds of the winding sheet,
+where it lay above the pulseless heart of the dead nun.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole population of the place were sorrowing mourners at the
+obsequies of Sister Celeste, and for years afterward, every morning, in
+summer and winter, upon her grave, a dressing of fresh flowers could be
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>"On the day of the funeral the miners made up a purse and gave it to
+Mrs. De Lacy, the consideration being that every day for a year, the
+grave of the Sister should be flower-crowned. The contract was renewed
+yearly until Mrs. De Lacy moved away. In the meantime a wild rosebush
+and cypress had been planted beside the grave, and they keep watch there
+still."</p>
+
+<p>The good-night whistles had already blown when Harding finished his
+story. Not much was said as the Club retired, but Corrigan,
+understanding why the story had been told, in silence wrung Harding's
+hand.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Club had now been running a month. It had been most enjoyable. When
+Yap Sing had been installed as cook and housekeeper he was given a
+memorandum book, on the first page of which was written an order for
+such supplies as the Club might require at the stores and markets.
+Brewster had objected to this at first, inasmuch as the Mongolian was a
+stranger, and because it was not good to make bills. But he was
+overruled by the explanation that almost everything required, except
+fresh vegetables and, now and then, fresh meat, had already been
+provided, and that the Chinaman could not cheat very much with seven men
+to watch him.</p>
+
+<p>But from the first day the Club fared sumptuously. Yap Sing was a
+thorough artist in his way. He had a trick of preparing substantials and
+dainties, and of arranging a table, which was wonderful. His breakfasts
+and suppers were masterpieces, and daily as the dinner buckets, which
+Yap Sing had filled, were opened at the mines, the members of the Club
+were the envy of all the men, underground, who were their companions. It
+was a change from the boarding houses, so delicious, that the members of
+the Club did not care to consider what the probable extra expense would
+be. Moreover, each had a feeling that so long as the rest were satisfied
+it was not worth while to interrupt the pleasant course which events
+were taking by intruding questions which possibly might lead to
+unpleasant developments.</p>
+
+<p>But on pay day the bills were sent in. For provisions and crockery they
+amounted to more than three hundred dollars, or about one dollar and a
+half per day for each member of the Club. This was in addition to the
+stock of food purchased at the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>The first thought was that Yap Sing had been robbing the Club. He was
+called in, confronted with the bills and questioned as to what he had to
+say to the amount.</p>
+
+<p>He declared it to be his belief that it was "belly cheapee."</p>
+
+<p>Miller took up the case for the plaintiffs and said: "But, Yap, you
+understand when you came here a month ago we had plenty of
+provisions&mdash;flour, butter, bacon, lard, tea, coffee, sugar&mdash;everything
+required except fresh vegetables and, now and then, fresh meat."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, me sabbe; got plentie now, allee samee," said Yap.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Yap," said Miller, "you know in boarding-houses and restaurants
+board is only eight dollars a week. Besides what you had at the
+beginning, this is costing a dollar and a half a day for each one of us.
+What have you to say to that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me say him heap cheapee," said Yap. "Me no care for bloarding-housie;
+me no care for lestaulent; me heap sabbie 'em. You likie 'em, you
+bletter go lare eatie. You no likie loyster; you likie hashie. You no
+likie tlenderloin; you likie corn beefe. You no likie turkie; you likie
+bull beefe. You no likie plum puddie; you likie dlied apples. All litie,
+me cookie him; me no care. You no likie bloiled tongue, loast chickie
+and devil ham for dinner bucket; you likie blead and onion. All litie,
+me fixie him. You wantie one d&mdash;&mdash;d cheapee miners' bloarding-housie.
+All litie, no difflence me."</p>
+
+<p>It was hard to argue the point with the countryman of Confucius.
+Notwithstanding the magnificent fare, the impression was general that
+Yap Sing had been feeding three or four of his cousins and making a
+little private pocket change for himself by the transaction, but it
+would have been useless to try to convict him. Indeed, it would have
+been impossible, for when any particularly outrageous item was pointed
+out he would cite some special occasion when he had outdone himself in
+his art.</p>
+
+<p>"What a time-keeper he would make for a mine!" said Carlin. "He would
+have his pay-roll full every day if he had to rob a graveyard of all the
+names on its monuments to fill it."</p>
+
+<p>"What a superintendent he would make!" said Miller. "There would not be
+an item in the monthly accounts that he would not be prepared to explain
+with entire satisfaction and appalling promptness, and all the time he
+would have looked like a sorrowful statue of unappreciated innocence."</p>
+
+<p>"What a mining expert he would be!" said Ashley. "With his faculty for
+making doubtful things look plausible, and his powers of expression, he
+would convince the ordinary man that he could see further into the
+ground than you could bore with a diamond drill."</p>
+
+<p>"But his cooking is lovely; you must all admit that," said Wright.</p>
+
+<p>"If there be blame anywhere, it rests on us," said Brewster, "for we
+could all see that we were living a little high, and yet not one of us
+so much as cautioned Yap to go slow."</p>
+
+<p>It was finally decided that there must be a return to sound and economic
+principles. Yap was paid his month's salary and instructed that, in
+future, the fare must be reduced to plain, solid miner's food. The money
+to pay all the bills, together with what was due on the previous month,
+and also the rent, was contributed and placed in Miller's hands as
+treasurer and paymaster, that he might pay the accounts, and the Club
+settled down to its pipes and conversation.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the honorary members had come in. As usual, the first
+theme was the condition of stocks. Miller believed that Silver Hill was
+the best buy on the lode, Corrigan had heard that day that a secret
+drift had been run west from the thirteen hundred level of the Con.
+Virginia; that up in the Andes ground an immense body of ore had been
+cut through, but that nothing would come of it until the Bonanza firm
+could gather in more of the stock. Carlin was disposed to believe that a
+development was about to be made in Chollar Potosi, because during the
+past month the superintendent had come up twice from Oakland,
+California, to look at the property. Strong was disposed to unload all
+the stocks that he had and invest in Belcher and Crown Point because the
+superintendent of both mines had that day assured him that they had no
+developments worth mentioning.</p>
+
+<p>At length the conversation turned on silver. The Club had that day
+received a portion of their month's pay in silver, and some grumbled,
+thinking they should have received their full wages in gold. After a
+good deal had been said, the Professor, who had been quietly reading and
+had taken no part in the discussion, was asked for his opinion. He
+answered as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"It is not right to pay laboring men in a depreciated currency; it is a
+still greater wrong that there is a discount on silver. It is the
+steadiest measure of values that mankind has ever found; it is the only
+metal that three-fifths of the human race can measure their daily
+transactions in; its full adoption by our Government, as a measure of
+values and basis of money, would mean prosperity; its rejection during
+the past five years and the denying to it its old sovereignty, have
+wrought incalculable loss.</p>
+
+<p>"Here on the Comstock it sleeps in the same matrix with gold, the
+proportion in bullion being about forty-four per cent. gold to fifty-six
+per cent. silver. The Nation cannot make a better adjustment than to
+keep that proportion good in her securities. Five years ago silver
+commanded a premium over gold. Since then two dollars in gold to one in
+silver have been taken from the earth, but silver is at a discount,
+because through unwise if not dishonest legislation, its sovereignty as
+a measure of values, its recognition as money was taken away. The whole
+burden was put upon gold, and the result is that the purchasing power of
+gold has been enhanced, and silver is, or seems to be, at a discount.
+Those who have accomplished this wrong affect to scorn the proposition
+that legislation could restore to silver its old value, ignoring the
+fact that the present apparent depreciation is due entirely to
+unfriendly legislation, and conveniently forgetting that with silver,
+everything else is at a discount when measured by gold. That is, gold is
+inflated by the discriminations which have been made in its favor. The
+chief use of silver in the world is for a measure of values, as the
+chief use of wheat is for material out of which to make bread. Were men
+forbidden to make any more bread from wheaten flour and compelled to use
+corn meal as a substitute, would the present prices of wheat and corn
+remain respectively the same?</p>
+
+<p>"Silver should be restored to its old full sovereignty, side by side
+with gold. Then, in this country, just as little of either metal as
+possible should be used in men's daily transactions. Handling gold and
+silver directly in trade is but continuing the barter of savage men, and
+is a relic of a dark age. Moreover, the loss by abrasion is very great.
+Both metals should be cast into ingots and their values stamped upon
+them. Then they should be stored in the Treasury and certificates
+representing their value should be issued as the money of the people. If
+this makes the Government a banker no matter, so long as it supplies to
+the people a money on which there can be no loss. The thought that this
+would drain our land of gold has not much force, because the trade
+balances are coming our way and will soon be very heavy; if the gold
+shall be taken away something will have to be returned in lieu of it,
+and after all the truth is that four-fifths of our people do not see a
+gold piece twice a year. Our internal commerce is very much greater than
+our foreign commerce, and to keep that moving without jar should be the
+first anxiety of American statesmen. For that purpose nothing could be
+better than the silver certificate.</p>
+
+<p>"The Government has commenced to coin silver and has partially
+remonetized it. It is only partial because gold is still made the
+absolute measure of values and preference is reserved for it in ways
+which will keep silver depressed until there shall come a demand for it
+which cannot at once be met; then it will be discovered that it is still
+one of the precious metals and it will take its place in trade as it has
+its place here in the mines, side by side and the full brother of gold.
+Were the Government to-morrow to commence to absorb and hoard all the
+product of our mines and keep this up for a generation, issuing
+certificates on the same for the full value, at the end of about thirty
+years there would be on deposit as security for the paper afloat more
+than one thousand millions of dollars. This seems like a vast sum, but
+it would then amount to but ten dollars per capita for our people. You
+have each received two and a half times that amount to-day on account of
+your last month's wages, and the only serious inconvenience it has
+inflicted upon you is the discount which wicked legislation has given to
+silver.</p>
+
+<p>"But long before one thousand millions in silver could be secured it
+would command a premium, because that would mean one-fourth of all the
+silver in circulation, and this old world cannot spare to one Nation
+that amount and still keep her commerce running and the arts supplied."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Professor," said Alex, "why hoard the metals? Why may not money be
+represented by paper backed by the Nation's faith? Why pile up the
+metals in the Government vaults when the printing press can supply as
+good money as the people want?"</p>
+
+<p>"That," replied the Professor, "is an argument for times of peace and
+prosperity only. The failure of one crop would so lessen the faith of
+the people that a serious discount would fall upon the money that was
+only backed by faith. And suppose Europe were to combine to fight the
+United States, then what would the loss be to the people? We can only
+estimate the amount by thinking what the United States currency was
+worth in 1864.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a combination is not at all impossible. There is a vast country to
+the south of us, the trade of which should be ours, and with the
+Governments of which we have notified Europe there must be no
+interference from beyond the Atlantic. There are channels for ships to
+be hewed through the Spanish American Isthmus, and their control is to
+become a question.</p>
+
+<p>"Above all, the light and majesty of our Republic are becoming a terror
+to the Old World. Think of it. The immigrants that come to us annually,
+together with the young men and women that annually reach their majority
+here, are enough to supply the places of all the people of this coast
+were they to go away. Who can estimate the swelling strength that is
+sufficient to fully equip a new state annually?</p>
+
+<p>"Before the spectacle thrones are toppling and kings sleep on pillows of
+thorns. If our soil was adjacent to Europe, the nations would combine
+and assail us to-morrow, in sheer self-defense. They have tremendous
+armies; they are accumulating mighty navies and arming them as ships
+were never armed before. Suppose that sometime they decide that the
+world's equilibrium is being disturbed by the Great Republic, even as
+they did when Napoleon the first became their terror, and that, as with
+him, they determine that our country shall be divided or crushed. What
+then? Of course they will maneuver to have a rebellion in our country
+and espouse the cause of the weaker side. This is what nearly happened
+in 1862; what would have surely happened had not Great Britain possessed
+the knowledge that if she joined with France in the proposed scheme,
+whatever the outcome might be, one thing was certain, for a season at
+least, there would be no night on the sea; the light made by British
+ships in flames would make perpetual day.</p>
+
+<p>"Then ocean commerce was carried mostly in ships that had to trust alone
+to the fickle winds for headway. In twenty years more steam will be the
+motive power for carrying all valuable freights, and will be
+comparatively safe as against pursuing cruisers.</p>
+
+<p>"Imagine such a crisis upon us, what then would the unsupported paper
+dollar be worth? But imagine that behind the Republic there was in the
+treasury a thousand millions of dollars in silver, the original money of
+the world, and another thousand millions in gold, what combination of
+forces could place the money of the Nation in danger of loss by
+depreciation?</p>
+
+<p>"Gold and silver when produced are simply the measures of the labor
+required to produce them; they are labor made imperishable; and when
+either is destroyed&mdash;and demonetization is destruction&mdash;just so much
+labor is destroyed, and you who work have to make up the loss by working
+more hours for a dollar. You are supposed to receive the same wages that
+the miners did who worked on this lode six years ago, for a month's
+work. But you do not because, through the mistake of honest men or the
+manipulation of knaves, twenty per cent. of the twenty-five dollars paid
+you in silver for last month's work has been destroyed; and now those
+who have dealt this blow insist that money can in no wise be changed in
+value by legislation.</p>
+
+<p>"The trouble is our law-makers do not estimate at half its worth their
+own country. They stand in awe of what they call the money centers of
+the world, and refuse to see that already the world is placed at a
+disadvantage by our Republic; that within thirty years all existing
+nations, all the nations that have existed through all the long watches
+of the past, will, in material wealth and strength, seem mean and poor
+in comparison with our own.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at it! Five hundred thousand foreigners absorbed annually, and not
+a ripple made where they merge with the mighty current of our people!
+What is equal to a new State, with all its people and equipments,
+launched upon the Union every year&mdash;it makes me think of the Creator
+launching worlds&mdash;with immeasurable resources yet to be utilized; the
+wealth of the country already equal to that of Great Britain, with all
+her twelve hundred years of spoils; all our earnings our own; no five
+millions of people toiling to support another million that stand on
+guard, as is required in France and Germany and Russia and Austria and
+Italy; our great Southern staple commanding tribute from all the world;
+hungry Europe looking to our Northern States for meat and bread, and to
+our rivers for fish; our Western miners supplying to business the tonic
+which keeps its every artery throbbing with buoyant health, while over
+all is our flag, which symbols a sovereignty so awful in power and yet
+so beneficent in mercies, that while the laws command and protect, they
+bring no friction in their contact; rather they guarantee the perfect
+liberty of every child of the Republic, to seize with equal hand upon
+every opportunity for fortune, or for fame, which our country holds
+within her august grasp.</p>
+
+<p>"To carry on the business of such a land an ocean of money is needed,
+and infinitely more will be required in future. And for this money there
+must be a solid basis; not merely a faith which expands with this year's
+prosperity and contracts with next year's calamity; not something which
+the death of a millionaire or a visitation of grasshoppers will throw
+down; but something which is the first-born child of labor, and is
+therefore immortal and without change. This is represented by gold and
+silver, and to commerce they are what 'the great twin brethren' at Lake
+Regillus were to Rome."</p>
+
+<p>When the Professor ceased speaking, Harding said: "Professor, what you
+have been saying about our Republic sounds to me almost like a
+coincidence. Did you dream what you have been saying?"</p>
+
+<p>The Professor replied that he did not, and asked what in the world
+prompted such a question.</p>
+
+<p>Harding smiled and blushed, and then said: "Because I had a dream last
+night."</p>
+
+<p>All wanted to hear what it was.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't laugh, Carlin?" said Harding.</p>
+
+<p>Carlin said he would not.</p>
+
+<p>"And you will not call me a fool, Wright?" Harding asked.</p>
+
+<p>Wright promised to conceal his sentiments, if necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not call it a mirage, Corrigan?" asked Harding.</p>
+
+<p>Corrigan agreed to refrain.</p>
+
+<p>"And, Colonel, you will not ask mysterious questions about who usually
+sits as a commission of lunacy in Virginia City?" Harding inquired.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel agreed to restrain himself.</p>
+
+<p>"And, Alex, you will not expose me in the paper?" questioned Harding.</p>
+
+<p>Alex promised to be merciful to the public.</p>
+
+<p>In final appeal, Harding said: "And you, Professor, you will not say it
+is a tough, hard formation and too nearly primitive to carry any
+treasure?"</p>
+
+<p>The Professor assured him that faults and displacements were common in
+the richest mineral-bearing veins.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Harding, "I was tired and nervous last night. I could not
+sleep, and so determined to get up and read for an hour. I happened to
+pick up a volume of Roman history, and became so absorbed in it that I
+read for an hour or two more than I ought to. I went to bed at last, and
+my body dropped to sleep in a moment, but my brain was still half awake,
+and for a while ran things on its own account in a confused sort of a
+way.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I was sitting here alone, when, suddenly, a stranger appeared
+and began to pace, slowly, up and down the room. He had an eye like a
+hawk, nose like an eagle's beak and an air that was altogether martial.
+His walk had the perfect, measured step of the trained veteran soldier.
+After watching him for a little space, I grew bold and demanded of him
+his name and business. When I spoke the sound of my own voice startled
+me, for he was more savage looking than a shift boss. He turned round to
+me&mdash;don't laugh, I pray you&mdash;and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I am that Scipio to whom Hannibal the terrible capitulated. I was
+proud of my Rome and my Romans. We were the "Iron Nation," truly. All
+that human valor and human endurance could do we accomplished. Amid the
+snows of the Alps and the sands of Africa we were alike invincible. We
+were not deficient either in brain power. We left monuments enough to
+abundantly establish that fact. To us the whole civilized world yielded
+fealty, but we were barbarians after all. Listen!'</p>
+
+<p>"Just then there floated in through the open window what seemed a full
+diapason of far-off but exquisite music.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you know what that is?' he asked. 'It is the echo of the melody
+which the children of this Republic awaken, singing in their free
+schools. It smites upon and charms the ear of the sentinel angel, whose
+station is in the sun, through one-eighth of his daily round; those
+echoes that with an enchantment all their own ride on the swift pinions
+of the hours over all the three thousand miles between the seas.</p>
+
+<p>"My Rome had nothing like that. We trusted alone to the law of might,
+and though we tried to be just, the slave was chained daily at our
+gates; we sold into slavery our captives taken in war; we fought
+gladiators and wild beasts for the amusement of our daughters and wives;
+we never learned to temper justice with mercy; only the first leaves of
+the book of knowledge were opened to us; our brains and our bodies were
+disciplined, but our hearts were darkened and we perished because we
+were no longer fit to rule.</p>
+
+<p>"'Whether by evolution the world has advanced, or whether, indeed, the
+lessons of that Nazarene, whom our soldiers crucified, are bearing
+celestial fruit, who knows! But surely our Rome, with all its power, all
+its splendor, all its heroic men and stately women; its victories in the
+field, its pageants in the Imperial City on the days when, returning
+from a conquest, our chieftians were laurel-crowned; our art, our
+eloquence&mdash;all, were nothing compared with this song of songs. It
+started at first where the sullen waves wash against Plymouth Rock; it
+swelled in volume while the deep woods gave place to smiling fields;
+over mountain and desert it rolled in full tones and only ceases, at
+last, where the roar of the deep sea, breaking outside the Golden Gate,
+or meeting in everlasting anger the Oregon upon her stormy bar, gives
+notice that the pioneer must halt at last in his westward march.'</p>
+
+<p>"As he ceased to speak the melody was heard again, sweeter, clearer and
+fuller than before. My guest faded away before me and I awoke. In all
+the air there was no sound save the deep respirations of the hoisting
+engine in the Norcross works, and the murmur of the winds, as on slow
+beating wings they floated up over the Divide and swept on, out over the
+desert."</p>
+
+<p>The verdict of the Club was that if old Scipio talked in that strain he
+had softened down immensely since the days when he was setting his
+legions in array against the swarthy hosts of the mighty Carthagenian.</p>
+
+<p>After a while Corrigan spoke: "You native Americans," he said, "at least
+the majority of yees, do not half appreciate your country. I was but a
+lad whin, after a winter of half starvation, in the care of an uncle, I
+lift Ireland in an English imigrant ship. One mornin' as me uncle and
+meself were watchin' from the deck a sail rose out of the say directly
+in our path. It grew larger and larger, in a little while the hull
+appeared, and soon after we could discern that it was a frigate. The
+wind was off her beam, blowing fresh; every sail was crowded on, and as
+her black beak rose and fell with the says, I thought her more beautiful
+than the smile of the sunlight on the hills of Kildare. Half careened as
+she was under the pressure on her sails, but still resolutely rushing
+on, she made a pictur' of courage which has shone before me eyes a
+thousand times since, when me heart has been heavy. She drew quite near,
+and as she swung upon her tack her flag was dipped in salute. Then me
+uncle bent and said: 'Barney, lad, mark will that flag! That is an
+Amirican ship of war.'</p>
+
+<p>"Great God! Child that I was, I think in that moment I knew how the
+young mother feels, when in the curtained dimness of her room, she half
+fainting, hears the blissful whisper that unto her is born a son.</p>
+
+<p>"There was the ensign of the land which held all joy in thought for us;
+which to us opened the gates of hope; that wondrous land in the air of
+which the pallid cheek of Want grows rosy red and Irish hearts cast off
+hereditary dispair.</p>
+
+<p>"I rushed forward, where thray hundred imigrants were listlessly
+lounging about the deck, and, in mad excitement, shouted: 'See! See! It
+is the Amirican flag!' Just then the sunlight caught in its folds and
+turned it to gold.</p>
+
+<p>"O, but thin there was a transformation sane. Ivery person on that deck
+sprang up and shouted. Men waved their hats and women embraced each
+other, and with a mighty 'All Hail' those Irish imigrants&mdash;Irish no
+longer, but henceforth forever to be Amiricans&mdash;greeted that flag. In
+response the marines manned the yards, and off to us across the wathers
+came the first ringing Amirican chare that we had iver heard. We
+answered back with a yell like that which might have been awakened at
+Babel. It was not a disciplined chare, but simply a wild cry of joy, and
+it was none the less hearty that over us swung haughtily the red cross
+of St. George.</p>
+
+<p>"You native Amiricans are like spiled children, that niver having known
+an unsatisfied want, surfeit on dainties."</p>
+
+<p>Corrigan relapsed into silence, but his eyes were glistening and there
+was a tremble about his lips. His mind was still in the burial place,
+where "memory was calling up its dead."</p>
+
+<p>While the spell of Barney's words was still upon the Club, Yap Sing
+softly opened the door and announced that the evening luncheon was
+ready. The heathen had inaugurated these luncheons on the first day of
+his coming. They were at once accepted and had become a regular thing.
+Seeing that they were received approvingly, Yap had exhausted every
+device to make them a marked feature of the Club.</p>
+
+<p>On this occasion the table was fully set, but there was no food on the
+table. Beside each plate stood a glass of water and a dish of salt. When
+the company was seated, Yap went to the cooking range, took out and set
+upon the table an immense platter which was piled high with huge baked
+potatoes, after which, with a face utterly destitute of expression, he
+went to his bench in the corner of the room and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>Wright, who was nearest him, said: "What is the matter, Yap? Are you
+sick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing matter; me no sickie," said Yap.</p>
+
+<p>"But why do you not bring on the supper?" asked Wright.</p>
+
+<p>"No catchie any more," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"What! Just potatoes straight, Yap? What is the matter?" said Wright.</p>
+
+<p>"I no sabbie what's the matter," said the sullen Oriental. "You livie
+belly cheapie now. Potato belly good. Blenty potato, blenty saltie,
+blenty cold water; no makie you sickie; I dink belly good."</p>
+
+<p>The Club took in the situation with great hilarity; the cause of Yap
+Sing's frugality was briefly explained to the guests; each seized a
+potato and commenced their meal.</p>
+
+<p>At length Carlin asked Yap Sing if he could not furnish a little butter
+with the salt. Yap shook his head resolutely, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"No catchie. Blutter five bittie [sixty-two and a half cents] one pound.
+No buy blutter for five bittie to putee on potato; too muchie money
+allee time pay out for hashie."</p>
+
+<p>Then Ashley asked for a pickle, but Yap Sing was firm. Said he: "Pickle
+slix bittie one bottle; no can standee."</p>
+
+<p>A great many other things were banteringly asked for, from cold tongue
+and horse-radish to blackberry jam; but the imperturbable face of the
+Mongolian never relaxed and his ears remained deaf to all entreaties.</p>
+
+<p>The potatoes were eaten with a decided relish, though there was no
+seasoning except salt, and when the repast was over the Club still sat
+at the table while the Colonel delivered a dissertation upon the virtues
+of the potato in general and upon the Nevada potato in particular. He
+insisted that the potato was the great modern mind food, and instanced
+the effect of potato diet upon the people of Ireland, pointing out that
+the failure of a crop there meant mental prostration and despair, while
+the news of a bountiful crop was a certain sign of a lively revolution
+within the year. From a scientific standpoint he demonstrated that no
+where else on the continent were the conditions absolutely perfect for
+producing potatoes that were potatoes, except upon the high, dry,
+slightly alkaline table lands between the Sierras and the Wasatch Range,
+and, giving his lively imagination full play, he pictured that region as
+it would be fifty years hence; when transportation shall be reduced;
+when artesian wells shall be plenty; when the rich men of the earth will
+not be able to give entertainments without presenting their guests with
+Nevada or Utah potatoes, and when to say that a man has a potato estate
+in the desert will be as it now is to say that a man has a wheat farm in
+Dakota, an orange orchard in Los Angeles, or a cotton plantation in
+Texas.</p>
+
+<p>While talking, the Colonel managed, between sentences, to dispose of a
+second potato.</p>
+
+<p>When the pipes were resumed, the joke of Yap Sing was fully discussed,
+and finally the Chinese question came up for consideration.</p>
+
+<p>Strong took up this latter theme and said:</p>
+
+<p>"The men of the Eastern States think that we of the West are a cruel,
+half-barbarous race, because we look with distrust upon the swelling
+hosts of Mongolians that are swarming like locusts upon this coast. They
+say: 'Our land has ever been open to the oppressed, no matter in what
+guise they come. The men of the West are the first to stretch bars
+across the Golden Gate to keep out a people. And this people are
+peaceable and industrious; all they petition for is to come in and work.
+Still, there is a cry which swells into passionate invective against
+them. It must be the cry of barbarism and ignorance. It surely fairly
+reeks with injustice and cruelty and sets aside a fundamental principle
+of our Government which dedicates our land to freedom and opens all its
+gates to honest endeavor.'</p>
+
+<p>"Those people will not stop to think that we came here from among
+themselves. We were no more ignorant, we were no worse than they when we
+came away. We have had better wages and better food since our coming
+than the ordinary men of the East obtain. Almost all of us have dreamed
+of homes, of wives and children that are men's right to possess, but
+which are not for us; and though they of the East do not know it, this
+experience has softened, not hardened our hearts, toward the weak and
+the oppressed. If they of the East would reflect they would have to
+conclude that it is not avarice that moves us; that there must be a less
+ungenerous and deeper reason.</p>
+
+<p>"Our only comfort is, that, by and by, maybe while some of us still
+live, those men and women who now upbraid us, will, with their souls on
+their knees, ask pardon for so misjudging us.</p>
+
+<p>"We quarantine ships when a contagion is raging among her crew; we frame
+protective laws to hold the price of labor up to living American rates;
+New England approves these precautions, but when we ask to have the same
+rules, in another form, enforced upon our coast, her people and her
+statesmen, in scorn and wrath, declare that we are monsters.</p>
+
+<p>"There is Yap Sing in the kitchen. You have just paid him forty dollars
+for a month's work. All the clothes that he wears were made in China. If
+he boarded himself, as nearly as possible, he would eat only the food
+sent here from China. Of his forty dollars just received, thirty at
+least will be returned to China and be absorbed there. There are one
+hundred thousand of his people in this State and California. We will
+suppose that they save only thirty cents each per day. That means, for
+all, nine hundred thousand dollars per month, or more than ten million
+dollars per annum that they send away. This is the drain which two
+States with less than one million inhabitants are annually subjected to.
+How long would Massachusetts bear a similar drain, before through all
+her length and breadth, her cities would blaze with riots, all her air
+grow black with murder? Ireland, with six times as many people, and with
+the richest of soils, on half that tax, has become so poor that around
+her is drawn the pity of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"'But,' say the Eastern people, 'you must receive them, Christianize
+them, and after awhile they will assimilate with you.'</p>
+
+<p>"Waiving the degradation to us, which that implies, they propose an
+impossibility. They might just as well go down to where the Atlantic
+beats against the shore, and shout across the waste to the Gulf stream,
+commanding it to assimilate with the 'common waters' of the sea. Not
+more mysterious is the law that holds that river of the deep within its
+liquid banks, than is the instinct which prevents the Chinaman from
+shaking off his second nature and becoming an American. He looks back
+through the halo of four thousand years, sees that without change, the
+nation of his forefathers has existed, and with him all other existing
+nations except Japan and India and Persia, are parvenues.</p>
+
+<p>"For thousands of years, he and his fathers before him, have been waging
+a hand-to-hand conflict with Want. He has stripped and disciplined
+himself until he is superior to all hardships except famine, and that he
+holds at bay longer than any other living creature could.</p>
+
+<p>"Through this training process from their forms everything has
+disappeared except a capacity to work; in their brains every attribute
+has died except the selfish ones; in their hearts nearly all generous
+emotions have been starved to death. The faces of the men have given up
+their beards, the women have surrendered their breasts and the ability
+to blush has faded from their faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Like all animals of fixed colors they change neither in habits nor
+disposition. In four thousand years they have changed no more than have
+the wolves that make their lairs in the foothills of the Ural mountains,
+except that they have learned to economize until they can even live upon
+half the air which the white man requires to exist in. They have trained
+their stomachs until they are no longer the stomachs of men; but such as
+are possessed by beasts of prey; they thrive on food from which the
+Caucasian turns with loathing, and on this dreadful fare work for
+sixteen hours out of the twenty-four.</p>
+
+<p>"The moral sentiments starved to death in their souls centuries ago.
+They hold woman as but an article of merchandise and delight to profit
+by her shame.</p>
+
+<p>"Other foreigners come to America to share the fortunes of Americans.
+Even the poor Italian, with organ and monkey, dreams while turning his
+organ's crank, that this year or next, or sometime, he will be able to
+procure a little home, have a garden of his own, and that his children
+will grow up&mdash;sanctified by citizenship&mdash;defenders of our flag.</p>
+
+<p>"But the Chinaman comes with no purpose except for plunder; the sole
+intention is to get from the land all that is possible, with the design
+of carrying it or sending it back to native land. The robbery is none
+the less direct and effective for being carried on with a non-combatant
+smile instead of by force.</p>
+
+<p>"It is such a race as this that we are asked to welcome and compete
+with, and when we explain that the food we each require&mdash;we, without
+wife or child to share with&mdash;costs more in the market daily than these
+creatures are willing to work for and board themselves; the question,
+with a lofty disdain, is asked: 'Are you afraid to compete with a
+Chinaman?'</p>
+
+<p>"It is an unworthy question, born of ignorance and a false
+sentimentality; for no mortal can overcome the impossible.</p>
+
+<p>"In the cities these creatures fill the places of domestics and absorb
+all the simpler trades. The natural results follow. Girls and boys grow
+up without ever being disciplined to labor. But girls and boys must have
+food and clothes. If their parents can not clothe and feed them other
+people must. If poor girls with heads and hands untrained have nothing
+but youth and beauty to offer for food, when hungry enough they will
+barter both for bread.</p>
+
+<p>"The vices and diseases which the Chinese have already scattered
+broadcast over the west, are maturing in a harvest of measureless and
+indescribable suffering.</p>
+
+<p>"The Chinese add no defense to the State. They have no patriotism except
+for native land; they are all children of degraded mothers, and as
+soldiers are worthless.</p>
+
+<p>"Moreover it is not a question of sharing our country with them; it is
+simply a question of whether we should surrender it to them or not. When
+the western nations thoroughly understand the Chinese they will realize
+that with their numbers, their imitative faculties, their capacity to
+live and to work on food which no white man can eat, with their
+appalling thrift and absence of moral faculties, they are, to-day, the
+terror of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>"The nations forced China to open her gates to them. It was one of the
+saddest mistakes of civilization.</p>
+
+<p>"To ask that their further coming be stopped, is simply making a
+plea for the future generations of Americans, a prayer for the
+preservation of our Republic. It springs from man's primal right of
+self-preservation, and when we are told that we should share our country
+and its blessings with the Chinese, the first answer is that they
+possess already one-tenth of the habitable globe; their empire has
+everything within it to support a nation; they have, besides, the
+hoarded wealth of a hundred generations, and if these were not enough,
+there are still left illimitable acres of savage lands. Let them go
+occupy and subdue them.</p>
+
+<p>"The civilization of China had been as perfect as it now is for two
+thousand years when our forefathers were still barbarians. While our
+race has been subduing itself and at the same time learning the lessons
+which lead up to submission to order and to law; while, moreover, it has
+been bringing under the ægis of freedom a savage continent, the
+Mongolian has remained stationary. To assert that we should now turn
+over this inheritance (of which we are but the trustees for the future),
+or any part of it, to 'the little brown men,' is to forget that a
+nation's first duty is like a father's, who, by instinct, watches over
+his own child with more solicitude than over the child of a stranger,
+and who, above all things, will not place his child under the influence
+of anything that will at once contaminate and despoil him.</p>
+
+<p>"Finally, by excluding these people no principle of our Government is
+set aside, and no vital practice which has grown up under our form of
+government. Ours is a land of perfect freedom, but we arrest robbers and
+close our doors to lewd women. While these precautions are right and
+necessary it is necessary and right to turn back from our shores the
+sinister hosts of the Orient."</p>
+
+<p>With this the whole Club except Brewster heartily agreed. Brewster
+merely said: "Maybe you are right, but your argument ignores the saving
+grace of Christianity, and maybe conflicts with God's plans."</p>
+
+<p>Then the good-nights were said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next evening when supper was prepared, Harding was not present. He
+had bruised one hand so badly in the mine the previous day, that he was
+forced to have it bound up and treated with liniments and had not worked
+that day. Thinking he would be home soon the rest ate their suppers, but
+it was an hour before he came. When he arrived he had a troubled look,
+and being pressed to tell what had gone wrong, he stated that he had met
+a group of five miners from the Sierra Nevada day shift, men whom they
+all knew, who, without provocation, had commenced abusing him; jeering
+him about joining with six or seven more miners, hiring a house and a
+cook, and putting on airs; that finally they dared him to fight, and
+when he offered to fight any one of them, they said it was a mere
+"bluff," that he would not fight a woman unless she were sick, and
+further declared their purpose at some future time to go up and "clean
+out" the whole outfit.</p>
+
+<p>Harding was the younger member of the Club; the rest knew about his
+former life; how his father, joining the reckless throng of the early
+days, lived fast, and suddenly died, just as the boy came from school;
+how the young man had put aside his hopes, learned mining, and with a
+brave purpose was working hard and dreaming of the time when he would
+wipe away every reproach which rested on his father's memory.</p>
+
+<p>To have him set upon by roughs, causelessly, was like a blow in the face
+to every other member of the Club. When Harding had told his story,
+Miller said: "Who did you say these men were, Harding?"</p>
+
+<p>Harding told their names.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they are not miners at all," said Carlin. "They are a lot of
+outside bruisers who have come here because there is going to be an
+election this year, and they have got their names on a pay roll to keep
+from being arrested as vagrants. You did just right, Harding, to get
+away from them with your crippled hand without serious trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed you did, Harding," said Brewster. "One street fight at your age
+might ruin you for life."</p>
+
+<p>"That is quite true," said Miller; "I am glad you had no fight."</p>
+
+<p>Said Corrigan: "You offered to fight any one of the blackguards, and
+whin they refused, you came away? It was the proper thing to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you have any weapons with you, Harding?" asked Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a thing in the world," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of that," said Ashley. "The temptation to wing one or two of
+the brutes, would have been very great had you been 'fixed.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad it was no worse," said Wright. "You said it was down by the
+California Bank corner?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Harding; "it was by the Fredericksburg Brewery corner, on
+Union Street, just below C."</p>
+
+<p>"You managed the matter first-rate, Harding," said Wright. "Do not think
+any more about it."</p>
+
+<p>Harding, thus reassured by his friends, felt better, but said if three
+of the Club would go with him he would undertake to do his part to bring
+hostilities to a successful close with the bullies.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley and Corrigan at once volunteered, but Wright and Carlin
+interfered and said it must not be, and Brewster expostulated against
+any such thing.</p>
+
+<p>Corrigan and Ashley caught a look and gesture from Wright which caused
+them to subside, and Harding at length went out to supper.</p>
+
+<p>When Harding came in from up town, Miller was making arrangements to go
+out, as he said, to meet a broker as per agreement. As Harding went to
+supper, Miller went out and Brewster resumed the reading of a book in
+which he was engaged. The Professor, Colonel and Alex had not yet come
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Significant glances passed between the others, and soon Wright arose and
+said: "Boys! the Emmetts drill to-night; suppose we go down to the
+armory and look on for half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>The rest all agreed that it would be good exercise, and quietly the four
+men went out, Wright saying as he started: "Brewster, if the others
+come, tell them we have just gone down to the Emmetts armory, and will
+be back in half an hour or so."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor and Alex shortly after came in, a little later the Colonel
+and Miller. It was nearly an hour before the others returned. When they
+did they were in the best possible humor; spoke of the perfectness of
+the Emmetts' drill; told of something they had heard down town which was
+droll, while Barney in particular was full of merriment over a speech
+that had that day been made by a countryman of his, Mr. Snow, in a
+Democratic convention, and insisted upon telling Brewster about it.</p>
+
+<p>Brewster laid down his book and assumed the attitude of a listener.</p>
+
+<p>"It was this way," said Barney. "The convintion had made all its
+nominations, when it was proposed that on Friday nixt a grand
+mass-ratification matin' should be hild at Carson City, the matin' to be
+intinded for the inauguratin' of the campaign, where all the faithful
+from surroundin' counties might mate and glorify, and thus intimidate
+the inemy from the viry commincement.</p>
+
+<p>"The proposition was carried by acclamation, and jist thin a mimber
+sprang up and moved that the matin' should be a barbecue. This motion
+likewise carried by an overwhilmin' vote. Whin the noise died away a
+bit, my ould friend Snow, he of the boardin' house, arose and made a
+motion. It was beautiful. Listen!</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. Spaker! Bain that the hift of the Dimocratic party do not ate
+<i>mate</i> of a Friday, I move yees, sir, that we make it a <i>fish</i>
+barbecue.'"</p>
+
+<p>A great laugh followed Barney's account of the motion, and then the
+usual comparison of notes on stocks took place. Miller was sure that
+Silver Hill was the best buy on the lode; Corrigan had been told by a
+Gold Hill miner that Justice was looking mighty encouraging; the Colonel
+had heard the superintendent of the Curry tell the superintendent of the
+Belcher that he was in wonderfully kindly ground on the two thousand
+foot level; the Professor had that day heard the superintendent of the
+Savage declare that the water was lowering four feet an hour, while all
+were wondering when the Sierra Nevada would break, as it was too high
+for the development. By all is meant all but Brewster and Harding; they
+never joined in any conversations about stocks.</p>
+
+<p>At length the stock talk slackened, when Corrigan again referred to the
+fish barbecue resolution. Naturally enough, the conversation drifted
+into a discussion of the humor of the coast, when the Colonel said:</p>
+
+<p>"There is not much pure humor on this coast. There is plenty of that
+material called humor, which has a bitter sting to it, but that is not
+the genuine article. The men here who think as Hood wrote, are not
+plenty. I suspect the bitter twang to all the humor here comes from the
+isolation of men from the society of women, from broken hopes, and it
+seems to me is generally an attempt to hurl contempt, not upon the
+individual at whom it is fired, but at the outrageous fortunes which
+hedge men around. The coast has been running over with that sort of
+thing, I guess since 'forty-nine.'</p>
+
+<p>"A man here, fond of his wife and children, said to a friend a day or
+two after they went away for a visit to California: 'Did you ever see a
+motherless colt?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, yes,' was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then,' said the man, 'you know just how I feel.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' said the friend. 'I suppose you feel as though you are not worth
+a dam.'</p>
+
+<p>"I know a brother lawyer who is somewhat famous for getting the clients
+whom he defends convicted. One morning he met a brother attorney, a wary
+old lawyer, and said to him: 'I heard some men denouncing you this
+morning and I took up your defense.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What did you say?' the other asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Those men were slandering you and I took it upon myself to defend
+you,' said the first lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"The old lawyer took the other by the arm, led him aside, then putting
+his lips close to the ear of his friend, in a hoarse whisper said:
+'Don't do it any more.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am going to lecture to-night at C&mdash;&mdash;,' said a pompous man.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am glad of it,' was the quick answer. 'I have hated the people there
+for years. No punishment is too severe for them.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am particular who I drink with,' said a man curtly to another.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes?' was the answer. 'I outgrew that foolish pride long ago. I would
+as soon you would drink with me as not.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not require lecturing from you,' said a man. 'I am no reformed
+drunkard.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then why do you not reform?' was the response.</p>
+
+<p>"This coast is full of the echoes of such things."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor spoke next. "I think," said he, "that there is more
+extravagance in figures of speech on this coast than in any other
+country. Marcus Shults had a difficulty in Eureka the other day, when I
+was there. He told me about it. Said he: 'I told him to keep away; that
+I was afraid of him. I wanted some good man to hear me say that, but I
+had my eye on him every minute, and had he come a step nearer, why&mdash;when
+the doctors would have been called in to dissect him they would have
+thought they had struck a new lead mine.'"</p>
+
+<p>Here Wright interrupted the Professor. "Marcus was from my State,
+Professor. Did you ever hear him explain why he did not become a
+fighter?"</p>
+
+<p>The Professor answered that he never had, when Wright continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Marcus never took kindly to hard work. Indeed, he seems to have
+constitutional objections to it. As he tells the story, while crossing
+the plains he made up his mind that, upon reaching California, he would
+declare himself and speedily develop into a fighter. His words, when he
+told me the story, were: 'They knew me back in Missouri, and I was a
+good deal too smart to attempt to practice any such profession there,
+but my idea was that California was filled with Yankees, and in that
+kind of a community I would have an easy going thing. Well, I crossed
+the Sierras and landed at Diamond Springs, outside of Placerville a few
+miles, and when I had been there a short time I changed my mind.'</p>
+
+<p>"Of course at this point some one asks him why he changed his mind,
+whereupon he answers solemnly:</p>
+
+<p>"'The first day I was there a State of Maine man cut the stomach out of
+a Texan.'</p>
+
+<p>"Marcus was with the boys during that first tough winter in Eureka. One
+fearfully cold day a man was telling about the cold he had experienced
+in Idaho. When the story was finished Marcus cast a look of sovereign
+contempt upon the man and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'You know nothing about cold weather, sir; you never saw any. You
+should go to Montana. In Montana I have seen plenty of mornings when
+were a man to have gone out of a warm room, crossed a street sixty feet
+wide and shaken his head, his ears would have snapped off like icicles.'</p>
+
+<p>"The stranger, overawed, retired."</p>
+
+<p>Alex spoke next: "The other day Dan Dennison asked me to go and look at
+a famous trotting horse that he has here. We went to the stable, and
+when the stepper was pointed out I started to go into the stall beside
+him, whereupon Dan caught me by the arm, drew me back, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Be careful! Sometimes he deals from the bottom.'</p>
+
+<p>"He stripped the covers from the horse and backed him out where I could
+look at him. The horse was not a beauty by any means and I intimated my
+belief of that fact to Dan.</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' said Dennison. The truth is&mdash;' He hesitated a moment and then the
+words came in a volley:</p>
+
+<p>"'He's deformed with speed.'</p>
+
+<p>"There is a lawyer down town, you all know him. He has a head as big as
+the old croppings of the Gould and Curry, but like some other lawyers
+that practice at the Virginia City bar (here he glanced significantly at
+the Colonel), he is not an exceedingly bright or profound man. He was
+passing a downtown office yesterday when a man, who chanced to be
+standing in the office, said to the bookkeeper of the establishment:</p>
+
+<p>"'Look at Judge &mdash;&mdash;. His head is bigger than Mount Davidson, but I am
+told that where his brains ought to be there is a howling wilderness.'</p>
+
+<p>"The bookkeeper stopped his writing, carefully wiped his pen, laid it
+down, came out from behind his desk, came close up to the man who had
+spoken to him, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Howling wilderness? I tell you, sir, that man's head is an unexplored
+mental Death Valley.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the Colonel, "his is a queer family. He has a brother who is
+a journalist; he has made a fortune in the business. His great theme is
+sketching the lives and characters of people."</p>
+
+<p>"But has he made a fortune publishing sketches of that description?"
+asked Miller.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," replied the Colonel; "he has made his money by refraining from
+publishing them. People have paid him to suppress them."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel," asked Strong, "did it never occur to you that other fortunes
+might be made the same way by people just exactly adapted to that style
+of writing?"</p>
+
+<p>"If it had," was the reply. "I should have considered that the field
+here was fully occupied."</p>
+
+<p>"You might write a sketch of your own career," suggested the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do it, Colonel," said Alex.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a law which sadly interferes with the circulation of a certain
+character of literature," said Alex.</p>
+
+<p>"Alex," said the Colonel, "what a painstaking and delicate task it will
+be, under that law, to write your obituary."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be great risk in writing yours, Colonel," said Alex; "but it
+will be a labor of love, nevertheless; a labor of love, Colonel."</p>
+
+<p>"If you have it to do, Alex, don't forget my strongest characteristic,"
+said the Colonel; "that lofty generosity, blended with a self-contained
+dignity, which made me indifferent always to the slanders of bad men."</p>
+
+<p>It was always a delight to the Club to get these two to bantering each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley here interposed and said: "You all know Professor &mdash;&mdash;. One night
+in Elko, last summer, he was conversing with Judge F&mdash;&mdash; of Elko. Both
+had been indulging a little too much; the Professor was growing
+talkative and the Judge morose.</p>
+
+<p>"The Professor was telling about the battle of Buena Vista, in which he,
+a boy at the time, participated. In the midst of the description the
+Judge interrupted him with some remark which the Professor construed
+into an impeachment of his bravery.</p>
+
+<p>"He leaned back in his chair and sat looking at the Judge for a full
+minute, as if in an astonished study, and then in a tone most dangerous,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not know how to classify you, sir. I do not know, sir, whether
+you are a wholly irresponsible idiot, or an unmitigated and infamous
+scoundrel, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"He was conscientious and methodical even in his wrath. He would not
+pass upon the specimen of natural history before him until certain to
+what species it belonged."</p>
+
+<p>Said Miller: "Did you ever hear how Judge T&mdash;&mdash; of this city met a man
+who had been saying disrespectful things about him, but who came up to
+the Judge in a crowd and, with a smile, extended his hand? The Judge
+drew back quickly, thrust both hands in his side pockets and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Excuse me, sir; I have just washed my hands.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I heard something yesterday of a rough man whom you all know, Zince
+Barnes," said the Professor, "which seemed to me as full of bitter humor
+as anything I have heard on this mountain side. You know that politics
+are running pretty high.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, an impecunious man&mdash;so the story goes&mdash;called upon a certain
+gentleman who is reported to be rich and to have political aspirations,
+and tried to convince him that the expenditure of a certain sum of money
+in a certain way would redound amazingly to the credit, political, of
+the millionaire. The man of dollars could not see the proposition
+through the poor man's magnifying glasses, and the patriot retired
+baffled.</p>
+
+<p>"A few minutes later, and while yet warm in his disappointment, he met
+Zince Barnes, told him of the interview and closed by expressing the
+belief that the millionaire was a tough, hard formation.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hard!' said Zince. 'I should think so. The tears of widows and orphans
+are water on his wheel.'"</p>
+
+<p>At this Corrigan 'roused up and said: "Speakin' of figures of spache, I
+heard some from a countrywoman of mine one bitter cowld mornin' last
+March. It was early; hardly light. John Mackay was comin' down from the
+Curry office on his way to the Con. Virginia office, and whin just
+opposite the Curry works, he met ould mother McGarrigle, who lives down
+by the freight depot. I was in the machane shop of the Curry works; they
+were just outside, and there being only an inch boord and about ten feet
+of space between us, I could hear ivery word plain, or rather I could
+not help but hear. The conversation ran about after this style:</p>
+
+<p>"'Mornin', Meester Mackay, and may the Lord love yees.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Good morning, madam.'</p>
+
+<p>"'How's the beautiful wife and the charmin' childers over the big
+wathers, Mr. Mackay?'</p>
+
+<p>"'They are all right.'</p>
+
+<p>"'God be thanked intirely. Does yees know, Mr. Mackay, that in the hull
+course of me life I niver laid eyes upon childer so beautiful loike
+yees. Often and often I've tould the ould man that same. And they're
+will, are they?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, they are first-rate. I had a cable from them yesterday.'</p>
+
+<p>"'A tilligram, was it? Oh, but is not that wonderful, though! A missige
+under the say and over the land to this barbarous place. It must have
+come like the smile of the Good God to yees.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, I get them every day.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ivery day! And phat do they cost?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, seven or eight dollars; sometimes more. It depends upon their
+length.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Sivin or eight dollars! Oh, murther! But yees desarve it, Mr. Mackay.
+What would the poor do without yees in this town, Mr. Mackay? Only
+yisterday I was sayin' to the ould man, says I: "Mike, it shows the
+mercy of God whin money is given to a mon like Mr. John Mackay. It's a
+Providence he is to the city. God bless him." I did, indade.'</p>
+
+<p>"By this time Mackay began to grow very ristless.</p>
+
+<p>"'What can I do for you this morning, Mrs. McGarrigle?'</p>
+
+<p>"'It's the ould mon, Lord love yees, Mr. Mackay. It's no work he's had
+for five wakes, and it's mighty little we have aither to ait or to wear.
+It's work I want for him.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am sorry, but our mines are full. Indeed, we are employing more men
+than we are justified in doing.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But Mr. Mackay, it's so poor we are, and so hard it is getting along
+at all; put him on for a month and may all the saints bless yees.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The city is full of poor people, madam. To determine what to do to
+mitigate the distress here occupies half our time.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yis, but ours is a particular hard case intirely. I am dilicate
+meself. I know I don't look so, but I am; and yees ought ter interpose
+to help a poor countryman of yees own in trouble.'</p>
+
+<p>"By this time Mackay was half frozen and thoroughly out of patience. In
+his quick, sharp way he said: 'Madam, we cannot give all the men in the
+country employment.'</p>
+
+<p>"The mask of the woman was off in an instant. With a scorn and hate
+unutterable she burst forth in almost a scrame.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, yees can't. Oh, no! Yees forgits fen yees was poor your ownsilf,
+ye blackguard. Refusin' a poor man work, and shakin the mountains and
+churnin' the ocean avery day wid your siven and eight dollar missages.
+Yees can't employ all the min in the counthry. Don't yees own the whole
+counthry? And do yees think we'd apply to yees at all if we could find a
+dacant mon in the worreld? May the divil fly away wid yees, and whin he
+does yees may tell him for me if he gives a short bit for yer soul he'll
+chate himself worse nor he's been chated since he bargained with Judas
+Iscariot. Thake that, sur, wid me compliments, yees purse-proud
+parvenu.'</p>
+
+<p>"When the woman began to rave, Mackay walked rapidly away, but she niver
+relaxed the scrame of her tirade until Mackay disappeared from sight.
+Thin she paused for a moment, thin to herself she muttered, 'But I got
+aven wid him oneway.' She thin turned and walked away toward her cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a case where money was no assistance to a man."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a good deal of humor displayed in courts of justice at times,
+is there not, Colonel?" asked Wright.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," was the reply. "Anyone would think so who ever heard old
+Frank Dunn explain to a court that the reason of his being late was
+because he had no watch, and deploring meanwhile his inability to
+purchase a watch because of the multitude of unaccountable fines which
+His Honor had seen proper, from time to time, to impose upon him."</p>
+
+<p>"In that first winter in Eureka," said Wright, "I strolled into court
+one day when a trial was in progress.</p>
+
+<p>"Judge D&mdash;&mdash; was managing one side and a volunteer lawyer the other. The
+volunteer lawyer had the best side, and to confuse the court, Judge
+D&mdash;&mdash;, in his argument, misquoted the testimony somewhat. His opponent
+interrupted and repeated exactly what the witness had testified to.</p>
+
+<p>"Turning to his opponent, Judge D&mdash;&mdash;, with a sneer, said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I see, sir, you are very much interested in the result of this case.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, no,' was the response. 'I am doing this for pure love. I do not
+make a cent in this case.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then Judge D&mdash;&mdash;, with still more bitterness, said:</p>
+
+<p>"'That is like you. You try cases for nothing and cheat <i>good</i> lawyers
+out of their fees.'</p>
+
+<p>"With a look of unfeigned astonishment the other lawyer said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, what are <i>you</i> angry about? How does that interfere with
+<i>you</i>?'"</p>
+
+<p>Here Brewster, who had been reading, laid down his book and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I heard of a case as I came through Salt Lake City some years ago,
+which, if not particularly humorous, revealed wonderful presence of mind
+on the part of the presiding judge. It may be the story is not true, but
+it was told in Salt Lake City as one very liable to be true.</p>
+
+<p>"A miner, who had been working a placer claim in the hills all
+summer&mdash;so the story ran&mdash;and who had been his own cook, barber,
+chambermaid and tailor, came down to Salt Lake City to see the sights
+and purchase supplies. He had dough in his whiskers, grease upon his
+overalls, pine twigs in his hair, and altogether did not present the
+appearance of a dancing master or a millionaire. Hardly had he reached
+the city when he thought it necessary to take something in order to
+'brace up.' One drink gave him courage to take another, and in forty
+minutes he was dead drunk on the sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>"The police picked him up and tossed him into a cell in the jail,
+disdaining to search him, so abject seemed his condition.</p>
+
+<p>"Next morning he was brought before the Police Judge and the charge of
+D. D. was preferred against him.</p>
+
+<p>"'You are fined ten dollars, sir,' was the brief sentence of the Court.
+The man unbuttoned two pairs of overalls and from some inner recess of
+his garments produced a roll of greenbacks as big as a man's fist. It
+was a trying moment for the Judge, but his presence of mind did not fail
+him. He raised up from his seat, leaned one elbow on his desk and, as if
+in continuation of what he had already said, thundered out: 'And one
+hundred dollars for contempt of court.'</p>
+
+<p>"The man paid the one hundred and ten dollars and hastily left the court
+and the city."</p>
+
+<p>Miller was the next to speak. Said he: "Once in Idaho I heard a specimen
+of grim humor which entertained me immensely. There was a man up there
+who owned a train of pack mules and made a living by packing in goods to
+the traders and packing out ore to be sent away to the reduction works.
+He was caught in a storm midway between Challis and Powder Flat. It was
+mid-winter; the thermometer at Challis marked thirty-four degrees below
+zero. He was out in the storm and cold two days and one night, and his
+sufferings must have been indescribable. When safely housed and
+ministered to at last a friend said to him: 'George, that was a tough
+experience, was it not?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, regular business should never be called tough,' said he, 'but
+since I began to get warm I have been thinking that, if I make money
+enough, may be in three or four years I will get married, if I can
+deceive some woman into making the arrangement. If I should succeed, and
+if after a reasonable time a boy should be born to us, and if the
+youngster should "stand off" the colic, teething, measles, whooping
+cough, scarlet fever and falling down stairs, and grow to be ten or
+twelve years old, and have some sense, if I ever tell him the story of
+the past two days of my life and he don't cry his eyes out, I will beat
+him to death, sure.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Professor was reminded by the anecdote of something which transpired
+in Belmont, Nevada, the previous winter. Said he: "I went to Belmont to
+examine a property last winter and while there Judge &mdash;&mdash; came in from a
+prospecting trip down into the upper edge of Death Valley. I saw him as
+he drove into town, and went to meet him. He was in no very good
+spirits. On the way to his office he said: 'I was persuaded against my
+better judgment to go on that trip. The thief who coaxed me away told a
+wonderful story. He had been there; he had seen the mine, but had been
+driven away by the Shoshones; he knew every spring and camping place. It
+would be just a pleasure trip. So, like an idiot, I went with him. It
+was twice as far as he said, and we got out of food; he could not find
+one particular spring, and we were forty hours without water. We had to
+camp in the snow, and the only pleasure I had in the whole journey was
+in seeing my companion slip and sit down squarely on a Spanish bayonet
+plant. It was a double pleasure, indeed; one pleasure to see him sit
+down and another pleasure to see him get right up again without resting
+at all, and with a look on his face as though a serious mistake had been
+made somewhere.'</p>
+
+<p>"By this time we had reached the Judge's office. On the desk lay a score
+of letters which had been accumulating during his absence. Begging me to
+excuse him for five minutes, he sat down and commenced to run through
+his mail.</p>
+
+<p>"Suddenly he stopped, seized a pen and wrote rapidly for two or three
+minutes. Then he threw down the pen and begged my attention. First he
+read a letter which was dated somewhere in Iowa. The writer stated that
+he had a few thousand dollars, but had determined to leave Iowa and seek
+some new field, and asked the Judge's advice about removing to Nevada. I
+asked the Judge if he knew the man.</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course not,' said he. 'He has found my name in some directory, and
+so has written at random. He has probably written similar letters to
+twenty other men. Possibly he is writing a book descriptive of the Far
+West by an actual observer,' continued the Judge.</p>
+
+<p>"'How are you going to reply?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'That is just the point,' he answered. 'I have written and I want you
+to tell me if I have done about the right thing. Listen.'</p>
+
+<p>"At this he read his letter. It was in these identical words:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>:&mdash;Your esteemed favor is at hand and after careful
+deliberation I have determined to write to you to come to
+Nevada. I cannot, in the brief space to which a letter must
+necessarily be confined, enter into details; but I can assure
+you that if you will come here, settle and invest your means,
+the final result will be most happy to you. A few brief years
+of existence here will prepare you to enjoy all the rest and
+all the beatitudes which the paradise of the blessed can
+bestow, and if, perchance, your soul should take the other
+track, hell itself can bring you no surprises. Respectfully,
+etc.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"He mailed the letter, but at last accounts the gentleman had not come
+West."</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Alex, "reminds me of Charley O&mdash;&mdash;'s mining experience. An
+Eastern company purchased a series of mines at Austin and made Charley
+superintendent of the company at a handsome salary. Charley proceeded to
+his post of duty, built a fine office and drew his salary for a year. He
+did his best, too, to make something of the property, but it is a most
+difficult thing to make a mine yield when there is no ore in it. The
+result was nothing but 'Irish dividends' for the stockholders. It was in
+the old days, before the railway came along.</p>
+
+<p>"One morning, when the overland coach drove into Austin, a gentleman
+dismounted, asked where the office of the Lucknow Gold and Silver
+Consolidated Mining and Milling Company was, and being directed, went to
+the office and without knocking, opened the door and walked in. Charley
+was sitting with his feet on the desk, smoking a cigar and reading the
+morning paper.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is Mr. O&mdash;&mdash; in?' politely inquired the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am Mr. O&mdash;&mdash;,' responded Charley. The stranger unbuttoned his coat,
+dived into a side pocket and drawing out a formidable envelope,
+presented it to O&mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley tore open the envelope and found that the letter within was a
+formal notice from the secretary of the company that the bearer had been
+appointed superintendent and resident manager of the L. G. and S. C. M.
+&amp; M. Co., and requesting O&mdash;&mdash;to surrender to him the books and all
+other property of the company. After reading the letter Charley looked
+up and said to the stranger:</p>
+
+<p>"'And so you have come to take my place?'</p>
+
+<p>"'It seems so,' was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"'On your account I am awfully sorry,' said Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"The stranger did not believe that he was in any particular need of
+sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"'But you will not live six months here,' said Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"The stranger was disposed to take his chances.</p>
+
+<p>"This happened in August. Charley took the first stage and came in to
+Virginia City. In the following December the morning papers here
+contained a dispatch announcing that Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, superintendent of the
+Lucknow Gold and Silver Consolidated Mining and Milling Company, was
+dangerously ill of pneumonia. On the succeeding morning there was
+another dispatch from Austin saying that Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, late superintendent
+of the Lucknow Gold and Silver Consolidated Mining and Milling Company,
+died the previous evening and that the body would be sent overland to
+San Francisco, to be shipped from there to the East. Two days after
+that, about the time the overland coaches were due, Charley was seen
+wading through the mud down to the Overland barn. He went in and saw two
+coaches with fresh mud upon them. The curtains of the first were rolled
+up. The curtains of the second were buckled down close. O&mdash;&mdash; went to
+the second coach, loosened one of the curtains and threw it back; then
+reaching in and tapping the coffin with his knuckles, said: 'Didn't I
+tell you? Didn't I tell you? You thought you could stop my salary and
+still live. See what a fix it has brought you to!' And then he went
+away. No one would ever have known that he had been there had not an
+'ostler overheard him.</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking of Austin, I think the remark made by Lawyer J. B. Felton of
+Oakland, California, regarding the mines of Austin, was as cute as
+anything I ever heard. When the mines were first discovered Felton was
+induced to invest a good deal of money in them.</p>
+
+<p>"The mines were three hundred and fifty miles from civilization, there
+being no reduction works of any kind, and pure silver would hardly have
+paid. So Felton did not realize readily from his investment. After some
+months had gone by Felton was standing on Montgomery street, San
+Francisco, one day when a long procession, celebrating St. Patrick's
+day, filed past. Of course Erin's flag was 'full high advanced' in the
+procession. Turning to a friend, Felton said: 'Can you tell why that
+flag is like a Reese River mine?'</p>
+
+<p>"The friend could not.</p>
+
+<p>"Said Felton: 'It's composed mostly of sham rock and a blasted lyre!'"</p>
+
+<p>Ashley was next to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," said he, "the funniest things are sometimes those which are
+not meant to be funny at all. Steve Gillis, in a newspaper office down
+town, perpetrated one the other day. An Eastern editor was here, and
+when he found out how some of the men in the office were working he was
+paralyzed, and said to Gillis:</p>
+
+<p>"'There's &mdash;&mdash;, you will go into his room some day and find him dead. He
+will go like a flash some time. No man can do what he is doing and stand
+it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you think so?' asked Gillis.</p>
+
+<p>"'Indeed I do; I know it,' said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then,' said Gillis, 'you ought to be here. You would see the most
+magnificent funeral ever had in Virginia City.'"</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was very late and the Club dispersed for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Harding, who was reading the morning paper, came upon this
+item:</p>
+
+<h4>A LIVELY SCRIMMAGE.</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Last evening, about seven-thirty o'clock, there was a terrific
+fight on Union Street, near the depot; four men against five.
+It lasted but a few minutes, but the five men were dreadfully
+beaten. No one seemed to know the origin of the fight. A boy
+who was standing across the street says the men met, a few low
+words passed between them, and then the fight ensued. The four
+men, who seem to have been the assailants, hardly suffered any
+damage, but the five others were so badly beaten that two of
+them had to be carried home, while the other three had fearful
+mansard roofs put upon them.</p>
+
+<p>There were no arrests; indeed little sympathy was felt for the
+injured men, for though at present at work in the mines, they
+are known as bullies and roughs by trade.</p>
+
+<p>No one seems to know who the victors were, except that they
+were miners. One man told our reporter that he knew one of the
+men by sight; that he was, he thought, a Gold Hill miner. No
+weapons were drawn on either side, and no loud words were
+spoken, but it was as fierce an encounter as has been seen here
+since the old fighting days.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Harding looked up from the paper and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Wright, what was it you said about the drill of the Emmett Guards, last
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are splendid, those Emmetts," was the reply, with an imperturbable
+face.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Pay day was on the fifth of the month. On the night of the thirteenth,
+when the Club met at the usual hour for supper, Miller was not present.
+He was never as regular as the others, so the rest did not wait supper
+for him. After supper the Club settled down to their pipes, the
+Professor, the Colonel and Alex came in, and the usual discussion about
+stocks was indulged in for some minutes, the chief matter dwelt upon
+being the steady and unaccountable rise in Sierra Nevada. At length it
+was noticed that Carlin did not join as usual in the conversation, and
+Ashley asked him what he seemed so cast down about.</p>
+
+<p>At this Carlin shook himself together and said: "I will be glad if you
+will all give me your attention for a moment." He took a letter from his
+pocket and read as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Carlin</span>: When you receive this I shall be on my way, by
+horseback (overland), to Eastern Nevada. I am going to Austin,
+and if I do not obtain employment there, shall continue on to
+Eureka. You can find me in one place or the other by Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>The evening of pay day, with the money which the Club had
+placed in my hands to pay the bills, I went down town to carry
+out the wishes of the Club, when I met a friend, who is in the
+close confidence of the "big ring" of operators. He called me
+aside and told me that he had inside information that within
+three days Silver Hill would commence to jump, that within a
+week the present value would be multiplied by five or six and
+more likely by ten. That there would be an immediate and great
+advance he assured me was absolutely certain. He told me how he
+had received his information, and it seemed to me to be
+conclusive.</p>
+
+<p>I found a broker, unloaded my pockets, and bade him buy Silver
+Hill; to buy on a margin all he could afford to. The stock has
+fallen thirty per cent., and the indications are that it will
+go still lower. Yesterday I suppose it was sold out, for on the
+previous day I received a notice from the broker to please call
+at his office at once. My courage, that never failed me before,
+broke down. I could not go. The amount of money belonging to
+the Club which I had was altogether $575.00. Of course it in
+lost. It is a clear case of breach of trust, if not of
+embezzlement. You can make me smart for it, if you feel
+disposed to, or if you can give me the time, I can pay the
+money in about eight months after I get to work. That is, I can
+send you about eighty dollars per month. If wanted I will be in
+Austin or Eureka.</p>
+
+<p>I might make this letter much longer, but I suspect by the time
+you will have read this much, you will think it long enough.
+Believe me none of you can think meaner of me than I do of
+myself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Joe Miller.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>After the reading of the letter, Wright was the first to find his voice.
+Said he: "It is too bad. I knew Miller was reckless, but I believed his
+recklessness never could go beyond his own affairs. I had implicit faith
+in him."</p>
+
+<p>"Had he only told us," said Ashley, "that he wanted to use the money, he
+could have had five times the sum."</p>
+
+<p>"What I hate about it, is the want of courage and the lack of faith in
+the rist of us," said Corrigan. "Why did he not come loike a mon and
+say, 'Boys, I have lost a trifle of your money in the malstroom of
+stocks; be patient and I will work out?'"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pitiable business," said Carlin. "The money&mdash;that is the loss
+of it&mdash;does not hurt at all. But it was Miller who proposed the forming
+of this Club, and he is the one who first betrays us, and then lacks the
+sand to tell us about it frankly. But no matter. Jesus Christ failed to
+secure twelve men who were all true. What do you think of it, Brewster?"</p>
+
+<p>"What Miller has done," said Brewster, "is but a natural result when a
+working man goes down into the pit of stock gambling. The hope in that
+business is to obtain money without earning it. It is a kind of lunacy.
+In a few months, men so engaged lose everything like a steady poise to
+their minds. They take on all the attributes which distinguish the
+gambler. Their ideas are either up in the clouds or down in the depths.
+Worst of all, they forget that a dollar means so many blows, so many
+drops of sweat, that a dollar, when we see it, means that sometime,
+somewhere, to produce that dollar, an honest dollar's worth of work was
+performed, that when that dollar is transferred to another, another
+dollar's worth of work in some form must be given in return, or the
+eternal balance of Justice will be disarranged. Miller reached the point
+where he did not prize his own dollars at their true value. It ought not
+to be expected that he would be more careful of ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel, what is your judgment about the business?" Carlin asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," was the reply, "that when he went away Miller insulted
+all of you&mdash;all of us, for that matter. His conduct assumes that we are
+all pawnbrokers who would go into mourning over a few dollars lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, I think not," said Strong. "Miller is a sensitive, high-strung
+man. He has been in all sorts of dangers and difficulties and has never
+faltered. At last he found himself in a place where, for the first time,
+he felt his honor wounded, and his courage failed him. He is not running
+away from us, he is trying to run away from himself."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your judgment, Professor?" asked Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"As they say out here, Miller got off wrong," said the Professor; "and
+he seems blinded by the mistake so much that he cannot see his best way
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"Harding, why are you so still?" asked Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for Miller," said Harding. "He is the best-hearted man in
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a most unpleasant business. What shall we do about it?" asked
+Carlin. "I wish all would express an opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"What ought to be done, Carlin?" asked Wright.</p>
+
+<p>Carlin answered: "The business way would be to formally expel him from
+the Club, and to write him that, without waiving any legal rights, we
+will give him the time he requires in which to settle."</p>
+
+<p>"That would no doubt be just," said Wright.</p>
+
+<p>"There would be no injustice in it, from a business standpoint," said
+Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"He certainly," said Brewster, "would have no right to complain of such
+treatment."</p>
+
+<p>Said Corrigan: "The verdict of the worreld would be that we had acted
+fairly."</p>
+
+<p>"No one," said the Colonel, "could blame you for firing him out. He has
+not only wronged you directly, but at the same moment has attacked your
+credit in the city where you are owing bills."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," said the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>"It is only a matter of discretion what to do," said Alex. "All the
+direct equities are against Miller."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no decision so fair as by a secret ballot," said Harding. "Let
+us take a vote on the proposition of Miller's expulsion, and all must
+take part."</p>
+
+<p>This was agreed to. Nine slips of paper were prepared, all of one size
+and length, one was given to each man to write "expulsion, yes," or
+"expulsion, no," as he pleased. A hat was placed on the table for a
+ballot-box; each in turn deposited his ballot and resumed his seat.</p>
+
+<p>The silence was growing painful when Brewster said: "Carlin, Miller
+wrote back to you; you will have to write to him. Suppose you be the
+returning board to count the votes and make up the returns."</p>
+
+<p>Carlin arose and went to the table. There he paused, and his face wore a
+look of extreme trouble; but he shook off the influence, whatever it
+was, stretched out his hand in an absent-minded way, picked up a ballot
+and slowly brought it before his eyes. He looked at it, turned it over
+and looked on the other side, then with a foolish laugh he said: "Why,
+the ballot is blank."</p>
+
+<p>He transferred it to his left hand, picked up another ballot with his
+right hand; looked at it; it, too, was blank.</p>
+
+<p>So in turn he took up one after another. They all were blank.</p>
+
+<p>As he called the last one and started to resume his seat, Harding, in a
+low voice, as to himself, said: "Thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>All looked a little foolish for a moment, and then the Colonel said:
+"Why, Carlin, you are not much of a returning board, after all."</p>
+
+<p>Said Corrigan: "It sames the convintion moved to make it unanimous."</p>
+
+<p>Said Carlin: "I could not vote to expel Miller. He has long been my
+friend. I know how sensitive he is. He wronged us a little, but I just
+could not do it."</p>
+
+<p>Said Brewster: "I could not do it, because that would be the quickest
+way to cause a man, when on the down grade, to keep on. To make him feel
+that those who have been most intimate with him, despise him, may be
+exact justice, but it seldom brings reformation."</p>
+
+<p>Said the Colonel: "I could not do it in his absence. It would have had a
+look of assassination from behind."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not do it," said the Professor. "The news would have got out
+and the Club would have been disgraced."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not much more than an error of judgment, on Miller's part," said
+Wright. "He never intended to wrong us out of a penny. Crime is measured
+only by the intention."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the true inwardness of the whole business, Wright, and that
+thought kept my ballot blank," was Alex's suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not do it," said Ashley. "His expulsion would have looked as
+though we measured friendship by dollars. If a man ever needs friends,
+it is when he is in trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not do it," chimed in Corrigan. "Suppose all our mistakes shall
+be remimbered against us, how will we iver git admitted to the great
+Club above?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could not do it, because I love him," said Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared," said Brewster, "that things were going wrong with Miller a
+week ago, when I noticed that in lieu of the costly chair which he first
+brought to the Club, he was using that old, second-hand cheap affair."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Harding, "that I have a right to tell now what has been
+a secret. You know Miller and myself worked together. We were coming up
+from the mine one evening, ten days ago, when we chanced to pass old man
+Arnold's cabin&mdash;Arnold, who was crippled by a fall in the Curry some
+months ago. The old man was sitting outside his cabin and resting his
+crippled limb on a crutch. Miller stopped and asked him how he was
+getting on, and talked pleasantly with him for a few minutes, when an
+express wagon came by. Miller left the old man with a pleasant word,
+asked me if I would not wait there a few minutes, hailed the expressman,
+jumped upon his wagon, said something to the man which I did not
+understand, and the wagon was driven rapidly away.</p>
+
+<p>"In a few minutes it returned; Miller sprang down; the expressman handed
+him the great easy chair; he carried it into the door of the cabin,
+setting it just inside; then lifted the old man in his arms from his
+hard chair, placed him in the soft cushions of the other, moved it
+gently until it was in just the position where the old man could best
+enjoy looking at the descending night; then, picking up the old battered
+chair, he said, cheerily: 'Arnold, I want to trade chairs with you,' and
+walked so rapidly away that the old man could not recover from his
+surprise enough to thank him. This old chair is the one he brought away.</p>
+
+<p>"Coming home he said to me: 'Harding, don't give me away on this
+business, please. We are all liable to be crippled some time, and to
+need comforts which we do not half appreciate now. I would have given
+the old man the chair two weeks ago, but I did not have it quite paid
+for at that time.'</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you the story now because I do not think there is any obligation
+to keep it a secret any longer."</p>
+
+<p>When Harding had finished there was not one man present who was not glad
+that the vote had resulted unanimously against the generous man's
+expulsion.</p>
+
+<p>The next question was as to the form of the letter that should be sent
+Miller. This awakened a good deal of discussion. It was finally decided
+that each should write a letter, and that the one which should strike
+the Club most favorably should be sent, or that from the whole a new
+letter should be prepared. Writing materials were brought out and all
+went to work on their letters. For several minutes nothing but the
+scratching of pens broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>When the letters were all completed, Carlin was called upon to read
+first. He proceeded as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Virginia City</span>, August 13th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Friend Miller</span>:&mdash;The Club has talked everything over. All think
+you made a great mistake in going away, and that it would be
+better for you to return to your work. Your old place in the
+Club will be kept open for you.</p>
+
+<p>Sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Tom Carlin</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Wright read next as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Virginia City</span>, August 13th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Joe</span>:&mdash;I make a poor hand at writing. I have been banging
+hammers too many years. But what I want to say is, you had
+better, so soon as your visit is over, come along back. There
+wasn't a bit of sense in your going away. Your absence breaks
+up the equilibrium of the Club amazingly. The whole outfit is
+becoming demoralized, and the members are growing more
+garrulous than so many magpies. We shall look for you within a
+week. We all want to see you.</p>
+
+<p>Your sincere friend,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Adrian Wright</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Colonel responded next.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Virginia City</span>, August 13th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Miller</span>:&mdash;You made a precious old fool of yourself, rushing off
+as you did. Are you the first man who has ever been deceived by
+Comstock "dead points?" If you think you are, try and explain
+how it is that while some thousands of bright fellows have
+devotedly pursued the business during the past fifteen years,
+you can, in five minutes, count on your fingers all that have
+saved a quarter of a dollar at the business.</p>
+
+<p>The whole Club join me in saying that you ought to return
+without delay.</p>
+
+<p>Yours truly,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Savage</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Professor's letter, which was next read, was as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Virginia City</span>, August 13th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Miller</span>:&mdash;We do not like your going away. The act was
+deficient in candor, and seems to have a look as though you
+estimated yourself or the Club at too low a figure. Suppose you
+did get a little off; the true business would have been to have
+told us all about it. We would have "put up the mud" and
+carried the thing along until it came your way. But what is
+done is done. The thing to decide now is what it is best for
+you to do. Austin is no place for you. The mines there are
+rich, but the veins are small and the district restricted. In
+that camp the formation makes impossible the creation of a big
+body of ore; the fissures are necessarily small. You would die
+of asphyxia within a month or go blind searching for a place
+where an ore body "could make." Eureka is open to other
+objections. It would require six months for you to become
+acclimated there, and the chances are that within that time you
+would be tied up in a knot with lead colic. The proper course
+to pursue is to come back. The Club are all agreed on that
+proposition.</p>
+
+<p>Yours truly,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Stoneman</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Ashley's letter, in these words, followed:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Virginia City</span>, August 13th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend Joe</span>:&mdash;Your going away has caused us ever so much
+trouble. It was foolish and cruel of you to imagine&mdash;even when
+you were in trouble&mdash;that any of the Club weighed friendship on
+old-fashioned placer diggings gold scales. We are sorry for
+your misfortune, but it is on <i>your</i> account that we are sorry.
+It is not so serious that it cannot be made up in a little
+while, if you do not persist in remaining in some place where
+there are no opportunities to do any good for yourself. It may
+be a long time, among strangers, before you can obtain
+employment. Because you have made one mistake, do not make
+another, but without delay come back. This is Tuesday. It will
+take you until about Saturday next to get to Austin. You will
+be pretty badly used up and will have to rest a day. But on
+Sunday evening you ought to start back by stage and rail. That
+will bring you home a week from to-day. A week from to-night
+then, we shall expect your account of how big the mosquitoes
+are at the sink of the Carson, and what your opinion is of
+Churchill County as a location for a country residence.</p>
+
+<p>Yours fraternally,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Herbert Ashley</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Alex's letter was very brief, as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Virginia City</span>, August 13th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p>Come back, Joe. Were your precedent to be strictly followed, we
+should suddenly lose a majority of our most respected citizens.
+In the interest of society and of the Club come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alex.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">To Mr. Joe Miller</span>, Austin.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Corrigan did not like to read his letter, but the Club insisted, and
+after declaring that the Club would get "a dale the worst of it," he
+proceeded as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><span class="smcap">Virginia City</span>, Nevada, August 13th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Auld Jo</span>:&mdash;It's murthered yees ought to be for doing
+onything phat compills me to write you a lether. Whin I
+commince to write I fale as though all the air pipes were shut
+off intirely. I would sooner pick up a thousand dollars in the
+strate, ony day, than to have to hould a pin in me hand and
+make sinse in my head at the same moment. You know that same,
+too, and hince phy did yees go away and force all this work
+upon me? Is it in love wid horseback exercise that ye are? We
+have been talkin' your case over, quiet loike, in the Club, and
+we have unanimously rached the irresistible conclusion that it
+was an unpatriotic thing for yees to do&mdash;to propose this Club
+business and thin dezart it just whin our habits had become
+fixed, so to spake; and it would become a mather of sarious
+inconvanience for us to change. In this wurreld a man can shirk
+onything excipt his duty, and it is a plain proposition that it
+is your duty immejitely to come back. My poor fingers are
+cramped to near brakin' by this writin', and it is your falt,
+the whole of it, ond I pray yees don't let it happen ony more.</p>
+
+<p>Faithfully,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">B. Corrigan</span>.</p>
+
+<p>P. S.&mdash;Should you nade a bit of coin to return comfortably draw
+on me through W. F. &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Barney.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Harding read next.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Virginia</span>, August 13th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend Miller</span>:&mdash;Enclosed I send certificate of deposit for
+$100. The Club desire, unanimously, that you return without a
+moment's unnecessary delay. All agree that this is the best
+field for you. I will see the foreman in the morning, tell him
+you have been called away for a week and get him to hold your
+place for you. It was very wicked of you to go away. You can
+only get forgiveness by hurrying back.</p>
+
+<p>Lovingly,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Harding</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Brewster's was the final letter, and was in these words:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Virginia City</span>, Nevada. }</p>
+
+<p>8th month, 13th day, A. D. 1878. }</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Joseph Miller</span>:</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir and Friend</span>:&mdash;I have this evening, with great pain,
+learned that you have left this place, and, moreover, have
+heard explained the reasons which prompted that course on your
+part. It would be a lack of candor on my part not to inform you
+that I sincerely deplore the wrong which you have done yourself
+and us. At the same time I believe that the real date of the
+wrong was when you permitted yourself first to engage in stock
+gambling. This world is framed on a foundation of perfect
+justice. The books of the Infinite always exactly balance. In
+the beginning it was decreed that man should have nothing
+except what he earned. It was meant that the world's
+accumulations of treasures&mdash;in money, in brain, in love, or in
+any other material that man holds dear&mdash;should, from day to
+day, and from year to year, represent simply the honest effort
+put forth to produce the treasure.</p>
+
+<p>Men have changed this in form. Some men get what they have not
+earned; but the rule is inexorable and cannot be changed. The
+books must balance.</p>
+
+<p>So when one man gets more than his share, the amount has to be
+made up by the toil of some other man or men. This last is what
+you have been called upon to do, and, naturally, you suffer.</p>
+
+<p>But I acquit you of any sinister intention toward us. So do we
+all. Your fault was when you first attempted to set aside God's
+law. You may recall what was said a few nights ago. "The decree
+which was read at Eden's gate is still in full force, and
+behind it, just as of old, flashes the flaming sword."</p>
+
+<p>We have thoughtfully considered your case. The unanimous
+conclusion is that you should at once return; that here among
+friends and acquaintances, with the heavy work which is going
+on, you have a far better opportunity to recover your lost
+ground than you possibly could among strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, you are familiar with this lode and the manner of
+working these mines. You are likewise accustomed to this
+climate, hence I conclude that your chances against accident or
+disease would be from fifteen to twenty per cent. in favor of
+your returning.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, I beg, without meaning any offense, but on the
+other hand, with a sincere desire to serve you, to say that I
+have a few hundred dollars on hand, enough perhaps to cover all
+your indebtedness here. If you would care to use it, it shall
+be yours, <i>in hearty welcome</i>, until such time as you can
+conveniently return it.</p>
+
+<p>I beg, sir, to subscribe myself your friend and servant,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">James Brewster</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"God bless you, Brewster," said Harding impetuously.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a boss lether," said Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not do better than that myself," was Ashley's comment.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a diamond drill, and strikes a bonanza on the lower level," said
+Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"The formation is good, the pay chute large, the trend of the lode most
+regular, the grade of the ore splendid," said the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>Wright said: "It is a good letter, sure."</p>
+
+<p>"It reads as I fancy the photographs of the Angels of Mercy and Justice
+look when taken together," suggested Alex.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel remarked that the letter established the fact that Brewster
+was not so bad a man as he looked to be.</p>
+
+<p>What should be sent to Miller was next discussed again. It was finally
+determined that all the letters should be sent except Harding's; that he
+should rewrite his, and instead of sending the certificate of deposit,
+should, like Corrigan, instruct Miller to draw on him if he needed
+money, and that any such drafts should be shared by the whole Club.</p>
+
+<p>Then the money to pay the bills was raised among the old members of the
+Club, and placed in Carlin's hands to be paid out next day.</p>
+
+<p>When all was finished a sort of heaviness came upon the company. There
+was an impression of sorrow upon them. They had been happy in their
+innocent enjoyment, but suddenly one who was a favorite, who was at
+heart the most generous one of the company, had failed them, and they
+brooded over the change.</p>
+
+<p>At length Harding roused himself and said: "Miller must be sleeping
+somewhere down in the desert to-night. I wish I could call to him by
+telephone and bring him back."</p>
+
+<p>"That reminds me," said Alex, "of something that I heard of yesterday.
+Down at the Sisters' Academy there is a telephone. There is a little
+miss attending that school, and every morning at a certain hour there is
+a ring at a certain house down town. The response goes back, 'Who is
+it?' and then the conversation goes on as follows: 'Is that you, papa?'
+'Yes!' 'Good morning, papa!' 'Good morning, little one.' 'Is mamma
+there?' 'Yes.' 'Say good morning and give my love to mamma.' 'Yes.'
+'Goodbye.' 'Good bye.'</p>
+
+<p>"In the evening the same call is made; the same answer; and then from
+the still convent on noiseless pinions these words go out through the
+night, and pulsate on the father's ear: 'Good night, papa! Good night,
+mamma! a kiss for each of you!' and then the weird instrument
+materializes two kisses for the father's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a rough fellow, but he declares that since he commenced to
+receive those kisses, he knows that an answer to prayer is not
+impossible; that if that child's voice can come to him, stealing past
+the night patrol unheard, stealing in clear and distinct and like a
+benediction, while the winds and the city are roaring outside, there is
+nothing wonderful in believing that on the invisible wire of faith the
+same voice could send its music to the furthest star, and that the Great
+Father would bend His ear to listen."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pretty story," said Brewster. "The telephone is the most
+poetical of inventions. There is a metallic sound to the click of the
+telegraph, as though its chief use was to further the work and the worry
+of mankind. There is something like a sob to the perfecting press, as
+though saddened by the very thought of the abuses it must reform. There
+is a something about a steam engine which reminds one of the heavy
+respirations of the slave, toiling on his chain, but the telephone has a
+voice for but one ear at a time, and when it is a voice that we love its
+messages come like caresses.</p>
+
+<p>"Not the least of its triumphs is that it has broken the silence of the
+convent.</p>
+
+<p>"At last voices from the outer world thrill through the thick walls, and
+the patient women who are immured there hear the good nights and the
+kisses which by loving lips are sent away to loving homes. How their
+starved hearts must be thrilled by those messages! Sometimes, too, they
+must realize that the course of Nature cannot be changed; that the
+beginning of heaven is in the love which canopies true homes on earth.
+But with that thought there comes another, that from the Infinite, to
+palace, convent and humble homes alike, celestial wires, too fine for
+mortal eyes to discern, stretch down, and all alike are held in one
+sheltering hand. Sometime all these wires will work in accord, and the
+good-nights and the kisses in the souls of men will materialize into
+harmony and fill the world with music."</p>
+
+<p>"That is, Brewster," said Corrigan, "supposin' the wires do not get
+crossed and the girls do not kiss the wrong papas."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose, Brewster," said the Colonel, "that at the final concert it
+shall be discovered that certain gentlemen have not settled their
+monthly rents for a long time, and their connection has been cut off?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no music where there are no ears to hear," said Wright. "What
+if some souls are born deaf and dumb?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose," said the Professor, "that there are souls which have no ear
+for music?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know," said Brewster, "but I fancy that the fairest final
+prizes may not be to the best musicians, but to those who made the
+sorest sacrifices in order to get a ticket to the concert."</p>
+
+<p>With this the good nights were repeated.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>At length there came a day when there was real trouble in the Club. The
+foreman of the mine in which Wright was at work ordered Wright and a
+fellow miner to go to the surface to assist in handling some machinery
+which was to be sent down into the mine.</p>
+
+<p>The two men stepped upon the cage and three bells were sounded&mdash;the
+signal to the engineer at the surface that men were to be hoisted and
+all care used.</p>
+
+<p>The cage started from the 2,400-foot level. Nothing unusual happened
+until, as they neared the surface, Wright said to his comrade: "By the
+way we are passing the levels, it seems to me they must be in a hurry on
+top."</p>
+
+<p>The other miner answered: "I guess it is all right;" but hardly were the
+words spoken, when they shot up into the light; in an instant the cage
+went crashing into the sheaves and was crushed, the men being thrown
+violently out.</p>
+
+<p>Wright's companion, as he fell, struck partly on the curbing of the
+shaft, rolled in and was of course dashed to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>Wright was thrown outside the shaft, and though not killed outright, two
+or three ribs were broken, one lung was badly injured, besides he was
+otherwise terribly bruised.</p>
+
+<p>People unfamiliar with mining may not understand the above. On the
+Comstock the hoisting engines are set from forty to eighty feet from the
+mouths of the shafts. Directly over the shafts are frames from thirty to
+fifty feet in height, on which pulleys (rimmed iron wheels) are
+fastened. The cages are lowered and raised by flat, plaited, steel wire
+cables, which are generally four or five inches wide and about
+three-eighths of an inch in thickness.</p>
+
+<p>This cable is first coiled on the reel of the engine, then the loose end
+is drawn over the pulley, then down to the cage, to which it is made
+fast. The wheel of a pulley is called a sheave, and by habit it has
+grown to be a common expression to call the block and wheel in hoisting
+works "the sheaves." At intervals of one or two hundred feet on the
+cables they are wound with white cloth, as a guide to the engineer, as
+the cable is uncoiled in lowering or coiled in hoisting. Also, on the
+outer rim of the reel, is a dial with figures or marks at regular
+intervals, and a hand (like the hand of a clock) which perpetually
+indicates to the engineer about where the cage is in all stages of
+lowering or hoisting.</p>
+
+<p>These engineers work eight hour shifts, and sometimes twelve. Of the
+nature of their work an idea can be formed by the statement that during
+the two or three years when the great Bonanza in the California
+and Con. Virginia mines was giving up its treasure, through two
+double-compartment shafts, all the work of those two mines was carried
+on. The main ore body was between the 1,300-foot and 1,700-foot levels.
+Every day from six hundred to eight hundred men were lowered into and
+hoisted out of the mine. One hundred thousand feet (square measure) of
+timbers were lowered daily (three million feet per month); nearly or
+quite one thousand tons of ore was hoisted daily; the picks, drills and
+gads were sent up to be sharpened and returned; the powder used and five
+tons of ice daily were lowered, and besides this work, there was
+machinery to lower and hoist; the waste rock to be handled and visitors
+and officers of the mine to be lowered and hoisted. The cages are about
+four feet six inches in length and three feet in width, and are simply
+iron frames with a wooden floor and iron bonnet over the top and made to
+exactly fit the size of the shaft. Three of these compartments had
+double cages&mdash;one above the other, and one had three cages. A
+three-decker carries three tons of ore or twenty-seven men at a time.</p>
+
+<p>Of course when such work is being driven, the eyes of an engineer have
+to be every moment on their work. Men follow the occupation for months
+and years without an accident or mistake, but now and then, through the
+ceaseless strain, their nerves break down; something like an aberration
+of the mind comes over them and they watch, dazed like sleep-walkers, as
+the cage shoots out of the shaft and mounts up into the sheaves and
+cannot command themselves enough to move the lever of the engine which
+is in their hand.</p>
+
+<p>Such an accident as this overtook Wright and his companion. Poor Wright
+was carried home by brother miners. The accident happened only about an
+hour before the time for changing shifts and hardly was Wright laid in
+his bed before the other members of the Club met at their home.</p>
+
+<p>The best surgical talent of the city was called; the members of the Club
+took turns in watching; there was not a moment that one or the other was
+not bending over their friend.</p>
+
+<p>At first, when he rallied from the shock of the injury, Wright told all
+about the accident. He further told his friends that he had no near
+relatives, instructed the Club, in the event of his death, to open his
+trunk, burn the papers and divide the little money there among
+themselves, designated little presents for each one and said: "Miller
+will be grieved if I die, and may think my heart was not altogether warm
+toward him, so give him my watch; it is the most valuable trinket that I
+have."</p>
+
+<p>When the first reaction from the shock came, his friends were encouraged
+to believe he would recover; but it was a vain hope. He soon went into a
+half unconscious, half delirious state, from which it was hard to 'rouse
+him for even a few minutes at a time.</p>
+
+<p>He lay that way for two days and nights and then died.</p>
+
+<p>On the afternoon of the second day it was clear that he was almost
+gone&mdash;the spray began to splash upon his brow from the dark river&mdash;and
+all the Club grouped around him.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the shadow of death his mind cleared for a moment. In almost his
+old natural tones, but weak, like the voices heard through a telephone,
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen another mirage, boys. It was the old home under the Osage
+shadows. It was all plain; the old house, the orchard, the maples were
+red in the autumn sun, and my mother, who died long ago, seemed to be
+there, smiling and holding out her arms to me.</p>
+
+<p>"It was all real, but you don't know how tired I am. Carlin, old friend,
+turn me a little on my side and let me sleep."</p>
+
+<p>Gently as mothers move their helpless babes, the strong miner turned his
+friend upon his pillows.</p>
+
+<p>He breathed shorter and shorter for a few minutes, then one long sigh
+came from his mangled breast, and all was still.</p>
+
+<p>There was perfect silence in the room for perhaps five minutes. Then
+Brewster, with a voice full of tears, said: "God grant that the mirage
+is now to him a delicious reality," and all the rest responded, "Amen."</p>
+
+<p>The undertaker came, the body was dressed for the grave and placed in a
+casket, and the Club took up their watch around it.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then a subdued word was spoken, but they were very few. The
+hearts of the watchers were all full, and conversation seemed out of
+place. Wright was one of the most manly of men, and the hearts of the
+friends were very sore. The evening wore on until ten o'clock came, when
+there fell a gentle knock on the outer door. The door was opened and by
+the moonlight four men could be seen outside. One of them spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"We 'eard as 'ow Hadrian wur gone, and thot to sing a wee bit to he as
+'ow the lad might be glad."</p>
+
+<p>They were the famous quartette of Cornish miners and were at once
+invited in.</p>
+
+<p>They filed softly into the room&mdash;the Club rising as they entered&mdash;and
+circled around the casket. After a long look upon the face of the
+sleeper they stood up and sang a Cornish lament. Their voices were
+simply glorious. The words, simple but most pathetic, were set to a
+plaintive air, the refrain of each stanza ending in some minor notes,
+which gave the impression that tears of pity, as they were falling, had
+been caught and converted into music.</p>
+
+<p>The effect was profound. The stoicism of the</p>
+
+<p>Club was completely broken down by it. When the lament ceased all were
+weeping, while warm-hearted and impetuous Corrigan was sobbing like a
+grieved child.</p>
+
+<p>The quartette waited a moment and then sang a Cornish farewell, the
+music of which, though mostly very sad, had, here and there, a bar or
+two such as might be sung around the cradle of Hope, leaving a thought
+that there might be a victory even over death, and which made the hymn
+ring half like the <i>Miserere</i> and half like a benediction.</p>
+
+<p>When this was finished and the quartette had waited a moment more, with
+their magnificent voices at full volume, they sang again&mdash;a requiem,
+which was almost a triumph song, beginning:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whatever burdens may be sent<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For mortals here to bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It matters not while faith survives<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And God still answers prayer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I will not falter, though my path<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Leads down unto the grave;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The brave man will accept his fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And God accepts the brave.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then with a gentle "Good noight, lads," they were gone.</p>
+
+<p>It was still in the room again until Corrigan said: "I hope Wright heard
+that singin'; the last song in particular."</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows?" said Ashley. "It was all silence here; those men came and
+filled the place with music. Who knows that it will not, in swelling
+waves, roll on until it breaks upon the upper shore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows," said Harding, "that he did not hear it sung first and have
+it sent this way to comfort us? I thought of that when the music was
+around us, and I fancied that some of the tones were like those that
+fell from Wright's lips, when, in extenuation of Miller's fault, he was
+reminding us that it was the intent that measured the wrong, and that
+Miller never intended any wrong. Music is born above and comes down; its
+native place is not here."</p>
+
+<p>"He does not care for music," said the Colonel. "See how softly he
+sleeps. All the weariness that so oppressed him has passed away. The
+hush of eternity is upon him, and after his hard life that is sweeter
+than all else could be."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, cease, Colonel," said Brewster. "Out of this darkened chamber how
+can we speak as by authority of what is beyond. As well might the mole
+in his hole attempt to tell of the eagle's flight.</p>
+
+<p>"We only know that God rules. We watched while the great transition came
+to our friend. One moment in the old voice he was conversing with us;
+the next that voice was gone, but we do not believe that it is lost. As
+we were saying of the telephone, when we speak those only a few feet
+away hear nothing. The words die upon the air, and we explain to
+ourselves that they are no more. But thirty miles away, up on the side
+of the Sierras, an ear is listening, and every tone and syllable is
+distinct to that ear. Who knows what connections can be made with those
+other heights where Peace rules with Love?</p>
+
+<p>"Our friend whose dust lies here was not called from nothing simply to
+buffet through some years of toil and then to return to nothing through
+the pitiless gates of Death. To believe such a thing would be to impeach
+the love, the mercy and the wisdom of God. Wright is safe somewhere and
+happier than he was with us. I should not wonder if Harding's theory
+were true, and that it was to comfort us that he impelled those singers
+to come here."</p>
+
+<p>"Brewster," said Alex, "your balance is disturbed to-night. You say
+'from out our darkened chamber we cannot see the light,' and then go on
+to assert that Wright is happier than when here. You do not know; you
+hope so, that is all. So do I, and by the calm that has pressed its
+signet on his lips, I am willing to believe that all that was of him is
+as much at rest as is his throbless heart, and that the mystery which so
+perplexes us&mdash;this something which one moment greets us with smiles and
+loving words, but which a moment later is frozen into everlasting
+silence&mdash;is all clear to him now. I hope so, else the worlds were made
+in vain, and the sun in heaven, and all the stars whose white fires fill
+the night, are worthy of as little reverence as a sage brush flame; and
+it was but a cruel plan which permitted men to have life, to kindle in
+their brains glorious longings and in their hearts to awaken affections
+more dear than life itself."</p>
+
+<p>Then Harding, as if to himself repeated: "It matters not while Faith
+survives, and God still answers prayer."</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour more passed, then the Colonel arose, looked long on the
+face in the casket and said:</p>
+
+<p>"How peaceful is his sleep. The mystery of the unseen brings no look of
+surprise to his face. Around him is the calm of the dreamless bivouac:
+the brooding wings of eternal rest have spread their hush above him.
+To-morrow the merciful earth will open her robes of serge to receive
+him; in her ample bosom will fold his weary limbs, and while he sleeps
+will shade his eyes from the light. In a brief time, save to the few of
+us who love him, he will be forgotten among men. Days will dawn and set;
+the seasons will advance and recede; the years will ebb and flow; the
+tempest and the sunshine will alternately beat upon his lonely couch,
+until ere long it will be leveled with the surrounding earth; his body
+will dissolve into its original elements and it will be as though he had
+never lived. The great ocean of life will heave and swell, and there
+will be no one to remember this drop that fell upon the earth in spray
+and was lost.</p>
+
+<p>"This is as it seems to us, straining our dull eyes out upon the
+profound beyond our petty horizon. But who knows? We can trace the
+thread of this life as it was until it passed beyond the range of our
+visions, but who of us knows whether it was all unwound or whether in
+the 'beyond' it became a golden chain so strong that even Death can not
+break it, and thrilled with harmonies which could never vibrate on this
+frail thread that broke to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>Then the Colonel sat down and the Professor stood up, and with his left
+hand resting on the casket, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Three days ago this piece of crumbling dust was a brave soldier of
+peace. I mean the words in their fullest sense. Just now our brothers in
+the East are fearful lest so much silver will be produced that it will
+become, because of its plentifulness, unfit to be a measure of values.
+They do not realize what it costs or they would change their minds. They
+do not know how the gnomes guard their treasures, or what defense Nature
+uprears around her jewels. They revile the stamp which the Government
+has placed upon the white dollar. Could they see deeper they would
+perceive other stamps still. There would be blood blotches and seams
+made by the trickling of the tears of widows and orphans, for before the
+dollar issues bright from the mint, it has to be sought for through
+perils which make unconscious heroes of those who prosecute the search.
+For nearly twenty years now, on this lode, tragedies like this have been
+going on. We hear it said: 'A man was killed to-day in the Ophir,' or 'a
+man was dashed to pieces last night in the Justice,' and we listen to it
+as merely the rehearsal of not unexpected news. Could a list of the men
+who have been killed in this lode be published, it would be an appalling
+showing. It would outnumber the slain of some great battle.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides the deaths by violence, hundreds more, worn out by the heat and
+by the sudden changes of temperature between the deep mines and the
+outer air, have drooped and died.</p>
+
+<p>"The effect is apparent upon our miners. Their bearing perplexes
+strangers who come here. They do not know that in the conquests of labor
+there are fields to be fought over which turn volunteers into veteran
+soldiers quite as rapidly as real battle fields. They know nothing about
+storming the depths; of breaking down the defences of the deep hills.
+They can not comprehend that the quiet men whom they meet here on the
+streets are in the habit of shaking hands with Death daily until they
+have learned to follow without emotion the path of duty, let it lead
+where it may, and to accept whatever may come as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>"Such an one was this our friend, who fell at his post; fell in the
+strength of his manhood, and when his great heart was throbbing only in
+kindness to all the world.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment he exulted in his splendid life, the next he was mangled and
+crushed beyond recovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Still there was no repining, no spoken regrets. For years the
+possibility of such a fate as this had been before his eyes steadily; it
+brought much anguish to him, but no surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"He had lived a blameless life. As it drew near its close the vision of
+his mother was mercifully sent to him, and so in his second birth the
+same arms received him that cradled him when before he was as helpless
+as he is now.</p>
+
+<p>"By the peace that is upon him, I believe those arms are around his soul
+to-night; I believe he would not be back among us if he could.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a right on our own account to grieve that he is gone, but not
+on his. He filled on earth the full measure of an honest, honorable,
+brave and true life. That record went before him to Summer Land. I
+believe it is enough and that he needs neither tears nor regrets."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor sat down and Corrigan then arose and went and looked long
+and fondly upon the upturned face. At last in a low voice he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Auld frind, if yees can, give me a sign some time that something was
+saved from this mighty wrick. I will listen for the call in the dape
+night. I will listen by the timbers in the dape drifts; come back if
+yees can and give us a hope that there will be hand clasps and wilcomes
+for us whin the last shift shall be worked out."</p>
+
+<p>So one after the other talked until the night stole away before the
+smile of the dawn. Harding pulled aside the curtains, and at that moment
+the sun, panoplied in glory, shed rosy tints all over the desert to the
+eastward.</p>
+
+<p>"See," said Harding. "It was on such a morning as this that on the
+desert was painted the mirage which troubled poor Wright so much, until
+the clearer light drove it away. Let us hope that there are no
+refractions of the rays to bring fear to him where he is."</p>
+
+<p>There was the usual inquest, and on the second day after his death,
+Wright was buried. After the funeral his effects were looked over; the
+bills were paid, a simple stone was ordered to be placed over his grave,
+and his money, some few hundred dollars, was divided among the hospitals
+of the city.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>A few days more went by, but the old joy of the Club was no more.</p>
+
+<p>Wright was gone, and all that had been heard from Miller was a brief
+note thanking the Club for their kindness, but giving no intimation that
+he contemplated returning.</p>
+
+<p>One morning about the twenty-fifth of the month the five miners who were
+left went away to their work as usual, but all were unusually depressed,
+as though a sense of sorrow or of approaching sorrow was upon them.</p>
+
+<p>As said before, Brewster was working in the Bullion. Toward noon of this
+day word was passed down into the other mines that an accident was
+reported in the Bullion; some said it was a cave and some that it was a
+fire, but it was not certainly known.</p>
+
+<p>Each underground foreman and boss was instructed to see that the
+bulkheads, which, when closed, shut off the underground connections
+between the several mines, were made ready to be closed at a moment's
+notice, in case the accident proved to be a fire. The whisper of "fire
+in the mine" is a terrible one on the Comstock, for in the deeps there
+are dried timbers sufficient to build a great city, and once on fire
+they would make a roaring hell.</p>
+
+<p>When the news of an accident in the Bullion was circulated in the other
+mines, but one thought took form in the minds of the other four members
+of the Club. Brewster was working in the Bullion, and it might be that
+he was in peril.</p>
+
+<p>Within half an hour, and almost at the same moment, Carlin, Corrigan,
+Ashley and Harding appeared at the Bullion hoisting works.</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent stood at the shaft, and though perfectly
+self-contained, he was very pale and it needed but a glance at his face
+to know that he was either suffering physically or was greatly troubled.
+By this time, too, the wives of the miners at work in the Bullion had
+commenced to gather around the works.</p>
+
+<p>Mingled with the condensing vapors at the mouth of the shaft, there was
+the ominous odor of burning timbers.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the Club miners entered the Bullion works, the bell struck and
+the cage came rapidly to the surface. There was nothing on the cage, but
+tied to one of the iron braces was a slip of paper. This the
+superintendent seized and eagerly scanned.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to a miner who stood near, he said: "Sandy, go outside and tell
+those women to go home. Say to them that the accident involves only one
+man, and he has no family here. His name is Brewster, and we hope to
+save him yet."</p>
+
+<p>At this the four members of the Club sprang to the shaft and demanded to
+be let down.</p>
+
+<p>They were sternly ordered back by the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Carlin, fiercely, "this man whom you have named is like a
+brother to us; if he is in danger we must go to his rescue."</p>
+
+<p>The rest were quite as eager in their demands. Seeing how earnest they
+were, the superintendent said: "You are strangers to the mine. The whole
+working force from all the levels has been sent to the point of the
+accident. You would only be in the way."</p>
+
+<p>But they still insisted, vehemently. Said Ashley: "Your men are working
+for money, and will take no risks; it is different with us."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know what you are doing in refusing us," said Harding; "that
+man's life is worth a thousand ordinary lives."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose your brother were in danger and some man stood in the way
+forbidding you to go to him, what would you think?" asked Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"Yees are superintindint and rule this mine," said Corrigan, "but you
+have no rule over min's lives, and this is a matter of the grandest life
+upon the lode, and yees have no right to refuse us."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said the superintendent; "if you men can be of any possible
+use you shall be sent down."</p>
+
+<p>On a bit of paper he wrote a brief note, tied it to the frame of the
+cage and sent it down. When the cage disappeared in the shaft, he turned
+to the men and explained that he had been upon the surface but a few
+minutes; that long before a drift had been run off from the main gallery
+at the twenty-one hundred-foot level some fifty feet through ground so
+hard that it had never required timbering. At the farther end soft
+ground had been encountered and a stringer of ore. Following this
+stringer a lateral drift had been run some fifty feet each way. This
+lateral drift was timbered when it was run. No ore of any value having
+been uncovered the work was abandoned, and since then the drift had been
+used as a storage place for powder and candles. That morning the foreman
+had gone into this drift with a surveyor to establish some point which
+the engineer required. To assist the surveyor the foreman had stuck his
+candlestick into a timber and had gone with the surveyor to one end of
+this lateral drift.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back they saw that the candle had fallen against the timber,
+which was dry as tinder.</p>
+
+<p>It had caught on fire and the flame had already run up and was in the
+logging.</p>
+
+<p>They rushed back, and though not seriously injured, were pretty badly
+scorched. All the miners in the mine were called to that point, and the
+work of putting out the fire, or of keeping it from connecting with the
+main drift, was begun. The superintendent was at the time on the
+twenty-four hundred-foot level. He had hastened to the spot at the first
+alarm. A donkey pump was at the twenty-one hundred-foot station, with
+plenty of hose. This was running within fifteen minutes. The fire, after
+burning a little way in each direction along the lateral drift,
+exhausting the oxygen in the air, ceased to flame and just burrowed its
+way through the timbers. This produced a dense and sifting smoke.</p>
+
+<p>A heavy stream of water was turned into this drift, the superintendent
+directing the work until, under the heat and smoke, he had fainted and
+been brought to the surface.</p>
+
+<p>Holding up the note which had come up on the cage, he said the man
+Brewster who was holding the nozzle of the hose had gone too far into
+the drift, under where the logging had burned away and had been caught
+in a cave, but the rest were working to release him.</p>
+
+<p>The bell sounded again and in three minutes the cage shot out of the
+shaft. The paper which it brought had only these few words: "If you can
+send two (2) first-class miners, all right, but not more. Any others
+would only be in the way. It is a very dangerous place, don't send any
+but thorough men." This was signed by the foreman.</p>
+
+<p>When the superintendent read the note the four men rushed forward, and
+for a moment their clamors were indescribable.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my place to go," said Ashley. "I have as little to live for as
+any of you. Do not hold me back."</p>
+
+<p>"Stand back," said Harding. "I would rather never go home than not to go
+with Brewster."</p>
+
+<p>Seizing Harding by the arm, Carlin hurled him back, exclaiming: "Art
+crazy, boy? Your bark is but just launched; this is work for old hulks
+that are used to rocks and storms."</p>
+
+<p>Over all the voice of Corrigan rang out: "Hould, men! This is me place.
+Me life has been but a failure. I will make what amind I can," and he
+sprang upon the cage, and, seizing a brace with either hand, turned his
+glittering eyes upon his friends.</p>
+
+<p>At length over the Babel the voice of the superintendent was heard
+commanding "Silence!"</p>
+
+<p>"You all alike seem determined," he said, "but only two can go. You will
+have to draw lots to decide." This proposition was with many murmurs
+agreed to. The superintendent prepared four bits of paper, two long and
+two short ones. He placed the slips in his hat, and, holding it above
+the level of the men's eyes, said: "You will each draw a slip of paper;
+the two who draw the long slips will go, the others will remain. Go on
+with the drawing!"</p>
+
+<p>The long slips were drawn by Corrigan and Carlin. With smiles of triumph
+these two shook hands with the others, who were weeping. Said Corrigan:</p>
+
+<p>"Whativer may happen, do not grave, boys. I will see yees again before
+night, or&mdash;I will see me mither."</p>
+
+<p>The two men stepped upon the cage. In his old careless way, Carlin said:
+"Don't worry about me, boys! I will come back by and by and bring
+Brewster, or I will know as much as Wright does before night."</p>
+
+<p>With these words the two devoted men disappeared with the cage into the
+dreadful depths.</p>
+
+<p>With bitter self-reproaches the two remaining men sat down and waited. A
+half hour went by, when the bell struck and the engine began to hoist.
+The cage again bore only a slip of paper. This the superintendent read
+as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"We have had another cave; another man is hurt; all the miners are much
+exhausted. Send a couple more men if possible."</p>
+
+<p>The two men sprang upon the cage, the superintendent joined them, and
+they were rapidly lowered into the depths. Reaching the fatal level,
+they learned that Corrigan and Carlin, on going down, had insisted on
+taking the lead; that they had partly uncovered Brewster when another
+cave had come. It had caught and buried Corrigan, but Carlin, though
+stunned and bruised somewhat, had escaped. By this time the smoke had
+partially cleared, but the drift was intensely hot.</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent again took charge. Timbers and heavy plank were
+brought. The drift was rapidly shored up, and within an hour Harding and
+Ashley recovered the body of Corrigan.</p>
+
+<p>There was very little rock over him, but he was quite dead. He had been
+struck and crushed by a boulder from the roof of the drift. He was
+bending down at the time, the boulder struck him fairly in the back of
+the neck and he must have died instantly.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon Brewster's body, too, was uncovered. He also was dead. He had
+been buried by decomposed rock, and had died from asphyxia.</p>
+
+<p>The bodies were carried to the shaft; each was wrapped in a blanket, and
+that of Corrigan was placed upon the cage. The superintendent, with
+Carlin and two other miners, stepped on the cage and it was hoisted to
+the surface. It returned in a few minutes, and this time Brewster's body
+was placed upon it, and Harding and Ashley, with two other miners,
+accompanied it to the surface.</p>
+
+<p>In the daylight the faces of the dead were both peaceful, as though in
+sleep. The bodies were sent away to an undertaker, and as Brewster had
+been heard to say, at Wright's funeral, that if he should die in the
+West, he would want his body sent East to be buried beside that of his
+wife, word was sent to the undertaker to try and get the coroner's
+permission and then to embalm the body of Brewster.</p>
+
+<p>The three remaining members of the Club were carried to their dreary
+home. Besides their sorrow, they were terribly exhausted. Harding had
+fainted once in the drift; Carlin was, besides being worn out, badly
+bruised, and Ashley was so exhausted that upon reaching the surface he
+was seized with chills and vomiting. The Professor, the Colonel and Alex
+were at the hoisting works when they were hoisted to the surface. They
+accompanied them home and remained, ministering to them until late in
+the night, when at last all were sleeping peacefully.</p>
+
+<p>With the morning the desolateness of their situation seemed more
+oppressive than ever. Yap Sing had prepared a dainty breakfast, but when
+they entered the dining room and saw only three plates where a few days
+before there had been seven, it was impossible for them to eat a
+mouthful. Each drank a cup of black coffee, but neither tasted food.</p>
+
+<p>Returned to the sitting room, it was determined to examine the effects
+of their dead friends. There was little in Corrigan's bundles except
+clothing and a memorandum book. This book had $150 in greenbacks, and a
+great many memorandums of stocks purchased, extending over a period of
+three years. These, a few words at the bottom of the pages showed, had
+almost all been sold either on too short margins or for assessments.
+Corrigan's humor ran all through the book in penciled remarks. The
+following are samples:</p>
+
+<p>"I had a sure thing; was the only mon in the sacret. I was but one and I
+caught it."</p>
+
+<p>"I bate Mr. Broker mon. He bought for me on a fifty per cint margin, and
+it broke that fast he could not get out from below it."</p>
+
+<p>"This was a certain sure point. Bedad, I found it that same."</p>
+
+<p>"I took the Scorpion to my bosom and, the blackguard, he stung me."</p>
+
+<p>"I stuck to Jacket until I had not a ghoust of a jacket to me back."</p>
+
+<p>"I made love to Julia. She was more ungrateful than Maggie Murphy."</p>
+
+<p>But between these same pages was found the letter Corrigan had received
+announcing his mother's death, and this was almost illegible because of
+the tear stains upon it.</p>
+
+<p>In Brewster's trunk everything was found in the perfect order which had
+marked all his ways.</p>
+
+<p>A book showed every dollar that he had received since coming to the
+Comstock; his monthly expenses, the sums he had sent his sister for his
+children, and his bank book showed exactly how much was to his credit.</p>
+
+<p>Another paper was found giving directions that if anything fatal should
+happen to him, his body should be returned to Taunton, Massachusetts,
+and if anything should be left above the necessary expenses of
+forwarding his body, the amount should be sent to his sister, Mrs.
+Martha Wolcott, of Taunton, for his children. The paper also contained
+an order on his banker for whatever money might be to his credit, and a
+statement that he owed no debts. There were also sealed letters directed
+to each of his children. Another large package was tied up carefully and
+endorsed, "My children's letters. Please return them to Taunton without
+breaking the package."</p>
+
+<p>The bank book showed that there was eleven hundred and sixty-three
+dollars to his credit.</p>
+
+<p>Brewster was a man that even death could not surprise. He was always
+ready.</p>
+
+<p>When the examination was completed, Carlin suggested to Ashley that he
+take the book, call at the bank, see if the amount was correct and if
+the bank would pay it on the order found in the book.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley hesitated. "There is something else, Carlin, that should be done,
+but I do not know how to go about it. That sister should be advised of
+her brother's death, that she may communicate the news to Brewster's
+children."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking of that ever since yesterday," said Carlin, "but I
+can not do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking of it, too," said Harding, "but by evening we can
+determine when the body will be sent and can include everything in one
+dispatch."</p>
+
+<p>Ashley went away, leaving Carlin and Harding together.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," said Harding, "but I begin to believe that the man who
+invented dealing in stocks was an enemy to his race. Look at the result
+of Corrigan's life; think what poor Wright had to show for all his years
+of toil. They could not have fared much worse had they dealt in poker or
+faro straight."</p>
+
+<p>"And they are only two," responded Carlin. "There are three thousand
+more miners like them here and a hundred times three thousand other
+people scattered up and down this coast, trying to get rich in the same
+way, while here and in San Francisco a dozen men sit behind their
+counters and draw in the earnings of the coast. It is worse than folly,
+Harding. It is a kind of lunacy, a sort of an every day financial
+hari-kari."</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was past eleven o'clock in the forenoon. Suddenly,
+without a preliminary knock, the door opened and Miller stood before the
+two men. They sprang to their feet and welcomed him, the tears starting
+to all their eyes as they shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miller!" said Harding, "why did you go away? We have had only
+trouble and sorrow since."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not fair of you, Miller," said Carlin, "You held our friendship
+at a miserably low price."</p>
+
+<p>"You are awfully good," said Miller; "but you are looking from your
+standpoint. I looked from mine, and I could not do differently. But tell
+me about this dreadful business. I saw about Wright, and read the
+account of this fearful accident of yesterday as I was coming up in the
+train, but still, there must have been some blundering somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>Everything was explained, and also what had been discovered of the
+effects of the dead miners.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor grand souls," said Miller. "It was a tough ending. Never before
+did three such royal hearts stop beating in a single fortnight on the
+Comstock."</p>
+
+<p>Ashley returned, and, with words full of affectionate reproach, greeted
+Miller.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley had found everything at the bank as the book indicated, and the
+undertaker had promised that Brewster's remains should be ready for
+shipment on the evening of the next day.</p>
+
+<p>Then the question of the dispatch to the family came up again.</p>
+
+<p>"Before deciding upon that," said Miller, "let me tell you something:</p>
+
+<p>"When I took the money to pay the bills, I had, with a little of my own,
+something over seven hundred dollars. I bought on a margin of only
+twenty-five per cent.&mdash;the broker was my friend&mdash;all the Silver Hill
+that the money would purchase. I thought I had a sure thing. My
+informant was a Silver Hill miner. I believed I could multiply the money
+by three within as many days. In five days it fell thirty per cent. What
+could I do? A note from the broker asking me to call, received the
+evening before I went away, decided me. I went away, but when I saw by
+dispatches that Wright had been killed, and I could get nothing to do, I
+determined to come back.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I met my broker this morning. He asked me to call at his place.
+There he informed me that the day he purchased Silver Hill he met the
+superintendent and learned from him that there was not yet a
+development; that the stock was more liable to fall than to rise for two
+or three weeks to come, the rage being just then for north end stocks.
+He could not find me, and accordingly, on his own responsibility, he
+sold the stock, losing nothing but commissions and cost of dispatches.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a little lull in Sierra Nevada that day, and, believing it
+was good, he bought with my money and on my account. As it shot up he
+kept buying. At last, a week ago, he had two thousand shares and sold
+five hundred, and by the sale paid himself all up except $21,000.</p>
+
+<p>"Hearing day before yesterday that I had left the city, he sold the
+other fifteen hundred shares at $157. This morning he handed me a
+certificate of deposit in my favor for $213,000, and here it is."</p>
+
+<p>Most heartily did the others congratulate Miller on his good fortune.</p>
+
+<p>But Miller said: "Congratulate yourselves! I used the money of the Club.
+The profit I always intended should be the Club's. Wright and Corrigan
+and Brewster are gone, but you are left and Brewster's children are
+left. If I am correct, $213,000 divided by five, makes exactly $42,600.
+That is, you each have $42,600 on deposit in the bank, and a like sum is
+there for two fatherless and motherless children in Massachusetts."</p>
+
+<p>It was useless to try to reason the matter with Miller. He merely said:
+"It shall be my way. It was a square deal. I meant it so from the first;
+only," he added, sadly, "I wish Wright and Corrigan and Brewster could
+have lived to know it." Then turning quickly to Harding, he said:
+"Harding, how much is that indebtedness which has worried you so long?"</p>
+
+<p>Harding replied that the mortgage was $8,000, while the personal debts
+amounted to $3,000 more.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Miller, "you can pay the debts and have nearly $30,000 more
+with which to build your house and barns, to stock and fix your place
+for a home."</p>
+
+<p>The tears came to Harding's eyes, but he could not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, old boy," said Miller; "did I not tell you I would make
+things all right for you?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Carlin got up, went into the adjoining room, brought out the watch
+which had been Wright's and told Miller how Wright, under the shadow of
+death, had bequeathed the watch to him.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Miller broke down and burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>When he recovered somewhat the command of himself, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I have a proposition to make. Let us all give up this mining. It
+is a hard life, and generally ends either in poverty or in a fatal
+accident. I am going to San Francisco. The place to make money is where
+there is money, and I am going to try my skill at the other end of the
+line."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said Carlin. "I am never going down into the Comstock
+again. I made up my mind to that yesterday. I am going back to
+Illinois."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am going to Pennsylvania," said Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"I gave up mining yesterday, also," said Harding; "at least on the
+Comstock. I do not mind the labor or the danger, but it is not a life
+that fits a man for a contented old age."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Miller said: "Harding, were you ever in the Eastern States?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Harding; "the present boundary of my life is limited to
+California and Nevada."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Miller, "if we all give ourselves credit for all the good
+we ever dreamed of doing, still neither of us, indeed, all of us
+together, are not worthy to be named on the same day with James
+Brewster. His body must go East, and on its arrival there only an aged
+woman and two little orphan children await to receive it. I think it
+would be shabby to send the dust of the great-hearted and great-souled
+man there unattended. What say you, Ashley and Harding, will you not
+escort the body to its old home?"</p>
+
+<p>Both at once assented. A dispatch was prepared announcing Brewster's
+death, and adding that his body would be shipped the next evening
+escorted by two brother miners, Herbert Ashley and Samuel Harding. This
+was signed by the superintendent of the Bullion company.</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent also made a written statement that he had examined
+the effects of Brewster and found that, less the expenses of embalming,
+transportation, etc., together with $80 due Brewster from the Bullion
+company, there was left the sum of $840.25. With this statement a bill
+of exchange on Boston for the $840.25 was enclosed, and Ashley took
+charge of it.</p>
+
+<p>The bills were all paid. The money due Brewster's orphans, according to
+Miller's calculation, was also converted into a bill of exchange payable
+to Mabel and Mildred Brewster. Ashley and Harding took charge of the
+first and left the second of exchange to be forwarded by Colonel Savage,
+and before night all preparations for leaving the next day were made.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Corrigan's funeral took place with all the ostentatious
+parade which Virginia City was famous for in the flush times when some
+one who had been a favorite had passed away. At the hall of the Miners'
+Union Colonel Savage delivered a eulogy which was infinitely more
+beautiful than some of the orations which have been treasured among the
+gems of the century.</p>
+
+<p>He was followed by Strong in a eulogy that touched every heart. Here is
+a sample:</p>
+
+<p>"Gentle and unpretentious was Barney Corrigan. There was no disguise in
+his nature. Could his heart have been worn outside his breast, and could
+it, every moment, have thrown off pictures of the emotions that warmed
+it, to those who knew him well, those pictures would have thrown no new
+light on his nature.</p>
+
+<p>"Generous and true was he; true as a man, a friend a citizen. His walk
+through life was an humble one, but it was, nevertheless, grand. So
+brave was he that he performed heroic acts as a matter of course, and
+all unconscious that he was a hero.</p>
+
+<p>"So he toiled on, his path lighted by his own genial eyes, and strewn
+behind him with generous deeds.</p>
+
+<p>"When death came to him the blessed anæsthetic which made him
+indifferent to his sufferings was the thought that in a little while he
+would rescue a friend in peril, or feel the grasp of the spirit hand of
+his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Noble was his life; consecrated will be the ground that receives his
+mortal part. The world was better that he lived; it is sadder that he
+has died.</p>
+
+<p>"With tears we part with him; our souls send tender 'all hails and
+farewells' out to his soul that has fled, and we pray that his sleep may
+be sweet."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel, Professor and Alex, with Miller, Carlin, Ashley and
+Harding, rode in the mourning carriages. These were followed by a long
+line of carriages and quite one thousand miners on foot. At the grave
+the services were simply a prayer and a hymn sung by the Cornish
+quartette. They made his grave close beside that of Wright's; they
+ordered a duplicate stone to be placed above it, and left him to his
+long sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Yap Sing was paid off and a handsome present made him, the furniture and
+food in the Club house was distributed among poor families in the
+neighborhood, and on the evening train the four living men, with the
+body of their dead friend, moved out of Virginia City.</p>
+
+<p>A great crowd was at the depot to see them off, and the last hands wrung
+were those of the Professor, the Colonel and Alex.</p>
+
+<p>On the way to Reno, Carlin said to Miller: "One thing I cannot
+understand, Miller; whatever possessed that broker to turn over that
+money to you when he was not compelled to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no idea in the world," said Miller, "except that we are old
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>"But did you never do him any great favor, Miller&mdash;any particularly
+great favor?" asked Carlin.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miller, "I cannot think of any." But after a moment's silence
+he added: "By the way, come to think of it, I did do him a little favor
+once. I saved his life."</p>
+
+<p>"How was it?" asked Carlin. "Why," answered Miller, "he and myself had a
+running fight with a band of renegade Indians. There were seven or eight
+of them at first, and we got them reduced to four, when one of them
+killed the broker's horse. It was a very close game then. It required
+the promptest kind of work. When the horse fell the broker was thrown
+violently on his shoulder and the side of his head and was too stunned
+to gather his wits together for a few minutes. I had a gentle horse, so
+sprang down from him and let him go. I got behind a low rock and
+succeeded in stopping two of the Indians, when the others concluded it
+was no even thing and took the back track. But the broker was "powerful"
+nervous when I got up to him. The worst of all was, I had to ride and
+tie with him for seventeen miles, and he was so badly demoralized that I
+had to do all the walking."</p>
+
+<p>At Reno Miller bade the others good-bye and took the west-bound train.
+Carlin sent a dispatch to an Illinois town. Late in the night the
+east-bound Overland express came in; the body of Brewster was put on
+board, the three friends entered a sleeper and the long ride began.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Following a long established habit our three travelers were up next
+morning shortly after dawn.</p>
+
+<p>The train was then thundering over the desert northeast of Wadsworth.
+Carlin noticed the country and said:</p>
+
+<p>"This must be almost on the spot where poor Wright saw his wonderful
+mirage."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke the bending rays of the rising sun swept along the sterile
+earth, and a shimmer in the air close to the ground revealed how swiftly
+the heat waves were advancing.</p>
+
+<p>"It is as Wright said; the desert grows warm at once, so soon as the
+morning sun strikes it," said Harding. "Heavens, how awful a desolation.
+It is as though the face-cloth had been lifted from a dead world."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember what Wright told us, about the appalling stillness of
+this region?" asked Ashley. "One can realize a little of it by looking
+out. Were the train not here what would there be for sound to act upon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not pitiful," said Harding, "to think of a grand life like
+Wright's being worn out as his was? He met the terrors here when but a
+boy. From that time on there was but blow after blow of this merciless
+world's buffetings until the struggle closed in a violent and untimely
+death."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget," said Ashley, "that a self-contained soul and royal heart
+like his, are their own comforters. He had joys that the selfish men of
+this world never know."</p>
+
+<p>All that day the conversation was only awakened at intervals and then
+was not long continued. Not only the sorrow in their hearts was claiming
+their thoughts and imposing the silence which real sorrow covets; but
+the swift changes wrought in the week just passed, had really resulted
+in an entire revolution in all their thoughts and plans.</p>
+
+<p>It was to them an epoch. The breakfast station came, later the dinner,
+later the supper station. All the day the train swept on up the Humboldt
+valley. Along the river bottom were meadows, but about the only change
+in the monotonous scenery, was from desert plains to desert mountains
+and back again to the plains.</p>
+
+<p>Night came down in Eastern Nevada. When they awoke next morning the
+train was skirting the northwest shore of Great Salt Lake and the rising
+sun was painting the splendors that, with lavish extravagance, the dawn
+always pictures there on clear days, and no spot has more clear days
+during the year.</p>
+
+<p>Ogden was reached at nine o'clock in the morning, the transfer to the
+Union Pacific train was made; breakfast eaten, and toward noon, the
+beauties of Echo Canyon began to unfold. Green River was crossed in the
+gloaming; in the morning Laramie was passed, at noon Cheyenne, and the
+train was now on a down grade toward the East. With the next morning men
+were seen gathering their crops; the desert had been left behind and the
+travelers were now entering the granary of the Republic.</p>
+
+<p>Late that night the train entered Omaha. The usual delay was made; the
+transfers effected and early next morning the journey across Iowa, so
+wonderful to one who has been long in the desert, began. Ashley darted
+from side to side of the coach that he might not lose one bit of the
+view; but Harding sat still, by the window, hardly moving, but straining
+his eyes over the low waves of green, which, in the stillness of the
+summer day, seemed like a sea transfixed.</p>
+
+<p>Carlin was strangely restless. He did not seem to heed the scenery
+around him. He studied his guidebook and every quarter of an hour looked
+at his watch. When spoken to, he answered in an absent-minded way; it
+was plain that he was absorbed by some overmastering thought.</p>
+
+<p>Noon came at length, then one o'clock, then two; the train gave a long
+whistle, slackened speed, and in a moment was brought to a standstill in
+front of a station.</p>
+
+<p>With the first signal Carlin had sprang from his seat and walked rapidly
+toward the end of the car.</p>
+
+<p>"What can the matter be with Carlin?" asked Harding. "He has been half
+wild all day and altogether different from his usual self."</p>
+
+<p>"He will be home sometime to-night," replied Ashley. "He has been absent
+a long time, and I do not wonder at his unrest. I expect to have my
+attack next week when the southern hills of Pennsylvania lift up their
+crests, and the old familiar haunts begin to take form."</p>
+
+<p>"Look! Look!" said Harding. "Carlin's unrest is taking a delicious form,
+truly."</p>
+
+<p>Two ladies were standing on the platform. Carlin had leaped from the
+train while yet it was moving quite rapidly. He bent and kissed the
+first lady, but the second one he caught in his arms, held her in a long
+embrace and kissed her over and over again.</p>
+
+<p>"He has struck a bonanza," said Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"And the formation is kindly," said Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"The indications are splendid," said Ashley. "Mark the trend of the
+vein; it is exquisite."</p>
+
+<p>"It does not seem to be rebellious or obstinate ore to manipulate
+either. Carlin's process seems to work like a fire assay," said Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"Just by the surface showing the claim is worth a thousand dollars a
+share," said Ashley. "I wonder if Carlin has secured a patent yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"And I wonder," said Harding, "if we are not a pair of blackguards to be
+talking this way. Let us go and meet them."</p>
+
+<p>The friends arose and started for the platform, but were met half way by
+Carlin and the ladies. There were formal introductions to Mrs. and Miss
+Richards. Under the blushes of the young lady could be traced the
+lineaments of the "Susie Dick" that Carlin had shown to the Club in the
+photograph.</p>
+
+<p>Crimson, but still smiling, the young lady said: "Gentlemen, did you see
+Mr. Carlin at the station, before a whole depot of giggling ninnies,
+too? Was ever anything half so ridiculous?" Then glancing up at Carlin
+with a forgiving look, but still in a delicious scolding tone, she
+added: "I really had hoped that the West had partly civilized him."</p>
+
+<p>Harding and Ashley glanced at each other with a look which said plainly
+enough, "Carlin has proved up without any contest; even if the patent is
+not already issued, his title is secure."</p>
+
+<p>The friends had the drawing room and a section outside. With a quick
+instinct Ashley seated the elder lady in the section, bade Harding
+entertain her, then swinging back the drawing room door, said: "Miss
+Richards, I know that you want to scold Carlin for the next hour, and he
+deserves it. Right in here is the best place on the car for the purpose.
+Please walk in." Saying which he stepped back and seated himself beside
+Harding.</p>
+
+<p>The elder lady was a charming traveling companion. She wanted to know
+all about the West. She knew all about the region they were passing
+through, and the whole afternoon ride was a delight.</p>
+
+<p>During the journey Harding and Ashley had been begging Carlin to
+accompany them to Massachusetts, and he had finally promised to give
+them a positive answer that day. After a while he emerged from the
+drawing room and said: "I am sorry, but I cannot go East with you. These
+ladies have been good enough to come out and meet me. We will all go on
+as far as Chicago and see you off, but we cannot very well extend the
+journey further. Indeed, Miss Susie intimates that I am too awkward a
+man to be safe east of Chicago."</p>
+
+<p>The others saw how it was and did not further importune him. Next day
+they separated, Carlin's last words being, "If you ever come within five
+hundred miles of Peoria stop and stay a month."</p>
+
+<p>The grand city was passed. The train swung around the end of Lake
+Michigan, leaving the magical city in its wake. Through the beautiful
+region of Southern Michigan it hurried on. Detroit was reached and
+passed; the arm of the Dominion was crossed, and finally, when in the
+early morning the train stopped, the boom of Niagara filled the air, and
+the enchantment of the picture which the river and the sunlight suspend
+there before mortals, was in full view. Next the valley of the Genesee
+was unfolded, and with each increasing mile more and more distinct grew
+the clamors of toiling millions, jubilant with life and measureless in
+energy. Swifter and more frequent was the rush of the chariots on which
+modern commerce is borne, and all the time to the eyes of the men of the
+desert the lovely homes which fill that region flitted by like the
+castles of dreamland.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the day the panorama of the Mohawk Valley began to unroll and
+was drawn out in picture after picture of rare loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley and Harding were enchanted. It was as though they had emerged
+into a new world.</p>
+
+<p>"Think of it, Ashley," said Harding. "It is but eight days&mdash;at this very
+hour&mdash;since we were having that wrestle with death in the depths of the
+Bullion mine. Think of that and then look around upon these serene homes
+and the lavish loveliness of this scenery."</p>
+
+<p>"I know now how Moses felt, when from the crest of Pisgah he looked down
+to where the Promised Land was outstretched before him," was the reply.
+"I feel as I fancy a soul must feel, when at last it realizes there is a
+second birth."</p>
+
+<p>Said Harding: "I dread more and more to meet these people where we are
+going. How uncouth we will seem to them and to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Our errand will plead our excuses," said Ashley; "besides they will be
+too much absorbed with something else to pay much attention to us.
+Moreover they will know that our lives of late have been passed mostly
+under ground, and they will not expect us to reflect much light."</p>
+
+<p>"What are your plans, Ashley, for the near future, after this business
+which we have in hand shall be over?" asked Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"A home in old Pennsylvania is to be purchased," said Ashley, "and then
+a trial with my fellow men for a fortune and for such honors as may be
+fairly won. And you Harding, what have you marked out?"</p>
+
+<p>Said Harding: "My father's estate is to be redeemed; after that,
+whatever a strong right arm backing an honest purpose, can win. But one
+thing we must not forget. We must be the semi-guardians of those
+children of Brewster, until they shall pass beyond our care."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very right, my boy," said Ashley. "Brewster was altogether
+grand and his children must ever be our concernment."</p>
+
+<p>In the early night the Hudson was crossed and the train plunged on
+through the hills beyond. At Walpole early next morning the train was
+boarded by three gentlemen who searched out Harding and Ashley and
+introduced themselves as old friends of Brewster and his family. They
+had come out to escort the body of Brewster to Taunton, now only a few
+miles off. The names of these men were respectively Hartwell, Hill and
+Burroughs.</p>
+
+<p>Hartwell explained that the remains would be taken to an undertaker, and
+examined to see if it would be possible for the children and Mrs.
+Wolcott, the sister of Brewster, to look upon their father's and
+brother's face. He also said the funeral would be on the succeeding day.
+Then the particulars of the accident were asked.</p>
+
+<p>A full and graphic account of the whole affair had been published in the
+Virginia City papers.</p>
+
+<p>Copies of these were produced and handed over as giving a full idea of
+the calamity.</p>
+
+<p>The statement made by the superintendent of the Bullion including the
+smaller certificate of deposit, also the other effects of Brewster, all
+but the money obtained from Miller, were transferred to Mr. Hartwell.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching Taunton a great number of sympathizing friends were in
+waiting, for Brewster had lived there all his life until he went West
+three years before, and he was much esteemed. The manner of his death
+added to the general sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>A hearse in waiting, at once took the body away. The young men were
+taken to his home by Mr. Hartwell. They begged to be permitted to go to
+a hotel, but the request would not be listened to.</p>
+
+<p>On examination it was found that the work of the embalmer had been most
+thorough. The face of Brewster was quite natural and placid, as though
+in sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast was in waiting for the young men, and when it was disposed of
+they were shown again to the parlors and introduced to a score of people
+who had gathered in to hear the story of Brewster's death from the lips
+of the men who had taken his body from the deep pit and brought it home
+for burial.</p>
+
+<p>In the conversation which followed two or three hours were consumed.</p>
+
+<p>When the callers had gone, Hartwell said:</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, I advise you to go to your rooms and try and get some rest.
+In two or three hours I shall want you to go and make a call with me, if
+the poor family of my friend can bear it."</p>
+
+<p>Late that afternoon Hartwell knocked on the door of the sitting room,
+which, with sleeping apartments on either side, had been given Harding
+and Ashley, and when the door was opened, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, please come with me, the children of James Brewster desire
+to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>The young men arose and followed their host. Brewster had always
+referred to his daughters as his "little girls;" the man who had the
+young men to go and meet them, spoke of them as "the children of James
+Brewster." Both Harding and Ashley, as they followed Hartwell, were
+mentally framing words of comfort to speak to school misses just
+entering their teens, who were in sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>When then, they were ushered into the presence of two thoroughly
+accomplished young women, and when these ladies, with tears streaming
+down their faces, came forward, shook their hands, and, in broken words
+of warmest gratitude, thanked them for all they had done and were doing,
+and for all they had been to their father in life and in death, the men
+from the desert were lost in surprise and astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>As Harding said later: "I felt as though I was in a drift on the
+2,800-foot level, into which no air pipe had been carried."</p>
+
+<p>This apparition was all the more startling to them, because during the
+two or three years that they had been at work on the Comstock, the very
+nature of their occupation forbade their mingling in the society of
+refined women to any but a most limited extent.</p>
+
+<p>From the papers given the family by Hartwell that day, matters were
+fully understood by the sister of Brewster and the young ladies, so no
+explanations were asked. At first the conversation was little more than
+warm thanks on the part of the young ladies and modest and half
+incoherent replies.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies were in the humble home of their father's widowed sister,
+Mrs. Wolcott. That they were all poor was apparent from all the
+surroundings. This fact at length forced its way through the bewildered
+brain of Harding and furnished him a happy expedient to say something
+without advertising himself the idiot that he, in that hour, would have
+been willing to make an affidavit that he was. Said he:</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies, amid all the sorrows that we bring to you, we have, what but
+for your grief would be good news. Tell them, Ashley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," said Ashley, "we have something which is yours, and which,
+while no balm for sorrow like yours, will, we sincerely hope, be the
+means of driving some cares from your lives."</p>
+
+<p>Taking a memorandum from his pocket, he continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Your father left more property than he himself knew of. How it was
+Harding and myself will explain at some other time, if you desire. At
+present it is only necessary to say that the amount is forty-two
+thousand and six hundred dollars, for which we have brought you a bill
+of exchange." With that he extended the paper to Miss Brewster. Then
+these brave girls began to tremble and quake indeed. "It can not be,"
+said Mabel. "There must be some mistake," said Mildred.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, there is no mistake," said Harding. "See, it is a banker's
+order on a Boston bank, and is payable to your joint order. No one can
+draw it until you have both endorsed it, for it is yours."</p>
+
+<p>Then these girls fell into each others arms and sobbed afresh.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they could the miners retired.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel Brewster was tall, of slender form and severely classic face. She
+had blue eyes, inherited from her mother, and that shade of hair which
+is dusky in a faint light, but which turns to gold in sunlight. Her
+complexion was very fair, her hands and arms were exquisite and her
+manners most winsome.</p>
+
+<p>Mildred, her sister, was of quite another type. A year and a half
+younger than Mabel, she looked older than her sister. She had her
+father's black eyes, and like him, a prominent nose and resolute mouth.
+She was lower of statue and fuller of form than her sister. She had also
+a larger hand and stronger arm. Over all was poised a superb head,
+crowned with masses of tawny hair.</p>
+
+<p>Standing in their simple mourning robes, with the afternoon sun shining
+around them, they looked as Helen and Cassandra might have looked, while
+yet the innocence and splendor of early womanhood were upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel was such a woman as men dream of and struggle to possess; Mildred
+was such an one as men die for when necessary, and do not count it a
+sacrifice.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>MABEL AND MILDRED.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>From the house the young men walked rapidly away, and so busy were they
+with their own thoughts that neither spoke until they entered a wooded
+park or common, and finding a rustic bench sat down.</p>
+
+<p>Harding was the first to speak. "After all his mighty toil; after his
+self-sacrificing life; after all his struggles, Brewster died and was
+not permitted to see his children. It is most pitiable."</p>
+
+<p>"May be he sees them now," said Ashley, softly. "It can not be far from
+here to Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had never seen her," said Harding, impetuously. And then all
+his reserve breaking down he arose, stretched out his arms and cried:</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had died in Brewster's stead."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she not divine?" said Ashley. "A very Iris, goddess of the rainbow,
+bringing divine commands to man, his guide and his adviser."</p>
+
+<p>"Say not so," said Harding. "Rather she is Ceres, in her original purity
+returned to earth; flowers bloom under the soft light of her divine
+eyes, and all bountifulness rests in the heaven of her white arms. I
+tell you, Ashley, the man who could have that woman's eyes to smile up
+approvingly upon him, would have to move on from conquest to conquest so
+long as life lasted."</p>
+
+<p>An anxious look came over the face of Ashley. "Which lady do you mean?"
+he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Mean!" echoed Harding. "I mean she of the royal brow and starry eyes,
+Mildred Brewster."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God," said Ashley with a great sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"And why do you thank God?" asked Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said Ashley, "to me Mabel is the dainty, the divine one. She
+comes upon the eye as a perfect soprano voice smites on a musical ear."</p>
+
+<p>"You are growing musical, are you?" said Harding. "Well then, the other
+is a celestial contralto, deep-toned and full and sweet, materialized."</p>
+
+<p>After this both were silent for a moment and then Ashley began to laugh
+low to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your hilarity occasioned by?" asked Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking what fools we have been making of ourselves," said
+Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"And how did you reach that estimate, pray?" asked Harding.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Harding," was the answer, "an hour ago we met two ladies. They
+were not what we expected to find, and they brought a sort of
+enchantment to us. We saw them first an hour ago; we will to-morrow see
+them once more, and that will be all; and still we have been raving like
+two lunatics for the past half hour about them."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," was the sad reply. "See yonder on the street corner."</p>
+
+<p>Just then a dainty carriage and a set of heavy trucks met on the corner
+and passed each other, the carriage turning to the east, the trucks to
+the west.</p>
+
+<p>"Typical, is it not?" said Ashley. "The trucks go west&mdash;at least they
+will to-morrow night."</p>
+
+<p>"Most true," said Harding, "and still I think I would like to kiss the
+carpet that has been sanctified by the footfalls of Mildred Brewster."</p>
+
+<p>Ashley reached out, seized Harding's wrist and felt his pulse.</p>
+
+<p>"You have got it bad, Harding," said he, "and I don't feel very well
+myself. If poor Corrigan were alive again and here we would get him to
+tell us about Maggie Murphy."</p>
+
+<p>"We have had a mirage, Ashley. Let us pray that it will soon pass by,"
+said Harding.</p>
+
+<p>And then without another word being spoken, they returned to the
+hospitable house of Hartwell.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The following is the copy of a letter written by Mrs. Wolcott to the
+widow of her deceased husband's brother, Mrs. Abby Roberts, of Eastport,
+Maine:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Taunton</span>, Sept. 20th, 1878.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sister</span>:&mdash;I wrote you briefly of the dispatch announcing
+the death of my brother James, in a Nevada mine, and that his
+embalmed body was being brought home by two miners. Since then
+events have crowded upon me so swiftly that I have not had
+composure enough to think of writing.</p>
+
+<p>The remains of my brother reached here on the 29th ultimo. Mr.
+Hartwell, Mr. Hill and Mr. Burroughs went out as far as Walpole
+on the railroad to meet the train on which the body was being
+brought.</p>
+
+<p>The miners were taken home by Mr. Hartwell. On examination my
+poor brother's face was found to look quite natural, and it
+wore an expression so restful that I could not help but feel as
+though it was an indictation that after his hard physical toil
+and fierce mental troubles, he was at peace at last.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel, you know, has been with me since she graduated in June.
+On receiving the dispatch we telegraphed to Mildred at Mt.
+Holyoke to come home at once, so both girls were with me when
+the remains arrived.</p>
+
+<p>From the two miners who came with the body Mr. Hartwell
+received the Nevada papers giving an account of the accident in
+which James was killed; also a letter from the superintendent
+of the mine, stating that after all expenses were paid my poor
+brother left eight hundred and forty dollars to his children.
+This we all thought was most wonderful, considering the amount
+regularly sent the children. It shows that poor James lived a
+most economical life in the West and that the wages paid there
+are generous.</p>
+
+<p>The letter of the superintendent stated that the two miners who
+were to accompany the remains home had risked their lives in
+trying to rescue James, and the published account showed that
+one of them had fainted in the dreadful chamber of the mine
+while the exhaustion of the other was so extreme that he was
+entirely prostrated and seized with chills and vomiting upon
+being brought out into the open air.</p>
+
+<p>Of course myself and the girls were anxious to meet and thank
+these men, but I confess that at the same time we all dreaded
+the interview awfully. Good land! You know what we have been
+reading about Western miners for the last twenty-five years,
+and we could not help but feel that if they should prove to be
+quiet men it would only at best be a case of wild beast with a
+collar and chain on. And what to do with them at the funeral
+was something which had been troubling us ever since the
+receipt of the dispatch. It was to be in church and on Sunday
+and it was certain that there would be a church full of people.
+How to be polite, and at the same time how to get those men in
+and out of a church without their doing something dreadful was
+a question which I confess had worried me and I could see that
+it was worrying Mabel, too. Mildred did not seem to think much
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hartwell called upon us and told us he was going to bring
+them over at once and we sat down in fear and trembling to wait
+their arrival.</p>
+
+<p>You can never imagine our surprise when Mr. Hartwell showed
+them into our parlor and we saw them for the first time. Both
+were young men, one not more than thirty, and the other not
+more than twenty-four years of age; both were dressed with
+perfect taste, in dark business suits of fashionable clothes,
+and though slightly confused&mdash;I guess startled is a better
+word&mdash;both, with considerate gentleness, and with a grave
+courtesy, in low voices, addressed me first and then the
+children.</p>
+
+<p>They expected to find school children, they met young ladies&mdash;I
+may say beautiful young ladies if I am their aunt&mdash;and I think
+the surprise for a moment threw them off their guard.</p>
+
+<p>But they certainly were not more astonished than were we. Mabel
+well nigh broke down, but Mildred, with her more matter-of-fact
+nature, bore the ordeal nobly.</p>
+
+<p>While the girls were talking I stole the opportunity to look
+more closely at the men. My surprise increased every moment.
+Instead of a pair of bronzed bruisers, they stood there with
+faces that were as free from tan as the face of a
+closely-housed woman. They were each of about medium height,
+but with broad shoulders, tremendous chests and powerful arms.
+The younger one had a firm foot and large hand and the frankest
+open face you ever looked into. The other had smaller hands,
+feet and features, but their heads were both superb, and the
+first words they spoke revealed that both were fairly educated.
+The younger one was light with auburn hair. He wore a heavy
+mustache; the rest of his face was clean shaven. The other was
+darker with gray eyes, brown hair, with full beard, but neatly
+trimmed, and the hair of both was of fashionable cut. I tell
+you, sister, as they stood there they would have borne
+inspection even in Boston.</p>
+
+<p>After the first greetings were over and we had all gained a
+little composure, the men explained to us that James was
+possessed of more property than he himself was aware of, and
+one of them handed to Mabel a paper which he called "a bill of
+exchange" on a Boston bank for forty two thousand six hundred
+dollars. Since then they have explained that the money was made
+by a friend of my brother, and that it was accomplished by
+buying stocks when they were low and selling them when they
+were high, which seems to me to be a most profitable business.
+You see it makes the girls rich when they thought they were so
+poor, and were counting only on lives of hard work.</p>
+
+<p>The visit of the young men was only a very brief one, not five
+minutes in duration it seemed to me, but they were moments of
+great excitement to our little household as you may well
+believe. When they were gone Mabel said: "Are they not
+perfectly splendid?" and I said: "Indeed, they are," but
+Mildred merely said: "They seem to be real gentlemen." That
+Mildred is the strangest girl.</p>
+
+<p>The funeral was to be the next day, and in anticipation of it
+we had bought cheap mourning hats and plain bombazine mourning
+habits, such as I thought would be becoming to people in our
+circumstances. But when I learned that the girls were no longer
+poor, I thought it would be only proper that they should have
+more expensive dresses. So as soon as the young men had gone, I
+sent a message to Mrs. Buffets, the dressmaker, and Mrs.
+Tibbetts, the milliner, asking them to do me the favor to call
+upon me at once, if possible. They both called within a few
+minutes. Before they came, however, I explained to the girls
+what I had done, at which Mabel was very glad, but Mildred
+seemed perfectly indifferent. She hardly spoke after the young
+men went away for several minutes. I think their coming had
+turned her thoughts back more intently upon her father. Mrs.
+Tibbetts came first and from her Mabel ordered three expensive
+hats. I expostulated against her buying a hat for me but she
+would have it so. When we explained what was wanted to Mrs.
+Buffets, she declared at first that it was impossible without
+working after twelve o'clock on Saturday night which she did
+not like to do as she was a member in good standing in the
+First Baptist church, but she finally agreed that she would
+try, provided we would pay what would be extra for her sewing
+girls. This she estimated would amount on three dresses to at
+least seven dollars and a half. I have no idea that the girls
+got more than half a dollar apiece extra and there were but
+seven of them, and that the rest was clear gain to Mrs.
+Buffets, but that is the advantage which is always taken of
+people when there is a funeral.</p>
+
+<p>We had a hard time with Mildred. She insisted that two dresses
+and hats were all that were required, one for Mabel and one for
+aunty; that as yet she was a school girl and the cheap raiment
+was good enough for her. I think she would have refused to
+yield had I not told her that unless she did I would not accept
+either hat or habit; then she consented.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, it may seem like vanity to speak of such a thing in
+so sad a connection, but the dresses were most lovely. The
+girls' were of rich and soft cashmere, mine was of Henrietta
+cloth. I must say that in the new clothes the girls did look
+beautiful at the funeral, and I was as proud of them as I could
+be on so sad an occasion.</p>
+
+<p>That Saturday evening after we talked the matter over, the
+girls sent an invitation over to Mr. Hartwell's house to the
+miners to attend the funeral with us. The invitation was
+answered by the younger miner, Harding. He accepted the
+invitation for himself and his friend, stating that Ashley (the
+other one) was temporarily absent in the city. The note was
+beautifully written and every word was spelled correctly.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, a few minutes before it was time to proceed to
+the church, the young men came in.</p>
+
+<p>They were scrupulously dressed in black and their attire even
+to their hats and gloves was in perfect taste.</p>
+
+<p>Mildred betrayed more agitation than on the first meeting. She
+is a strange girl and the loss of her father almost crushed
+her. Mabel, however, received them with a grace which was
+queenly and in her new robes she looked like a queen indeed.</p>
+
+<p>When it came time to go to the church, I supposed, of course,
+the young men would offer to escort the girls. Besides Mildred,
+Mabel and myself, Aunt Abigail, James' wife's grandmother had
+come down to the funeral. You know she is old now&mdash;past 73; she
+never was very pretty and coming down from the country her
+dress and bonnet&mdash;good land, she was a sight.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel could not conceal her mortification, and I must say I
+should have been glad if she had not come.</p>
+
+<p>As we stood up to go, the younger miner said gently: "Ashley,
+will you not see to Mrs. Wolcott?" and then he went up to Aunt
+Abigail and with as much kindly politeness as I ever saw
+displayed, asked her to lean upon him in the walk to the
+church. The other one gave me his arm, at the same time saying:
+"The young ladies are the nearer relatives, they should walk in
+front." His face was fair, but the arm I took was as hard as
+iron.</p>
+
+<p>I said: "No matter, Mildred take the other arm of Mr. Ashley
+and Mabel take that of Mr. Harding!" This was done except that
+somehow in the confusion Mildred took the arm of Harding and
+Mabel sought the disengaged arm of Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>At the church we were seated in the front pew, of course. You
+never saw such a crowd at a funeral. I noticed as we worked our
+way up the aisle, men there that had not been in a church
+before for years.</p>
+
+<p>There were, besides, the Brown, the Smith and the Jones
+families who were never before known to attend an ordinary
+funeral.</p>
+
+<p>I mention this merely to show how much James was respected.</p>
+
+<p>The services were most impressive. The organ was played as we
+entered the church. When we were seated there was a short
+prayer, then a chant with organ accompaniment was rendered.
+Professor Van Dyke, the music teacher at the seminary, presided
+at the organ and Jane Emerson led the sopranos. She sang her
+best and people do tell me that they have paid money to hear
+women sing in concerts that could not sing as well as Jane
+Emerson. If Jane was only a little better looking and knew how
+to dress in better style and if her father only belonged to a
+better family, there would not be a young woman in Taunton with
+brighter prospects than hers.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ashman's main prayer was a most touching one and it moved
+many in the congregation to tears. He preached from John, the
+fourteenth chapter and eighteenth verse.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was generally conceded that the sermon was one of the
+minister's best efforts since be preached in Taunton. Miss Hume
+who was present says she never heard a finer discourse in
+Boston.</p>
+
+<p>The burden of the sermon was that the promise to send a
+comforter to the disciples was a promise made for all time, to
+those in sorrow, that if they would but ask, the comforter
+would come to them. When the sermon was over and the choir had
+sung again; the minister said, as many persons present would
+like to know the particulars of James' death he would read the
+account from the <i>Territorial Enterprise</i>, a paper published in
+Virginia City only a few miles from the Nevada mines. He said
+further that the report was written by a Mr. De Quille, who he
+presumed was a descendant of the distinguished family of France
+of that name, that the account showed that he was a very
+learned man and graphic writer, and such a man could only be
+retained by the receipt of an enormous salary.</p>
+
+<p>He further explained that where the word shaft was used it
+meant a hole like a well which men sunk in order to get the
+rock out from underground that had silver in it, that drifts
+were places in the mines where the rock that had the silver in
+it lay in ridges like snow drifts; that stations were where men
+kept lunch stands for the miners, that tunnels were holes made
+in the shape of a funnel to get air down in the mine, that a
+winze was a corruption for windlass, and cages were simply
+elevators, like those in use in hotels, but made like cages so
+that men could not fall out, that run up and down in the well.</p>
+
+<p>You never at a revival saw a congregation so excited as that
+one was during the reading of that account. They tell me that
+men were as pale as death all over the house while the sobbing
+of women could be heard above the reading.</p>
+
+<p>But our two miners never showed a bit of emotion and never
+seemed conscious that every eye in the church was on them. The
+only things I noticed were that during the singing the older
+one was softly beating time on his hymn book, and both moved a
+little uneasily in their seats when the minister was explaining
+the mining terms.</p>
+
+<p>After the children had looked for the last time on their
+father's face, the young men who had been standing at the foot
+of the coffin, walked up to the head, one on each side. After a
+long gaze at James' face they turned facing each other and
+stretching out their hands, clasped hands a moment over the
+coffin. I suppose that is a custom among miners in the west.</p>
+
+<p>Brother's body was buried beside that of his wife.</p>
+
+<p>The young men remained in Taunton two weeks after the funeral.
+We all went on a little excursion to Buzzards Bay and to Cape
+Cod. I never saw better behaved men, even those that come down
+from Boston, than those two miners. They received a great many
+attentions, too, here in Taunton and every day were obliged to
+decline invitations to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>There is a story going around, but I do not believe it is true,
+that one morning early they went to a livery stable and asked
+for two wild horses, regular furies, that had thrown their
+riders the previous day, that they mounted them and the horses
+reared and plunged awfully but they rode rapidly out of town;
+that they were gone an hour and a half and when they returned
+the horses were covered with foam and seemed perfectly gentle.</p>
+
+<p>Just before going away they came over one day to my house and
+telling the girls that they had received so many kindnesses
+from so many people that they wanted to make a little picnic
+festival in Mr. Hartwell's grounds, asked them to help suggest
+names for the invitations. The festival was to be the next
+afternoon. What do you think? That morning carpenters came and
+fixed benches and tables on the grounds, the three o'clock
+train brought the &mdash;&mdash; Cornet Band from Boston, and at five
+o'clock in the afternoon the waiters in the &mdash;&mdash; Hotel
+appeared, set the tables and waited on the guests. They had
+sent up to Boston for the dinner and I never saw anything like
+it in my life.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hartwell says the expense must have been at least two
+hundred and twenty-five dollars. Those Western men are awfully
+extravagant.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning they went away. The older one to Pennsylvania,
+where he will live hereafter, and the other one to California,
+where he has property. We have been real lonesome ever since
+they went away.</p>
+
+<p>Mildred left us yesterday to return to school, and will
+graduate next June, she says on the day she is eighteen. Mabel,
+you know, was eighteen and a half when she graduated last June,
+but Mildred always was a little the most forward scholar of her
+age. Since the funeral the girls have purchased some beautiful
+clothing, and it would do your heart good to see them. My
+letter is pretty long but I could tell you as much more if I
+had time.</p>
+
+<p>Your loving sister,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha Wolcott</span>.</p>
+
+<p>P. S.&mdash;I want to tell you a secret. I think that Ashley, the
+older miner, and Mabel have a liking for each other, though I
+don't know, except that I saw Ashley kiss Mabel as he was going
+away. All I can say is that if they should make a match, there
+would not be a handsomer couple in Massachusetts. It is only a
+surmise on my part that they are fond of each other. After the
+young men had been gone for several hours I asked Mabel if
+there were any serious relations between her and Ashley, and
+she answered: "Not the least serious auntie, our relations are
+altogether pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>M. W.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The next letter from Mrs. Wolcott to Mrs. Roberts read like this:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Taunton</span>, Sept. 13th, 1879.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sister</span>:&mdash;It is now almost a year since I wrote you the
+letter telling you of brother James' funeral and that I half
+suspected a fondness had sprung up between one of the men who
+came with the remains of James and Mabel. Well, I was correct
+in my suspicion for last Thursday they were married and left by
+the evening train for their future home in Pennsylvania. He has
+an iron mine in the mountains and reduction works at Pittsburg
+and is making money very fast. Their home is in Pittsburg.</p>
+
+<p>I thought at first that I was mistaken because no letters came
+to Mabel, but it seems Mabel made a confident of her cousin
+George who is a conductor on a train which runs between here
+and Providence, he hired a box in the postoffice there, Mabel's
+letters were sent to that postoffice and George brought them to
+her. This was done to thwart the curiosity of the wife of the
+postmaster here. The postmaster himself is a good meaning man,
+but his wife is a real gossip and had frequent letters come
+from one place to Mabel the whole town would have known it in
+no time. When it was known that the girls had received a large
+amount of money the Browns, the Smiths and the Proctors, who
+had never called before, all came and begged Mabel, now that
+she had graduated, (look at the hypocrisy) to come out more in
+the world. Young Henry Proctor called several times and in less
+than a fortnight asked Mabel if he might not sit up with her on
+Saturday nights. He is a very proud young man and it is said he
+will have twelve thousand dollars when he goes out for himself
+next year, but Mabel declined any particular attentions from
+him. She did the same thing with half a dozen more young men of
+the best families. I was perplexed. Of course I was in no hurry
+for Mabel to marry, but good opportunities for girls are none
+too plenty, so many young men go West, and when I saw her throw
+away chance after chance, and some of them so eligible, I was
+afraid she would be sorry sometime, for careless as girls are,
+they all expect sometime to be married. It went on so until six
+weeks ago when suddenly one evening Mabel said: "Auntie come go
+with me to Boston to-morrow." "What are you going to Boston
+for?" I asked. "There is a young man coming here to carry me
+away in a few weeks, Aunty, and I need a few things," said she.
+"And who is the young man, Mabel?" I asked. "Herbert Ashley,"
+was the answer, and then she fell on her knees and burying her
+face in my lap sobbed for joy. I cried a little, too, it was so
+sudden. "But when were you engaged?" I asked after she grew a
+little composed. "We have had a perfect understanding since the
+week after father's funeral," said she, and then added: "My
+heart followed him out of the house on that first day when I
+had only looked once in his eyes. Is he not grand, Auntie?"
+"But why have you never told me?" I asked. Then she put her
+arms around me and said: "Because, dear Aunty, you know you
+could not have kept my secret." I was hurt at this, because
+every body knows how close mouthed I am. But I went to Boston
+and, what do you think? that girl spent over seven hundred
+dollars just for clothes. I remonstrated, but she cut me short,
+saying, "I am going with my king, and I must not disgrace his
+court." Did you ever hear such talk? When I was married I had
+just two merino dresses, one brown and one blue, four muslin
+dresses and some plain underclothing. But I had a beautiful
+feather bed that I had made myself, four comforters, two
+quilted bed spreads in small patterns, and a full set of dishes
+that cost six dollars and a half in Portland. Things are
+greatly changed since I was a girl. Well, Mr. Ashley came; he
+is a splendid man. Mabel slipped away with her cousin and went
+down to Providence to meet him. He brought Mabel jewelry that
+the best judges here think cost as much as a thousand dollars.
+It is shameful, the extravagance of those Western men. Why, he
+gave the minister that married them fifty dollars, which you
+know yourself was a clear waste of forty-five dollars. Five
+dollars is certainly enough for five minutes work of a
+minister, especially if he and his wife are also given a fine
+supper. Mr. Ashley also gave Mildred some beautiful jewelry. It
+must have cost two hundred and fifty dollars, and he was most
+generous to me, too. On his wedding day he got five dispatches
+from the West; one from Illinois, two from Virginia City,
+Nevada, and two from California, congratulating him, and they
+must have cost the senders as much as fifty dollars. Thank
+goodness, they all came marked "paid." The wedding was in the
+church in the evening. It had been whispered around and the
+church was full. Land sakes, but they were a lovely couple.
+Mabel's dress was white satin with princesse train of brocaded
+satin. The front of the skirt was trimmed with lace flounces,
+headed with garlands of lilies of the valley and orange
+blossoms. She wore also a long tulle veil, with orange blossoms
+in the hair. Her dress cost one hundred and fifty-three dollars
+and thirty-seven cents. I did not think the train was necessary
+and there was no need of a veil, leastwise not so long a one,
+but it was Mabel's wish to have them, so I did not object. Mrs.
+White said she never saw a handsomer bride in Boston nor a more
+manly looking groom. I confess I was proud of them both. We had
+a quiet little party at my house and a supper, and at ten
+o'clock they went away by special train to Providence. Think of
+the foolishness of hiring a special train, when the regular
+train would have come by next morning. Mr. Ashley wanted to
+have what he called a "boss wedding;" wanted to ask half the
+town and, as he said, "shake up Taunton for once," but Mabel
+coaxed him out of the idea. He wanted me to sell or rent my
+place and with Mildred go and make his home mine, but I don't
+think that is the best way. Young married folks want to be let
+alone mostly, while they are getting acquainted with each
+other. Mildred has been home since she graduated in June. I
+think she has discouraged more men since she came home than
+ever Mabel did. She has improved greatly in her personal
+appearance and is a girl of most decided character. When she
+first came home we used to tease her about her beaux, but we do
+not any more. When the young men were here last year, after we
+got pretty well acquainted, one day when they had called
+Mildred took a sheet of paper and pen and going to Mr. Harding,
+said: "Mr. Harding, please write an inscription to put upon
+Father's monument." He took the pen and wrote: "The truest,
+best of men." Well, one day about a month ago Mildred had gone
+down town for something when Mabel wanting scissors, or thimble
+or something which she had mislaid, went to Mildred's work
+basket to get hers. There under some soft wools that Mildred
+had been working upon Mabel saw the end of a ribbon and picking
+it up drew out a locket which was attached to it. She could not
+control her curiosity but brought it to me. I gave Mabel
+liberty to open it though my sense of perfect justice was a
+good deal shocked. To tell the truth I was dying to see what
+was in it. Mabel opened it and inside there was nothing but
+that bit of paper with the words in Harding's hand-writing:
+"The truest, best of men." There were some stains on the paper
+but whether they were made by kisses or tears we could not make
+out though I put on my gold-rimmed spectacles, which are
+powerful magnifiers, and looked my best. Mabel put the locket
+back, but to this day there has not been a word said to give me
+any idea whether there is anything like an engagement or not.
+Mildred is so quiet and self-contained that if her heart was
+breaking I do not believe she would say a word. I should be
+glad to think they were engaged, for privately, I liked Mr.
+Harding a little the best, but if they had been it seems to me
+he would have been here to the wedding. I don't know when I
+have been so worked up about anything. If I was fifteen years
+younger, and I thought the majority of men in the West were
+like the two that I have seen, I would sell my place and go
+West, too.</p>
+
+<p>Your affectionate sister,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha Wolcott</span>.</p>
+
+<p>P. S.&mdash;When Mr. Ashley was here he took the girls out to James'
+grave. We had put up a plain stone but Mr. Ashley did not like
+it. When he came in he ordered the finest monument in the
+marble works. Those that have seen it say it is real Italian
+marble, and that it is handsomer than the one that the banker
+Sherman erected over his wife and that cost over five hundred
+and fifty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>M. W.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This letter explains itself:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Los Angeles</span>, Cal., March 20, 1880.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Darling Sister</span>:&mdash;We reached our home here last night. While
+I write the perfume of almonds and orange blossoms, of climbing
+vines, and roses shedding their incense in lavish fragrance
+steals in through the open window. A mocking bird is mimicking
+an oriole's warblings, and I fancy I feel at this moment as do
+ransomed souls when amid the mansions of the redeemed they open
+their eyes and know that for them joy is to be eternal. You
+have always called me "Old Matter-of-Fact." Well, then, just
+imagine me sitting here half blinded by the tears of happiness
+that I can not restrain.</p>
+
+<p>But let me tell you of my journey. You remember that though the
+sky was bright overhead&mdash;as bright as it can be in
+Pittsburg&mdash;on the morning that we were married, when we took
+the train in the evening it was snowing hard. Before morning
+the train was delayed by the snow. We worried along, however,
+and the next evening arrived at Peoria, Illinois. Here an old
+friend of my husband (is not that word husband lovely?) your
+husband and father's, with his wife met us at the depot and we
+had to go home with them and stay two days. The man's name is
+Carlin and he is "a splendid fellow," as they say out this way.
+He was one of the Club to which our husbands belonged. He has a
+mill, store and farm a few miles from Peoria and seems to be
+the first man in that region. He has, too, a charming wife whom
+he calls "Susie Dick," and a six months' old baby which he
+calls "Brewster Miller Carlin." They are as hearty people in
+their friendship as I ever met. They asked all about your
+husband, and yourself, and I had to get out your photograph to
+convince them that you were far more beautiful than myself.
+When we arrived Mr. Carlin sent out and got in some twenty
+couples, and to use his own expression, "we made a night of
+it," and "painted the town red," that is until midnight. They
+made me sing and play, and one old gentleman present made me
+proud, by telling me "you beat ord'nary primer donners." After
+the company retired Mr. Carlin asked me how I liked the old
+gentleman's pronunciation, and then husband said the old
+gentleman knew as much about music as our minister in Taunton
+did about mining. Then he told Mr. Carlin what Mr. Ashman said
+about tunnels, drifts, stations, etc., and the man laughed
+until the tears ran down his cheeks. Well, at length, with
+blessings, presents, and packed lunch baskets, we got away. All
+through Illinois and Iowa the world was hid by the snow, we
+passed Omaha, crossed Nebraska, climbed the Rocky Mountains and
+came down on this side, and swept across the desert of Nevada
+to Reno. Here we stopped and next day went to Virginia City. I
+wanted to visit the place where our father died. In Virginia
+City&mdash;which is a city on a desert mountain side&mdash;you cannot
+conceive of such a place&mdash;the wind was blowing a hurricane;
+blowing as at the old home, it comes in sometimes from the
+ocean in a southeaster. Husband took me to the fatal Bullion
+shaft. The men were just then changing shift as they call it;
+the men who had worked eight hours were coming out of the mine,
+those who were to work the next eight hours were going down.
+The shaft is half a mile deep and the cage loaded with nine men
+shoots up out of the dreadful gloom or drops back into it as
+though it were nothing. Many of the miners greeted husband
+warmly, and were hearty in their welcomes to me, though they
+were not encumbered by any great amount of clothing. I turned
+away from the shaft almost in a panic, I could not bear to took
+at it. But Virginia City is a wonderful place, I would tell you
+more of it, if you had not some one near you who can tell it
+much better than I can. We met a great many pleasant people
+there, especially a lawyer named Col. Savage, a journalist, a
+Mr. Strong and a Professor Stoneman. They met us like brothers
+and spoke of your Herbert as another brother. We left that same
+evening and returning to Reno started up the Sierras. I confess
+that a feeling of something like desolation took possession of
+me. The region was so dreary, it seemed to me that only my
+husband was between me and chaos. After leaving Reno a couple
+of hours, we entered the snow sheds and I went to sleep with a
+thought that I was under a mountain of snow. I wakened next
+morning in Sacramento and when I looked out the birds were
+singing and flowers were blooming around me. Before noon we
+reached San Francisco and drove to the Palace. There we were
+met by a gentleman named Miller, the one that made for father
+our money. He is very rich. He told husband that he had been
+"coppering" the market ever since he came to the city and had
+"taken every trick." Later I asked husband what "coppering"
+meant and he smiled and said: "betting that it will not win." I
+do not quite understand it yet, but I know it is right for
+husband says so. This Mr. Miller told husband that he was going
+to make me a present and that he must not say a word at which
+Sammy said "go ahead." Then he handed me a little package but
+said I must not open it until I reached home. What do you
+think? It is a diamond cluster which the cost of must have been
+fifteen hundred dollars. In San Francisco I found the most
+delicious flowers I ever saw. Tell aunty, too, that there are
+no such hotels, as one or two in San Francisco, "not even in
+Boston." There are splendid churches and theatres. The Bay is
+beautiful, the park is going to be grand, the ladies dress most
+richly. We sailed over to Saucelito and San Rafael, looked out
+through the Golden Gate&mdash;in short, ran around for a week. Then
+we came directly home, reaching this place last night.</p>
+
+<p>A charming supper was in waiting, and, all smiles, the Chinaman
+who prepared it was in attendance. His name is Yap Sing, and he
+has been with husband ever since his first return from the
+East. He was the cook for the Club which you have heard our
+husbands talk about, and of course knew father. He fairly ran
+over with joy at our coming, and such a cook as he is. I would
+like to hear what Aunt Martha would say to one of his dinners.
+But husband pays him forty dollars a month. Is not that a
+dreadful price for a cook?</p>
+
+<p>We have received good news since coming home. Husband's mine in
+Arizona is yielding him for his one-half interest twelve
+hundred and fifty dollars per month.</p>
+
+<p>My house is a beautiful cottage, with broad halls and verandas,
+and is furnished elegantly all through.</p>
+
+<p>My heart runs over with gratitude. My soul is on its knees in
+thankfulness all the time. I believe I am the happiest woman in
+the world. "The truest and best of men" sits across the room
+writing letter after letter, clearing up a delayed
+correspondence. He is handsomer than on that day when I first
+looked in his eyes, and knew in an instant that he was my fate,
+that I should worship him forever, whether he knew it or not;
+that if he did not ask me to be his wife, I should never be a
+wife, but by myself should walk through life bearing my burdens
+as humbly and bravely as I could, and keeping my heart warm by
+the flame in the vestal lamp which his smile had kindled within
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Now heaven has opened to me, and so jubilant is my heart that I
+can feel it throbbing as I write, and with a thankfulness
+unspeakable I worship at my hero's feet.</p>
+
+<p>With warmest love to you, dear sister, and to your husband and
+Auntie, in which my other self joins heartily, I am</p>
+
+<p>Your loving sister,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mildred Brewster Harding</span>.</p>
+
+<p>P. S.&mdash;Sister: This morning as we sat here I asked my lord why
+he and your husband clasped hands over our father's coffin.
+Waiting a moment, he answered that on the journey East with
+father's body, your husband and himself made a covenant
+together that henceforth, whatever might happen, they would
+watch over us as a sacred trust received from our father, and
+that the hand-clasp was but an involuntary pledge of the
+sincerity of that compact.</p>
+
+<p>Can we ever be good enough wives to these men who do not half
+realize how grand they are?</p>
+
+<p>Love and kisses,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mildred</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Comstock Club, by Charles Carroll Goodwin
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Comstock Club, by Charles Carroll Goodwin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Comstock Club
+
+Author: Charles Carroll Goodwin
+
+Release Date: May 16, 2011 [EBook #36123]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMSTOCK CLUB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Justin Gillbank, Mary Meehan and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE COMSTOCK CLUB.
+
+                         BY C. C. GOODWIN
+
+                  EDITOR SALT LAKE DAILY TRIBUNE.
+
+
+    Neither radiant angels nor magnified monsters, but just plain,
+    true men.
+
+
+    1891.
+    TRIBUNE JOB PRINTING COMPANY,
+    SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH.
+
+    _Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by_
+    THE LEONARD PUBLISHING COMPANY,
+    _in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C._
+
+
+    TO THE
+    MINERS OF THE PACIFIC COAST,
+    THIS BOOK,
+    WHICH WAS WRITTEN WHILE WORKING FOR AND AMONG THEM,
+    IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
+    BY
+    THE AUTHOR.
+
+    _Salt Lake City, Utah, December 15, 1891._
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+I. THE OLD FLUSH DAYS
+
+II. THE CLUB
+
+III. MIRAGES
+
+IV. THE ARGONAUTS
+
+V. THE CALL OF THE BIRDS
+
+VI. THE PERFUME AND THE LIGHT
+
+VII. MAN AS A WORKER
+
+VIII. ROUGH ROYALTY
+
+IX. MORE ROYALTY
+
+X. SPECIMEN LIARS
+
+XI. THE CLUB GROWS POETICAL
+
+XII. AN UNBIASED JUDGE
+
+XIII. SISTER CELESTE
+
+XIV. TROUBLE WITH THE EXPENSE ACCOUNT
+
+XV. HUMOR OF THE WEST
+
+XVI. TROUBLE IN THE CLUB
+
+XVII. UP IN THE SHEAVES
+
+XVIII. THE TERRIBLE DEPTHS
+
+XIX. THE DAWN OF ELYSIUM
+
+XX. THREE POSTSCRIPTS
+
+
+
+
+THE COMSTOCK CLUB.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"The pioneer! Who shall fitly tell the story of his life and work?
+
+"The soldier leads an assault; it lasts but a few minutes; he knows that
+whether he lives or dies, immortality will be his reward. What wonder
+that there are brave soldiers!
+
+"But when this soldier of peace assaults the wilderness, no bugles sound
+the charge; the forest, the desert, the wild beast, the savage, the
+malaria, the fatigue, are the foes that lurk to ambush him, and if,
+against the unequal odds, he falls, no volleys are fired above him; the
+pitiless world merely sponges his name from its slate.
+
+"Thus he blazes the trails, thus he fells the trees, thus he plants his
+rude stakes, thus he faces the hardships, and whatever fate awaits him,
+his self-contained soul keeps its finger on his lips, and no
+lamentations are heard.
+
+"He smooths the rugged fields, he turns the streams, and the only cheer
+that is his is when he sees the grain ripen, and the flowers bloom where
+before was only the frown of the wilderness. When over the trail that he
+has blazed, enlightenment comes joyously, with unsoiled sandals, and
+homes and temples spring up on the soil that was first broken by him,
+his youth is gone, hope has been chastened into silence within him; he
+realizes that he is but a back number.
+
+"Not one in a thousand realizes the texture of the manhood that has been
+exhausting itself within him; few comprehend his nature or have any
+conception of his work.
+
+"But he is content. The shadows of the wilderness have been chased away;
+the savage beast and savage man have retired before him; nature has
+brought her flowers to strew the steps of his old age; in his soul he
+feels that somewhere the record of his work and of his high thoughts has
+been kept; and so he smiles upon the younger generation and is content.
+
+"May that contentment be his to the end."
+
+It was an anniversary night in Pioneer Hall, in Virginia City, Nevada,
+one July night in 1878, and the foregoing were the closing words of a
+little impromptu speech that Alex Strong had delivered.
+
+A strange, many-sided man was Alex Strong. He was an Argonaut. When the
+first tide set in toward the Golden Coast, he, but a lad, with little
+save a pony and a gun, joined a train that had crossed the Missouri and
+was headed westward.
+
+The people in the company looked upon him as a mere boy, but, later,
+when real hardships were encountered and sickness came, the boy became
+the life of the company. When women and children drooped under the
+burdens and the fear of the wilderness, it was his voice that cheered
+them on; his gun secured the tender bit of antelope or grouse to tempt
+their failing appetites; his songs drove away the silence of the desert.
+He was for the company a lark at morn, a nightingale at night.
+
+Arriving in California, he sought the hills. When his claim would not
+pay he indicted scornful songs to show his "defiance of luck." Some of
+these were published in the mountain papers, and then a few people knew
+that somewhere in miner's garb a genius was hiding. Amid the hills, in
+his cabin, he was an incessant reader, and with his books, his friction
+against men and in the study of nature's mighty alphabet, as left upon
+her mountains, with the going by of the years he rounded into a
+cultured, alert, sometimes pathetic and sometimes boisterous man, but
+always a shrewd, all-around man of affairs.
+
+When we greet him he had been for several years a brilliant journalist.
+
+He had jumped up to make a little speech in Pioneer Hall, and the last
+words of his speech are given above.
+
+When he had finished another pioneer, Colonel Savage, was called upon.
+He was always prepared to make a speech. He delighted, moreover, in
+taking the opposite side to Strong. So springing to his feet, he cried
+out:
+
+"Too serious are the words of my friend. What of hardships, when youth,
+the beautiful, walks by one's side! What of danger when one feels a
+young heart throbbing in his breast!
+
+"Who talks of loneliness while as yet no fetter has been welded upon
+hope, while yet the unexplored and unpeopled portions of God's world
+beckon the brave to come to woo and to possess them!
+
+"The pioneers were not unhappy. The air is still filled with the echoes
+of the songs that they sung; their bright sayings have gone into the
+traditions; the impression which they made upon the world is a monument
+which will tell of their achievements, record their sturdy virtues and
+exalt their glorified names."
+
+As the Colonel ceased and some one else was called upon to talk, Strong
+motioned to Savage and both noiselessly sought some vacant seats in the
+rear of the hall.
+
+Colonel Savage was another genius. He was a young lawyer in New York
+when the first news of gold discoveries in California was carried to
+that city. He, with a hundred others, chartered a bark that was lying
+idle in the harbor, had her fitted up and loaded, and in her made a
+seven months' voyage around the Cape to San Francisco. He was the most
+versatile of the Argonauts. Every mood of poor human nature found a
+response in him. At a funeral he shamed the mourners by the sadness of
+his face; at a festival he added a sparkle to the wines; he could
+convulse a saloon with a story; he could read a burial service with a
+pathos that stirred every heart, and so his life ran on until when we
+find him he had been several years a leading member of a brighter bar
+than ever before was seen in a town of the size of Virginia City.
+
+He was a tall, handsome man, his face was classical, and all his
+bearing, even when all unbent, was that of a high-born, self-contained
+and self-respecting man.
+
+Strong, on the other hand, was of shorter statue; his face was the
+perfect picture of mirthfulness; there was a wonderful magnetism in his
+smile and hand-clasp; but when in repose a close look at his face
+revealed, below the mirthfulness, that calm which is the close attendant
+upon conscious power.
+
+As they reached their seats Alex spoke:
+
+"You were awfully good to-night, Colonel."
+
+"Of course; I always am. But what has awakened your appreciation
+to-night?"
+
+"I thought my speech was horrible."
+
+"For once it would require a brave man to doubt your judgment," said the
+Colonel, sententiously.
+
+"I was sure of it until I heard you speak; then I recovered my
+self-respect, believing that, by comparison, my speech would ring in the
+memories of the listeners, like a psalm."
+
+"You mean Sam, the town-crier and bootblack. His brain is a little weak,
+but his lungs are superb."
+
+"I believe you are jealous of his voice, Colonel. But sit down: I want
+to tell you about the most unregenerate soul on earth."
+
+"Proceed, Alex, only do not forget that under the merciful statutes of
+the State of Nevada no man is obliged to make statements which will
+criminate himself."
+
+"What a comfort that knowledge must be to you."
+
+"It often is. My heart is full of sympathy for the unfortunate, and more
+than once have I seen eyes grow bright when I have given that
+information to a client."
+
+"The study of that branch of law must have had a peculiar fascination to
+you."
+
+"Indeed, it did, Alex. At every point where the law draws the shield of
+its mercy around the accused, in thought it seemed made for one or
+another of my friends, and, mentally, I found myself defending one after
+the other of them."
+
+"Did you, at the same time, keep in thought the fact that in an
+emergency the law permits a man to plead his own cause?"
+
+"Never, on my honor. In those days my life was circumspect, even as it
+now is, and my associates--not as now--were so genteel that there was no
+danger of any suspicion attaching to me, because of the people I was
+daily seen with."
+
+"That was good for you, but what sort of reputations did your associates
+have?" asked Alex.
+
+"They went on from glory to glory. One became a conductor on a railroad,
+and in four years, at a salary of one hundred dollars per month, retired
+rich. One became a bank cashier, and three years later, through the
+advice of his physicians, settled in the soft climate of Venice, with
+which country we have no extradition treaty. Another one is a broker
+here in this city, and I am told, is doing so well that he hopes next
+year to be superintendent of a mine."
+
+"Why have you not succeeded better, Colonel, financially?"
+
+"I am too honest. Every day I stop law suits which I ought to permit to
+go on. Every day I do work for nothing which I ought to charge for. I
+tell you, Alex, I would sooner be right than be President."
+
+"I cannot, just now, recall any one who knows you, Colonel, who does not
+feel the same way about you."
+
+"That is because the most of my friends are dull, men, like yourself.
+But how prospers that newspaper?"
+
+"It is the same old, steady grind," replied Alex, thoughtfully. "I saw a
+blind horse working in a whim yesterday. As he went round and round,
+there seemed on his face a look of anxiety to find out how much longer
+that road of his was, and I said to him, compassionately: 'Old Spavin,
+you know something of what it is to work on a daily paper.' I went to
+the shaft and watched the buckets as they came up, and there was only
+one bucket of ore to ten buckets of waste. Then I went back to the horse
+and said to him: 'You do not know the fact, you blissfully ignorant old
+brute, but your work is mightily like ours, one bucket of ore to ten of
+waste.'"
+
+"How would you like to have me write an editorial for your paper?"
+
+"I should be most grateful," was the reply.
+
+"On what theme?"
+
+"Oh, you might make your own selection."
+
+"How would you like an editorial on----scoundrels?"
+
+"It would, with your experience, be truthfully written, doubtless, but
+Colonel, it is only now and then in good taste for a man to supply the
+daily journals with his own autobiography."
+
+"How modest you are. You did not forget that, despite the impersonality
+of journalism, you would have the credit of the article."
+
+"No, I was afraid of that credit, and I am poor enough now, Colonel; but
+really, that credit does not count. If, for five days in the week, I
+make newspapers, which my judgment tells me are passably good, it
+appears to me the only use that is made of them is for servant girls to
+kindle fires with, and do up their bangs in: but if, on the sixth day,
+my heart is heavy and my brain thick, and the paper next morning is
+poor, it seems to me that everybody in the camp looks curiously at me,
+as if to ascertain for a certainty, whether or no, I am in the early
+stages of brain softening."
+
+"A reasonable suspicion, I fancy, Alex; but what do you think of your
+brother editors of this coast as men and writers?"
+
+"Most of them are good fellows, and bright writers. If you knew under
+what conditions some of them work, you would take off your hat every
+time you met them."
+
+"To save my hat?" queried the Colonel. "But whom do you consider the
+foremost editor of the coast?"
+
+"There is no such person. Men with single thoughts and purposes, are, as
+a rule, the men who make marks in this world. For instance, just now,
+the single purpose of James G. Fair, is to make money through mining.
+Hence, he is a great miner, and he, now and then, I am told, manages to
+save a few dollars in the business. The dream of C. P. Huntington is to
+make money through railroads, so he builds roads, that he may collect
+more fares and freights, and he collects more fares and freights so that
+he may build more roads, and I believe, all in all, that he is the
+ablest, if not the coldest and most pitiless, railroad man in the world.
+The ruling thought of Andy Barlow is to be a fighter, and he can draw
+and shoot in the space of a lightning's flash. The dream of George
+Washington, he having no children, was to create and adopt a nation
+which should at once be strong and free, and the result is, his grave is
+a shrine. But, as the eight notes of the scale, in their combinations,
+fill the world with music--or with discords, so the work of an editor
+covers all the subjects on which men have ever thought, or ever will
+think, and the best that any one editor can do is to handle a few
+subjects well. Among our coast editors there is one with more marked
+characteristics, more flashes of genius, in certain directions, more
+contradictions and more pluck than any other one possesses.
+
+"That one is Henry Mighels, of Carson. I mention him because I have been
+thinking of him all day, and because I fear that his work is finished.
+The last we heard of him, was, that he was disputing with the surgeons
+in San Francisco, they telling him that he was fatally ill, and he,
+offering to wager two to one that they were badly mistaken."
+
+"Poor Henry," mused the Colonel; "he is a plucky man. I heard one of our
+rich men once try to get him to write something, or not to write
+something, I have forgotten which, and when Mighels declined to consent,
+the millionaire told him he was too poor to be so exceedingly
+independent. Here Mighels, in a low voice, which sounded to me like the
+purr of a tiger, said: 'You are quite mistaken, you do not know how rich
+I am. I have that little printing office at Carson; paper enough to last
+me for a week or ten days. I have a wife and three babies,' and then
+suddenly raising his voice, to the dangerous note, and bringing his fist
+down on the table before him with a crash, he shouted, '_and they are
+all mine_!'
+
+"The rich man looked at him, and, smiling, said: 'Don't talk like a
+fool, Mighels.' The old humor was all back in Mighels' face in an
+instant, as he replied, 'Was I talking like a fool, old man? What a
+sublime faculty I have of exactly gauging my conversation to the mental
+grasp of my listener!' But, Alex, do you not think there is a great deal
+of humbug about the much vaunted power of the press?"
+
+"There's gratitude for you. You ask _me_ such a question as that."
+
+"And why not?" inquired the Colonel.
+
+"You won a great suit last week, did you not--the case of Jones vs.
+Smith?"
+
+"Yes. It was wonderful; let me tell you about it."
+
+"No; spare me," cried Alex. "But how much did you receive for winning
+that case?"
+
+"I received a cool ten thousand dollars."
+
+"And you still ask about the influence of the press?"
+
+"Yes. Why should I not?"
+
+"Sure enough, why should you not? If you will stop and think you will
+know that three months ago you could not have secured a jury in the
+State that would have given you that verdict. There was a principle on
+trial that public opinion was pronounced against in a most marked
+manner. The press took up the discussion and fought it out. At length it
+carried public opinion with it. That thing has been done over and over
+right here. At the right time, your case, which hung upon that very
+point, was called. You think you managed it well. It was simply a
+walkover for you. The men with the Fabers had done the work for you. The
+jury unconsciously had made up their minds before they heard the
+complaint in the case read. The best thoughts in your argument you had
+unconsciously stolen from the newspapers, and the judge, looking as wise
+as an Arctic owl, unconsciously wrung half an editorial into his charge.
+You received ten thousand dollars, and to the end of his days your
+client will tell (heaven forgive his stupidity) what a lawyer you are,
+but ask him his opinion of newspaper men and he will shrug his
+shoulders, scowl, and with a donkey's air of wisdom, answer: 'Oh, they
+are necessary evils. We want the local news and the dispatches, and we
+have to endure them.'
+
+"I am glad you robbed him, Colonel. I wish you could rob them all. If a
+child is born to one of them we have to tell of it, and mention
+delicately how noble the father is and how lovely the mother is. If one
+of them dies we have to jeopardize our immortal souls trying to make out
+a character for him. They want us every day; we hold up their business
+and their reputations, beginning at the cradle, ending only at the
+grave."
+
+"What kind of character would you give me, were I to die?"
+
+"Try it, Colonel! Try it! And if 'over the divide' it should be possible
+for you to look back and read the daily papers, when your shade gets
+hold of my notice, I promise you it shall be glad that you are dead."
+
+"But what about that unregenerate soul that you were going to tell me
+of--has some broker sold out some widow's stocks?"
+
+"No: worse than that."
+
+"Has some one burglarized some hospital or orphan asylum?" suggested the
+Colonel.
+
+"Oh, no. Old Angus Jacobs, you know, is rich. Among strangers he parades
+his thin veneering of reading, and poses as though all his vaults were
+stuffed with reserves of knowledge. Well, while East last spring, he ran
+upon a distinguished publisher there, with whom he agreed that he would,
+on his return, write and send for publication an article on the West.
+
+"He came and begged me to write it, confessing that he had deceived the
+publisher, and asserting that, he must keep up the deception, or the
+integrity of the West would be injured in the estimation of that
+publisher.
+
+"I went to work, wrote an article, became enthused as I wrote, wrote it
+over, spent as much as three solid days upon it, and when it was
+finished I looked upon my work, and lo, it was good.
+
+"Then, at my own expense, I had it carefully copied and gave the copy to
+old Angus. He sent it East. To-day he received a dozen copies and a
+letter of profuse praise and thanks from the publisher.
+
+"I saw the old thief give one of the copies to a literary man from San
+Francisco, telling him, cheerfully, as he did, that he dashed the
+article off hastily, that most of the language was crude and awkward,
+but it might entertain him a little on the train going to San
+Francisco."
+
+"I never heard of anything meaner or more depraved than that,"
+indignantly remarked the Colonel, "except when I read the funeral
+service over an old Dutchman's child once, in Downieville. Speaking of
+it afterward, the old Hessian said:
+
+"'Dot Colonel's reading vos fine, but he dond vos haf dot prober look uf
+regret vot he ought to haf had'--but here comes the Professor."
+
+Professor Stoneman joined the pair, and when the greetings were over the
+Professor said:
+
+"I am just in from Eastern Nevada: went to Eureka to examine a mine
+owned by a jolly miner named Moore. It is a good one, too--a contact
+vein between lime and quartzite. The fellow worked, running a tunnel,
+all winter, and now he has struck, and cross-cut, his vein. It is fully
+seven feet thick, and rich. I asked him how he felt when at last he cut
+the vein.
+
+"'How did I feel, Professor,' he said, 'how did I feel? Why, General
+Jackson's overcoat would not have made a paper collar for me.'
+
+"There are a great many queer characters out that way. Moore is not a
+very well educated man. In Eureka I was telling about the mine--that
+Moore ought to make a fortune out of it--when a man standing by, a
+stranger to me, stretched up both his arms and cried: 'A fortune! Look
+at it, now! Moore is so unspeakably ignorant that he could not spell out
+the name of the Savior if it were written on White Pine Mountain in
+letters bigger than the Coast Range. But he strikes it rich! His kind
+always do.' Then he added, bitterly: 'If I could find a chimpanzee, I
+would draw up articles of copartnership with him in fifteen minutes.'
+
+"And then a quiet fellow, who was present, said: 'Jim, maybe the
+chimpanzee, after taking a good look at you, would not stand it.'
+
+"I was sitting in a barroom there one day, and a man was talking about
+the Salmon River mines, and insisting that they were more full of
+promise than anything in Nevada, when another man in the crowd earnestly
+said:
+
+"'If my brother were to write me that it was a good country, and advise
+me to come up there, I would not believe him.'
+
+"Quick as lightning, still another man responded: 'If we all knew your
+brother as well as you do, maybe none of us would believe him.'
+
+"That is the way they spend their time out there. But I secured some
+lovely specimens: specimens of ore, rare shells, some of the finest
+specimens of mirabilite of lead that I ever saw. It is a most
+interesting region. But I don't agree entirely with Clarence King on the
+geology of the district. You see King's theory is--"
+
+"Oh, hold on, Professor," said the Colonel, "it does not lack an hour of
+midnight. You have not time, positively. Heigh ho. Here is Wright. How
+is the mine, Wright?"
+
+"About two hundred tons lighter than it was this morning, I reckon,"
+replied Wright.
+
+"But tell us about the mine, Wright," said Alex, impatiently. "How is
+the temperature?"
+
+"How is your health?" responded Wright, jocularly. "If you do not expect
+to live long, you might come down and take some preparatory lessons;
+that is, if you anticipate joining the majority of newspaper men."
+
+"No, no; you are mistaken," said Alex. "You mean the Colonel. He is a
+lawyer, you know."
+
+"It is the Professor that needs the practice," chimed in the Colonel.
+"Just imagine him 'down below,' explaining to the gentleman in green how
+similar the formation is to a hot drift that he once found in the
+Comstock."
+
+"I will tell you a hotter place than any drift in the Comstock," said
+the Professor. "Put all the money that you have into stocks, having a
+dead pointer from a friend who is posted, buy on a margin, and then have
+the stocks begin to go down; that will start the perspiration on you."
+
+"We have all been in that drift," said Alex.
+
+"Indeed, we have," responded Wright.
+
+"I have lived in that climate for twelve years. One or two winters it
+kept me so warm that I did not need an overcoat or watch, so I loaned
+them to----'mine uncle,'" remarked the Colonel.
+
+"But, do you know any points on stocks, Wright?"
+
+"No, not certainly, Alex. I heard some rumors last night and ordered 100
+Norcross this morning. Some of the boys think it will jump up three or
+four dollars in the next ten days."
+
+"I took in a block of Utah yesterday. They are getting down pretty deep,
+and there is lots of unexplored ground in that mine," said the Colonel,
+quietly.
+
+The Professor, looking serious, said: "I have all my money the other
+way, in Justice and Silver Hill. They are not deep enough in the north
+end yet."
+
+Alex got up from his chair. "You are all mistaken," said he, "Overman is
+the best buy, but it is growing late and I must go to work. What shift
+are you on, Wright?"
+
+"I go on at seven in the morning. By the way, you should come up of an
+evening to our Club. We would be glad to see all three of you."
+
+"And pray, what do you mean by your Club?" asked the Colonel.
+
+"Why," said Wright, "I thought you knew. Three or four of us miners met
+up here one night last month. Joe Miller was in the party, and as we
+were drinking beer and talking about stocks, Miller proposed that we
+should hire a vacant house on the divide--the old Beckley House--and
+give up the boarding and lodging houses. We talked it all over, how
+shameful we had been going on, how we were spending all our money, how,
+if we had the house, we could save fifty or sixty dollars a month, and
+eat what we pleased, do what we pleased, and have a place in which to
+pass our leisure time without going to the saloons; so we picked up
+three or four more men, and, on last pay-day, moved in--seven of us in
+all--each man bringing his own chair, blankets and food. The latter, of
+course, was all put into common stock, and Miller had fixed everything
+else. Since then we have been getting along jolly.'"
+
+"But who makes up your company?" inquired Alex.
+
+"Oh, you know the whole outfit," answered Wright. "There is Miller, as I
+told you; there are, besides, Tom Carlin, old man Brewster, Herbert
+Ashley, Sammy Harding, Barney Corrigan and myself."
+
+"It is a good crowd; but you are not all working in the same mine, are
+you?" said the Professor, inquiringly.
+
+"Oh, no. Brewster is running a power-drill in the Bullion. He is a
+mechanic, you know, and not a real miner. Miller and Harding are in the
+Curry, Barney is in the Norcross, Carlin and Ashley are in the Imperial,
+and I in the Savage. But we all happen to be on the same shift, so, for
+this month at least, we have our evenings together."
+
+"It must be splendid," enthusiastically remarked the Colonel.
+
+"How do you spend your evenings?" asked Alex.
+
+"We talk on all subjects except politics. That subject, we agreed at the
+start, should not be discussed. We read and compare notes on stocks."
+
+"How do you manage about your cooking?" queried the Professor.
+
+"We have a Chinaman, who is a daisy. He is cook, housekeeper,
+chambermaid, and would be companion and musician if we could stand it.
+You must come up and see us."
+
+"I will come to-morrow evening," Alex replied, eagerly.
+
+"So will I," said the Colonel, with a positiveness that was noticeable.
+
+"And so will I," shouted the Professor.
+
+Just then the eleven o'clock whistles sounded up and down the lead.
+"That is our signal for retiring," said Wright, "and so good night."
+
+"Let us go out and take a night cap, first," said the Colonel.
+
+"Well, if I must," said Wright. "Though the rule of our Club is only a
+little for medicine."
+
+The night caps were ordered and swallowed. Then the men separated, the
+Colonel, Professor and Wright going home, the journalist to his work.
+
+Professor Stoneman was a character. Tall and spare, with such an outline
+as Abraham Lincoln had. He was fifty years of age, with grave and serene
+face when in repose, and with the mien of one of the faculty of a
+university. Still he had that nature which caused him when a boy to run
+away from his Indiana home to the Mexican war, and he fought through all
+that long day at Buena Vista, a lad of eighteen years. Of course he was
+with the first to reach California. He had tried mining and many other
+things, but the deeper side of his nature was to pursue the
+sciences--the lighter to mingle with good fellows. He would tell a story
+one moment and the next would combat a scientific theory with the most
+learned of the Eastern scientists, and carry away from the controversy
+the full respect of his opponent. There was a great fund of merriment
+within him, and his generosity not only kept his bank account a minus
+number, but moreover, kept his heart aching that he had no more to give.
+When by himself he was an incessant student, and beside knowing all that
+the books taught, he had his own ideas of their correctness, especially
+those that deal with the formation of ore deposits. He was a learned
+writer, a gifted lecturer and an expert of mines, and, over all, the
+most genial of men.
+
+Adrian Wright was of another stamp altogether. He was tall and strong,
+with large feet and hands, a massive man in all respects, and forty-five
+years of age.
+
+He had a cool and brave gray eye, a firm, strong mouth, very light brown
+hair and carried always with him a something which first impressed those
+who saw him with his power, while a second look gave the thought that
+beside the power which was visible, he had unmeasured reserves of
+concealed force which he could call upon on demand.
+
+He went an uncultured lad to California. He was at first a placer miner.
+Obtaining a good deal of money he became a mountain trader and the owner
+of a ditch, which supplied some hydraulic grounds. He was brusque in his
+address, said "whar" and "thar," but his head was large and firmly
+poised; his heart was warm as a child's, and he was loved for his clear,
+good sense and for the sterling manhood which was apparent in all his
+ways. Though uncultured in the schools, he had read a great deal, and,
+mixing much with men, his judgment had matured, until in his mountain
+hamlet his word had become an authority.
+
+His friends persuaded him to become a candidate for the State
+Legislature. After he had consented to run he spent a good deal of money
+in the campaign. He was elected and went to Sacramento. There he was
+persuaded to buy largely of Comstock stocks. He bought on a margin. When
+it came time to put up more money he could not without borrowing. He
+would not do that through fear that he could not pay. He lost the
+stocks. He went home in the spring to find that his clerks had given
+large credits to miners; the hydraulic mines ceased to pay, which
+rendered his ditch property valueless, and a few days later his store
+burned down. When his debts were paid he had but a few hundred dollars
+left. He said nothing about his reverses, but went to Virginia City and
+for several years had been working in the mines.
+
+As already said, a miners' mess had been formed. Seven miners on the
+Comstock might be picked out who would pretty nearly represent the whole
+world.
+
+This band had been drawn together partly because of certain traits that
+they possessed in common, though they were each distinctly different
+from all the others.
+
+We have read of Wright. Of the others, James Brewster, was the eldest of
+the company. He was fifty years of age, and from Massachusetts. He was
+not tall, but was large and powerful.
+
+There were streaks of gray in his hair, but his eyes were clear, and
+black as midnight. He had a bold nose and invincible mouth; the
+expression of his whole face was that of a resolute, self-contained, but
+kindly nature. All his movements were quick and positive.
+
+He was educated, and though of retiring ways, when he talked everybody
+near him listened. He was not a miner, but a mechanical engineer, and
+his work was the running of power drills in the mine. He never talked
+much of his own affairs, but it was understood that misfortune in
+business had caused him to seek the West somewhat late in life. The
+truth was he had never been rich. He possessed a moderately prosperous
+business until a long illness came to his wife, and when the depression
+which followed the reaction from the war and the contraction of the
+currency fell upon the North, he found he had little left, and so sought
+a new field.
+
+He was the Nestor of the Club and was exceedingly loved by his
+companions.
+
+Miller, who first proposed the Club, was a New Yorker by birth, a man
+forty-five years of age, medium height, keen gray eyes, a clear-cut,
+sharp face, slight of build, but all nerve and muscle, and lithe as a
+panther. He had been for a quarter of a century on the west coast, and
+knew it well from British Columbia to Mexico, and from the Rocky
+Mountains to the Pacific.
+
+He was given a good education in his youth; he had mingled with all
+sorts of men and been engaged in all kinds of business. There was a
+perpetual flash to his eyes, and a restlessness upon him which made him
+uneasy if restrained at all. He had the reputation of being inclined to
+take desperate chances sometimes, but was honorable, thoroughly, and
+generous to a fault.
+
+He had studied men closely, and of Nature's great book he was a constant
+reader. He knew the voices of the forests and of the streams; he had a
+theory that the world was but a huge animal; that if we were but wise
+enough to understand, we should hear from Nature's own voices the story
+of the world and hear revealed all her profound secrets.
+
+He possessed a magnetism which drew friends to him everywhere. His hair
+was still unstreaked with gray, but his face was care-worn, like that of
+one who had been dissipated or who had suffered many disappointments.
+
+Carlin was twenty-eight years of age, long of limb, angular, gruff, but
+hearty; quick, sharp and shrewd, but free-handed and generally in the
+best of humors. He was an Illinois man, and a good type of the men of
+the Old West.
+
+His eyes were brown, his hair chestnut; erect, he was six feet in
+height, but seated, there seemed to be no place for his hands and hardly
+room enough for his feet. He was well-educated, and had been but three
+and a half years on the Comstock.
+
+All the Californians in the Club insisted, of course, that there was no
+other place but that, but this Carlin always vehemently denied, for he
+came from the State of Lincoln and Douglas, and the State, moreover,
+that had Chicago in one corner of it, and he did not believe there was
+another such State in all the Republic.
+
+Ashley was from Pennsylvania; a young man of twenty-five, above medium
+height, compact as a tiger in his make-up, and weighing, perhaps, one
+hundred and eighty pounds. His eyes were gray, his hair brown, his face
+almost classic in its outlines; his feet and hands were particularly
+small and finely formed, and there was a jollity and heartiness about
+his laugh which was contagious. He had an excellent education, and had
+seen a good deal of business in his early manhood.
+
+Corrigan was a thorough Irishman, generous, warm-hearted, witty,
+sociable, brave to recklessness, curly-haired, with laughing, blue eyes;
+the most open and frank of faces that was ever smiling, powerfully built
+and ready at a moment's notice to fight anyone or give anyone his purse.
+
+Everybody knew and liked him, and he liked everybody that, as he
+expressed it, was worth the liking.
+
+He had come to America a lad of ten. He lived for twelve years in New
+York City, attended the schools, and was in his last year in the High
+School when, for some wild freak, he had been expelled. He worked two
+years in a Lake Superior copper mine, then went to California and worked
+there until lured to Nevada by the silver mines, and had been on the
+Comstock five years when the Club was formed.
+
+Harding was the boy of the company, only twenty-two years of age, a
+native California lad. But he was hardly a type of his State.
+
+His eyes were that shade of gray which looks black in the night; his
+hair was auburn. He had a splendid form, though not quite filled out;
+his head was a sovereign one.
+
+But he was reticent almost to seriousness, and it was in this respect
+that he did not seem quite like a California boy. There was a reason for
+it. He was the son of an Argonaut who had been reckless in business and
+most indulgent to his boy. He had a big farm near Los Angeles, and
+shares in mines all over the coast. The boy had grown up half on the
+farm and half in the city. He was an adept in his studies; he was just
+as much an adept when it came to riding a wild horse.
+
+He had gained a good education and was just entering the senior class in
+college when his father suddenly died. He mourned for him exceedingly,
+and when his affairs were investigated it was found there was a mortgage
+on the old home.
+
+He believed there was a future for the land. So he made an arrangement
+to meet the interest on the mortgage annually, then went to San
+Francisco, obtained an order for employment on a Comstock
+superintendent, went at once to Virginia City and took up his regular
+labor as a miner. He had been thus employed for a year when the Club was
+formed.
+
+This was the company that had formed a mess. Miller had worked up the
+scheme.
+
+It had been left to Miller to prepare the house--to buy the necessary
+materials for beginning housekeeping, like procuring the dishes, knives
+and forks and spoons, and benches or cheap chairs, for the dining room,
+and it was agreed to begin on the next pay day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+About four o'clock in the afternoon of the day appointed for commencing
+housekeeping, our miners gathered at this new home. The provisions,
+bedding and chairs had been sent in advance, in care of Miller, who had
+remained above ground that day, in order to have things in apple-pie
+shape. The chairs were typical of the men. Brewster's was a common,
+old-fashioned, flag-bottomed affair, worth about three dollars. Carlin
+and Wright each had comfortable armchairs; Ashley and Harding had neat
+office chairs, while Miller and Corrigan each had heavy upholstered
+armchairs, which cost sixty dollars each.
+
+When all laughed at Brewster's chair, he merely answered that it would
+do, and when Miller and Corrigan were asked what on earth they had
+purchased such out-of-place furniture for, to put in a miner's cabin,
+Miller answered: "I got trusted and didn't want to make a bill for
+nothing," and Corrigan said: "To tell the truth, I was not over-much
+posted on this furniture business, I did not want to invest in too chape
+an article, so I ordered the best in the thavin' establishment, because
+you know a good article is always chape, no matter what the cost may
+be."
+
+The next thing in order was to compare the bills for provisions.
+Brewster drew his bill from his pocket and read as follows: Twenty
+pounds bacon, $7.50; forty pounds potatoes, $1.60; ten pounds coffee,
+$3.75; one sack flour, $4.00; cream tartar and salaratus, $1.00; ten
+pounds sugar, $2.75; pepper, salt and mustard, $1.50; ten pounds prunes,
+$2.50; one bottle XXX for medicine, $2.00; total, $32.60.
+
+The bill was receipted. The bills of Wright and Harding each comprised
+about the same list, and amounted to about the same sum. They, too, were
+receipted. The funny features were that each one had purchased nearly
+similar articles, and the last item on each of the bills was a charge of
+$2.00 for medicine. It had been agreed that no liquor should be bought
+except for medicine.
+
+The bills of Carlin and Ashley were not different in variety, but each
+had purchased in larger quantities, so that those bills footed up about
+$45 each. On each of the bills, too, was an item of $4.75 for demijohn
+and "half gallon of whisky for medicine." All were receipted.
+
+Corrigan's bill amounted to $73, including one-half gallon of whisky and
+one bottle of brandy "for medicine," and his too was receipted.
+
+Miller read last. His bill had a little more variety, and amounted to
+$97.16. The last item was: "To demijohn and one gallon whisky for
+medicine, $8.00." On this bill was a credit for $30.00.
+
+A general laugh followed the reading of these bills. The variety
+expected was hardly realized, as Corrigan remarked: "The bills lacked
+somewhat in versatility, but there was no doubt about there being plenty
+of food of the kind and no end to the medicine."
+
+When the laugh had subsided, Brewster said: "Miller estimated that our
+provisions would not cost to exceed $15.00 per month apiece. I tried to
+be reasonable and bought about enough for two months, but here we have a
+ship load. Why did you buy out a store, Miller?"
+
+"I had to make a bill and I did not want the grocery man to think we
+were paupers," retorted Miller.
+
+"How much were the repairs on the house, Miller?" asked Carlin.
+
+"There's the beggar's bill. It's a dead swindle, and I told him so. He
+ought to have been a plumber. He had by the Eternal. He has no more
+conscience than a police judge. Here's the scoundrel's bill," said
+Miller, excitedly, as he proceeded to read the following:
+
+"'To repairing roof, $17.50; twenty battens, $4.00; to putting on
+battens, $3.00; hanging one door, $3.50; six lights glass, $3.00;
+setting same, $3.00; lumber, $4.80; putting up bunks, $27.50; total,
+$66.30.'
+
+"The man is no better than a thief; if he is, I'm a sinner."
+
+"You bought some dishes, did you not, Miller?" inquired Ashley. "How
+much did they amount to?"
+
+"There's another scalper," answered Miller, warmly. "I told him we
+wanted a few dishes, knives, forks, etc.--just enough for seven men to
+cabin with--and here is the bill. It foots up $63.37. A bill for wood
+also amounts to $15.00; two extra chairs, $6.00."
+
+Brewster, who had been making a memorandum, spoke up and said: "If I
+have made no error the account stands as follows:
+
+    Provisions                                  $357 56
+    Crockery, knives, forks, etc.                 53 37
+    Wood                                          19 00
+    Repairs                                       66 50
+    One month's rent                              50 00
+    One month's water                              7 00
+    Chairs                                         6 00
+                                                -------
+    Making a total of                           $559 43
+
+Or, in round numbers, eighty dollars per capita for us all. I settled my
+account at the store, amounting to $32.60, which leaves $47.40 as my
+proportion of the balance. Here is the money."
+
+This was like Brewster. Some of the others settled and a part begged-off
+until next pay-day.
+
+The next question was about the cooking. After a brief debate it was
+determined that all would join in getting up the first supper. So one
+rushed to a convenient butcher shop and soon returned with a basket full
+of porter house steaks, sweetbreads and lamb chops; another prepared the
+potatoes and put them in the oven; another attended to the fire; another
+to setting the table. Brewster was delegated to make the coffee. To
+Corrigan was ascribed the task of cooking the meats, while Miller
+volunteered to make some biscuits that would "touch their hearts."
+
+He mixed the ingredients in the usual way and thoroughly kneaded the
+dough. He then, with the big portion of a whisky bottle for a
+rolling-pin, rolled the dough out about a fourth of an inch thick. He
+then touched it gently all over with half melted butter; rolled the thin
+sheet into a large roll; then with the bottle reduced this again to the
+required thickness for biscuits, and, with a tumbler, cut them out. His
+biscuit trick he had learned from an old Hungarian, who, for a couple of
+seasons, had been his mining partner. It is an art which many a fine
+lady would be glad to know. The result is a biscuit which melts like
+cream in the mouth--like a fair woman's smile on a hungry eye. Corrigan
+had his sweetbreads frying, and when the biscuits were put in the oven,
+the steak and chops were put on to broil. The steak had been salted and
+peppered--miner's fashion--and over it slices of bacon, cut thin as
+wafers, had been laid. The bacon, under the heat, shriveled up and
+rolled off into the fire, but not until the flavor had been given to the
+steak. One of the miners had opened a couple of cans of preserved
+pine-apples; the coffee was hot, the meats and the biscuits were ready,
+and so the simple supper was served. Harding had placed the chairs;
+Brewster's was at the head of the table.
+
+Corrigan waited until all the others had taken their seats at the table;
+then, with a glass in his hand and a demijohn thrown over his right
+elbow, he stepped forward and said:
+
+"To didicate the house, and also as a medicine, I prescribe for aitch
+patient forty drops."
+
+Each took his medicine resignedly, and as the last one returned the
+glass, Corrigan added: "It appears to me I am not faling ony too well
+meself," and either as a remedy or preventive, he took some of the
+medicine.
+
+The supper was ravenously swallowed by the men, who for months had eaten
+nothing but miners' boarding-house fare. With one voice they declared
+that it was the first real meal they had eaten for weeks, and over their
+coffee they drank long life to housekeeping and confusion to
+boarding-houses.
+
+When the supper was over and the things put away, the pipes were
+lighted. By this time the shadow of Mount Davidson around them had
+melted into the gloom of the night, and for the first time in months
+these men settled themselves down to spend an evening at home. It was a
+new experience.
+
+"It is just splendid," cried Wright. "No beer, no billiards, no painted
+nymphs, no chance for a row. We have been sorry fools for months--for
+years, for that matter--or we would have opened business at this stand
+long ago."
+
+"We have, indeed," said Ashley. "To-night we make a new departure. What
+shall we call our mess?"
+
+Many names were suggested, but finally "The Comstock Club" was proposed
+and nominated by acclamation.
+
+[Illustration: THE COMSTOCK CLUB.]
+
+It was agreed, too, that no other members, except honorary members,
+should be admitted, and no politics talked. Then the conversation became
+general, and later, confidential; and each member of the Club uncovered
+a little his heart and his hopes.
+
+Miller meant, so soon as he "made a little stake," to go down to San
+Francisco and assault the stock sharps right in their Pine and
+California street dens. He believed he had discovered the rule which
+could reduce stock speculation to an exact science, and he was anxious
+for the opportunity which a little capital would afford, "to show those
+sharpers at the Bay a trick or two, which they had never yet 'dropped
+on.'" He added, patronizingly: "I will loan you all so much money, by
+and by, that each of you will have enough to start a bank."
+
+"I shtarted a bank alridy, all be mesilf, night before last," said
+Corrigan.
+
+"What kind of a bank was it, Barney?" asked Harding.
+
+"One of King Pharo's. I put a twenty-dollar pace upon the Quane; that
+shtarted the bank. The chap on the other side of the table commenced to
+pay out the pictures, and the Quane----"
+
+"Well, what of the Queen, Barney?" asked Carlin.
+
+"She fill down be the side of the sardane box, and the chap raked in me
+double agle."
+
+"How do you like that style of banking, Barney?" asked Ashley.
+
+"Oh! Its mighty plisant and enthertainin', of course; the business sames
+to be thransacted with a grate dale of promptness and dispatch; the only
+drawback seems to be that the rates of ixchange are purty high."
+
+Tom Carlin knew of a great farm, a store, a flour mill, and a hazel-eyed
+girl back in Illinois. He coveted them all, but was determined to
+possess the girl anyway.
+
+After a little persuasion, he showed her picture to the Club. They all
+praised it warmly, and Corrigan declared she was a daisy. In a neat hand
+on the bottom of the picture was written: "With love, Susie Richards."
+Carlin always referred to her as "Susie Dick."
+
+Harding, upon being rallied, explained that his father came with the
+Argonauts to the West; that he was brilliant, but over-generous; that he
+had lived fast and with his purse open to every one, and had died while
+yet in his prime, leaving an encumbered estate, which must be cleared of
+its indebtedness, that no stain might rest upon the name of Harding.
+There was a gleam in the dark eyes, and a ring to the voice of the boy
+as he spoke, that kindled the admiration of the Club, and when he ceased
+speaking, Miller reached out and shook his hand, saying: "You should
+have the money, my boy!"
+
+Back in Massachusetts, Brewster had met with a whole train of
+misfortunes; his property had become involved; his wife had died--his
+voice lowered and grew husky when mentioning this--he had two little
+girls, Mable and Mildred. He had kept his children at school and paid
+their way despite the iron fortune that had hedged him about, and he was
+working to shield them from all the sorrows possible, without the aid of
+the Saint who had gone to heaven. The Club was silent for a moment, when
+the strong man added, solemnly, and as if to himself: "Who knows that
+she does not help us still?"
+
+In his youth, Brewster acquired the trade of an engineer. At this time,
+as we learned before, he was running a power drill in the Bullion. He
+was a great reader and was thorough on many subjects.
+
+Wright had his eyes on a stock range in California, where the land was
+cheap, the pasturage fine, the water abundant, and where, with the land
+and a few head of stock for a beginning, a man would in a few years be
+too rich to count his money. He had been accustomed to stock, when a
+boy, in Missouri, and was sure that there was more fun in chasing a wild
+steer with a good mustang, than finding the biggest silver mine in
+America.
+
+Ashley had gained some new ideas since coming West. He believed he knew
+a cheap farm back in Pennsylvania, that, with thorough cultivation,
+would yield bountifully. There were coal and iron mines there also,
+which he could open in a way to make old fogies in that country open
+their eyes. He knew, too, of a district there, where a man, if he
+behaved himself, might be elected to Congress. It was plain, from his
+talk, that he had some ambitious plans maturing in his mind.
+
+Corrigan had an old mother in New York. He was going to have a few acres
+of land after awhile in California, where grapes and apricots would
+grow, and chickens and pigs would thrive and be happy. He was going to
+fix the place to his own notion, then was going to send for his mother,
+and when she came, every day thereafter he was going to look into the
+happiest old lady's eyes between the seas.
+
+So they talked, and did not note how swiftly the night was speeding,
+until the deep whistle of the Norcross hoisting engine sounded for the
+eleven o'clock shift, and in an instant was followed by all the whistles
+up and down the great lode.
+
+Then the good nights were said, and in ten minutes the lights were
+extinguished and the mantles of night and silence were wrapped around
+the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+An early breakfast was prepared by the whole Club, as the supper of the
+previous evening had been. The miners had to be at the mines, where they
+worked, promptly at 7 o'clock, to take the places of the men who had
+worked since eleven o'clock the previous night.
+
+While at breakfast the door of the house was softly opened and a
+Chinaman showed his face. He explained that he was a "belly good cook,"
+and would like to work for ten dollars a week.
+
+Carlin was nearest the door, and in a bantering tone opened a
+conversation with the Mongolian.
+
+"What is your name, John?"
+
+"Yap Sing."
+
+"Are you a good cook, sure, Yap?"
+
+"Oh, yes, me belly good cook; me cookie bleef-steak, chickie, turkie,
+goosie; me makie bled, pie, ebbything; me belly good cook."
+
+"Have you any cousins, Yap?"
+
+"No cuzzie; no likie cuzzie."
+
+"Do you get drunk, Yap?"
+
+"No gettie glunk; no likie blandy."
+
+"Do you smoke opium?"
+
+"No likie smokie opium. You sabe, one man smokie opium, letee while he
+all same one fool; all same one d----d monkey."
+
+"Suppose we were to hire you, Yap, how long would it take you to steal
+everything in the ranch?"
+
+"Me no stealie; me no likie stealie."
+
+"Now, Yap, suppose we hire you and we all go off to the mines and leave
+you here, and some one comes and wants to buy bacon and beans and flour
+and sugar, what would you do?"
+
+"Me no sellie."
+
+"Suppose some one comes and wants to steal things, what then?"
+
+"Me cuttie his ears off; me cuttie his d----d throat."
+
+At this Brewster interposed and said: "I believe it would be a good idea
+to engage this Chinaman. We are away and the place is unprotected all
+day; besides, after a man has worked all day down in the hot levels of
+the Comstock, he does not feel like cooking his own dinner. Let us give
+John a trial."
+
+It was agreed to. Yap Sing was duly installed. He was instructed to have
+supper promptly at six o'clock; orders were given him on the markets for
+fresh meat, vegetables, etc. From the remnants of the breakfast the
+dinner buckets were filled and the men went away to their work.
+
+Yap Sing proved to be an artist in his way. When the members of the Club
+met again at their home, a splendid, hot supper was waiting for them.
+They ate, as hungry miners do, congratulating themselves that, as it
+were from the sky, an angel of a heathen had dropped down upon them.
+
+After supper, when the pipes were lighted, the conversation of the
+previous evening was resumed.
+
+The second night brought out something of the history of each. They had
+nearly all lived in California; some had wandered the Golden Coast all
+over; all had roughed it, and all had an experience to relate. These
+evening visits soon became very enjoyable to the members of the Club,
+and the friendship of the members for each other increased as they the
+more thoroughly, knew the inner lives of each other.
+
+On this night, Wright was the last to speak of himself. When he had
+concluded, Ashley said to him: "Wright, you have had some lively
+experiences. What is the most impressive scene that you ever witnessed?"
+
+"I hardly know." Wright replied. "I think maybe a mirage that was
+painted for me, one day, out on the desert, this side of the sink of the
+Humbolt, when I was crossing the plains, shook me up about as much as
+anything that ever overtook me, except the chills and fever, which I
+used to have when a boy, back in Missouri. For only a picture it was
+right worrisome."
+
+The Club wanted to hear about it, and so Wright proceeded as follows:
+
+"We had been having rough times for a good while; thar had been sickness
+in the train; some of the best animals had been poisoned with alkali;
+thar had been some Injun scares--it was in '57--and we all had been
+broken, more or less, of our rest, I in particular, was a good deal
+jolted up; was nervous and full of starts and shivers. I suspect thar
+was a little fever on me. We halted one morning on the desert, to rest
+the stock, and make some coffee. It was about eight o'clock. We had been
+traveling since sundown the night before, crossing the great desert, and
+hoped to reach Truckee River that afternoon.
+
+"While resting, a mighty desire took possession of me to see the river,
+and to feel that the desert was crossed.
+
+"I had a saddle mule that was still in good condition. I had petted him
+since he was three days old, had broken him, and he and myself were the
+best of friends. His mother was a thoroughbred Kentucky mare; from her
+he had inherited his courage and staying qualities, while he had also
+just enough of his father's stubbornness to be useful, for it held his
+heart up to the work when things got rough.
+
+"I looked over the train; it was all right; I was not needed; would not
+be any more that day.
+
+"The mule was brought up in the Osage hills, and I had named him Osage,
+which after awhile became contracted to Sage. I went to him and looked
+him over. He was quietly munching a bacon sack. I took a couple of
+quarts of wheaten flour, mixed it into a soft paste, with water from one
+of the kegs which had been brought along, and gave it to him. He drank
+it as a hungry boy drinks porridge, and licked the dish clean. The
+journey had impressed upon him the absolute need of exercising the
+closest economy.
+
+"When he had finished his rather light breakfast, I whispered to him
+that if he would stand in with me, I would show him, before night, the
+prettiest stream of water--snow water--in the world. I think he
+understood me perfectly. Telling the people of the train that I would go
+ahead and look out a camping place, I took my shotgun, put a couple of
+biscuits in my pocket, and mounted Sage. He struck out at once on his
+long swinging walk.
+
+"It was an August morning and had been hot ever since the sun rose. That
+is a feature out thar on the desert in the summer. The nights get cold,
+but so soon as the sun comes up, it is like going down into the
+Comstock. In fifteen minutes everything is steaming. Old Ben Allen, down
+on the borders of the Cherokee Nation, never of a morning, warmed up his
+niggers any livelier than the sun does the desert.
+
+"I rode for a couple of hours. As I said, I was weak and nervous. In the
+sand, Sage's feet hardly made any sound, and the glare and the silence
+of the desert were around and upon me. If you never experienced it you
+don't know what the silence of the desert means. Take a day when the
+winds are laid; when in all directions, as far as your vision extends,
+thar is not a moving thing; when all that you can see is the brazen sky
+overhead, and the scarred breast of the earth, as if smitten and
+transfixed by Thor's thunderbolts, lying prone and desolate like the
+face of a dead world, before you; and withal not one sound: absolute
+stillness; and strong nerves after awhile become strained. On me, that
+forenoon, my surroundings became almost intolerable. I had been on foot
+driving team all night; I had eaten nothing since midnight, and then had
+only forced down a small slice of bread and a cup of horrible black
+coffee, and was really not more than half myself. One moment I was
+chilly; the next was perspiring, and sometimes it seemed as though I
+should suffocate. With my nerves strung up as they were, I guess it
+would not have required much to give me a panic.
+
+"Just then, out against the sun to the southward, and apparently a mile
+away, I saw something. Talk about being impressed! that was my time. I
+was sure I saw five hundred Indian warriors, all mounted. They were
+wheeling in black squadrons on the desert, wheeling and forming, as I
+thought. Horses and men were all black, and now and then as they wheeled
+or swung to and fro, I marked what I was sure was the gleam of steel.
+They evidently had seen me: I expected every moment to hear their yell
+and wondered that I did not feel the tremble of the earth beneath their
+horses' feet; I was too nearly paralyzed to try to escape. I slipped or
+fell, I don't know which, from my mule, and lay panting like a tired
+hound upon the sand. But I could not keep my eyes from the terrible
+sight before me. Still those tawny warriors kept wheeling and forming,
+and as I believed, menacing me.
+
+"At length I grew a little calmer, and remember that I explained to
+myself that the reason I did not hear the thunder of their horses' feet,
+was because of the sand, and from the fact that the ponies could not be
+shod. But I wondered more and more where an Indian tribe could get so
+many black horses.
+
+"Once, when they seemed particularly furious, and just on the point of
+charging down upon me; I remember that I said to myself: 'If they eat me
+they will have to broil me in the sun, for thar is no fuel here.' All
+the time too, I was pitying Sage, and my own voice frightened me as I
+unconsciously said: 'Poor Sage, it is a hard fate to be faithful and
+suffer as you have and then fall into the hands of savages.'
+
+"When a little more under my own control, I cautiously rose to my feet
+and looked at the mule. It was no use. On top of the fatigue of coming
+quite two thousand miles, he had, on that morning, been constantly
+traveling for fourteen hours, with only two rests of thirty minutes
+each. He never could get away from those fresh ponies. I looked back in
+the direction of the train; it was nowhar in sight and must have been
+back probably five miles.
+
+"In this strait I looked up again toward my savages. At that very moment
+the charge commenced; the whole array was bearing down upon me. I took
+my gun from the horn of the saddle and sat down on the ground. I
+felt--but no matter how I felt; I only know that at that moment I would
+have given my note for a large sum to have been back in Missouri.
+
+"On they swept, and I watched them coming. But somehow they began to
+grow smaller and smaller, and in an instant more the squadron vanished.
+Where the moment before an armed band, terrible with life and bristling
+with fury, had shone upon my eyes, now all that there was to be seen was
+a flock of perhaps twenty ravens, flying with short flights, and hopping
+and lighting around some little thing, which lay above the level of the
+desert. I mounted Sage and rode out to the spot, some four hundred yards
+away.
+
+"I found another road, and strung along it, were the carcasses of a good
+many cattle that had died in emigrant trains. The ravens were hopping
+about these carcasses and flying from one to another. I had heard of the
+mirage of the desert, when a boy in school, and suddenly 'I dropped
+upon' the whole business. By some mighty refraction of the beams of
+light, these miserable scavengers of the desert had been magnified into
+formidable, mounted warriors, and the glint of steel that I had seen,
+was but the shimmer of sunbeams upon their black wings.
+
+"Again I headed Sage for the river. In a little while he commenced to
+stretch out his nose; soon, of his own accord, he quickened his pace to
+a trot, a little later he took up his long lope and never relaxed his
+speed until he drove his nose into the delicious water of the Truckee. I
+dismounted and joined him. Right there we each took the biggest and
+longest drink of our lives; then I gave Sage one of my biscuits and ate
+the other myself, and we both felt immensely refreshed. I stripped the
+saddle and bridle from the mule and let him go. The river bank was green
+with grass and Sage was happy.
+
+"Throwing myself upon the ground, and laying my head upon the saddle, I
+composed myself for a sleep.
+
+"I was greatly in need of sleep, but the moment I closed my eyes, here
+came my black cavalry charging down upon me again, and I sprang up with
+a cry. Of all impressive scenes, that was my biggest one sure. I see it
+in my dreams still, at times, and I never, from this mountain side, look
+down to where the sand clouds are piling up their dunes over toward the
+Sink of the Carson, that I do not instinctively take one furtive glance
+in search of my savages."
+
+"I had a livelier mirage than that once," said Miller with a laugh. "I
+was prospecting for quartz in the foothills of Rogue River Valley,
+Oregon, and looking up, I thought I saw four or five deer, lying under a
+tree, on a hill side, about three hundred yards away. I raised the sight
+on my gun, took as good aim as I could on horseback, and blazed away.
+
+"In a second, four of those Rogue River Indians sprang from the ground
+and made for me. I had a good horse, but they ran me six miles before
+they gave up the chase. No more mirages like that for me, if you
+please."
+
+"I had a worse one than either of yees," chimed in Corrigan. "It was in
+that tough winter of '69. I had been placer mining up by Pine Grove, in
+California, all summer. I had a fair surface claim, and by wurking half
+the time, I paid me way and had a few dollars besides. The other half of
+the time I was wurking upon a dape cut, through bid rock, to get a fall
+in which I could place heavy sluices, and calculated that with the
+spring I could put in a pipe, and hydraulic more ground in one sason
+than I could wurk in the ould way in tin. One day, late in the autumn, I
+went up to La Porte to buy supplies, and on the night that I made that
+camp it began to snow. When once it got shtarted, it just continued to
+snow, as it can up in those mountains, and niver "lit up" for four hours
+at a time for thray wakes. It began to look as though the glacial period
+had returned to the wurld.
+
+"When I wint into town, I put up at Mrs. O'Kelly's boardin' and lodgin'
+house. Mrs. O'Kelly was a big woman, weighin' full two hundred pounds,
+and she was a business woman. She didn't pretind to be remainin' in La
+Porte jist for her hilth.
+
+"But there was a beautiful girl waitin' on the table in Mrs. O'Kelly's
+home. Her name was Maggie Murphy, and she was as thrim and purty a girl
+as you would wish to mate. She had bright, cheery ways, and whin she
+wint up to a table and sung out 'Soup'? all the crockery in the dinin'
+room would dance for joy.
+
+"Of an avenin' I used, after a few days, to visit a bit with Maggie.
+Some one had told about the camp that I had a great mine, and was all
+solid, and I was willin' to have the delusion kipt up, anyway until the
+storm saised. Maggie, I have a suspicion, had hurd the same story, for
+she was exceedingly gracious loike to me. One avenin,' as I was sayin'
+'good night'--we were growin' mighty familiar loike thin--I said
+'Maggie,' says I, 'the last woman I iver kissed was my ould mother, may
+I not kiss you, for I love you, darlint?' 'Indade you shall not,' says
+she, but in spite of that, somethin' in her eyes made me bould loike,
+and I saised upon and hild her--but she did not hould so very hard--and
+I kissed her upon chake and lips and eyes, and me arms were around her,
+and her heart was throbbin' warm against mine, and me soul was in the
+siventh heaven.
+
+"After awhile we quieted down a bit, and with me arms shtill around her,
+I asked, didn't she think Corrigan was a purtier name nor Murphy, and as
+I could not change my name fur her sake, wouldn't she change hers fur
+moine?
+
+"Thin with the tears shinin' loike shtars in her beautiful eyes, she
+raised up her arms, let thim shtale round me neck, and layin' her chake
+against me breast, which was throbbin' loike a stone bruise, said, said
+she, 'Yis, Barney, darlint.'
+
+"I had niver thought Barney was a very beautiful name before, but jist
+then it shtruck upon me ear swater thin marriage bells."
+
+Here Miller interrupted with, "You felt pretty proud just then, did you
+not, Barney?"
+
+"The Koohinoor would not hiv made a collar button fur me."
+
+"Don't interrupt him, Miller," interposed Carlin; "let Barney tell us the
+rest of the story."
+
+"There was a sofay near by. I drew Maggie to it, sat down and hild her
+to me side. She was pale, and we were both sort of trembly loike.
+
+"We did not talk much at first, but after awile Maggie said, suddent,
+said she: 'What a liar you are, Barney!'
+
+"And I said 'for why?' And she said 'to say you had niver kissed a woman
+since you had lift your ould mother. You have had plinty of practice.'
+
+"'And how do you know,' says I, and thin--but no matter, we had to begin
+all over again.
+
+"After awhile I wint away to bid, and talk about your mirages; all that
+night there was a convoy of angels around me, and the batein' of their
+wings was swater than the echoes that float in whin soft music comes
+from afar over still wathers.
+
+"One of the angels had just folded her wings and taken the form of
+Maggie, and was jist bend in' over me, whisperin' beautiful loike, whin,
+oh murther, I was wakened with a cry of: 'Are ye there now, ye
+blackguard?' I opened me eyes, and there stood Mrs. O'Kelly, with a
+broomstick over her head, and somethin' in her eye that looked moighty
+like a cloudburst.
+
+"'Ye thavin' villin,' said she, 'pertendin' to be a rich miner, and
+atin' up a poor woman all the time.' Thin she broke down intoirely and
+comminced wailin.
+
+"'Oh, Mr. Corrigan,' she howled through her sobs, 'How could yees come
+here and impose upon a unsuspectin' widdie; you know how hard I wurk;
+that I am up from early mornin' until the middle of the night, cookin'
+and shwapin' and makin' beds, and slavin' loike a black nigger, and----'
+by this time she recovered her timper and complated the sintence with:
+'If yees don't pay me at once I'll--I'll, I'll--'
+
+"I found breath enough after awhile to tell her to hould on. My
+pantaloons were on a chair within aisy rache; I snatched thim up, sayin'
+as I did so: 'How much is your bill, Mrs. O'Kelly?'
+
+"'Thray wakes at iliven dollars is thray and thirty dollars, and one
+extra day is a dollar and five bits, or altogither, thirty-four dollars
+and five bits.'
+
+"I shtill had siveral twinty-dollar paces; I plunged me hand into the
+pocket of me pants, saized them all, thin let them drop upon aich other,
+all but two, and holdin' these out, said sharply, and still with the
+grand air of a millionaire: 'The change, if you plase, Mrs. O'Kelly.'
+
+"She took the money, gazed upon it a moment with a dazed and surprised
+look; thin suddenly her face was wrathed in smiles, and as softly as a
+woman with her voice (it sounded loike a muffled threshing machine)
+could, said: 'Take back your money. Mr. Corrigan, and remain as long as
+you plase. I was only jist after playin' a bit of a trick upon yees.
+What do yees think I care for a few beggarly dollars?'
+
+"But I could not see it; I remained firm. Again I said: 'The change, if
+you plase, Mrs. O'Kelly, and as soon too as convanient.'
+
+"She brought me the change, sayin': 'I'll have your brikfast smokin' hot
+for yees, in five minutes, Mr. Corrigan.'
+
+"I put on me clothes and looked out. The storm had worn itself out at
+last. I wint down stairs to the dinin' room door, and beckoned to
+Maggie. She came to me, and there ware the rale love-light in her
+beautiful eyes. I can see her now. She was straight as a pump rod; her
+head sat upon her nick like a picture; the nick itsilf was white loike
+snow--but niver mind.
+
+"'Come out in the hall a bit.' I whispered, and she come. I clasped her
+hand for a moment and said: 'It's goin' home I am, Maggie; I am goin' to
+fix me house a little: it will take me forty days to make me
+arrangements. If I come thin, will you take me name and go back with
+me?'
+
+"'I will,' says she.
+
+"This is the sivinteenth of the month, Maggie; the sivinteenth of next
+month will be thirty days, and tin more will make it the twinty-sivinth.
+If I come thin, will yees go?' I asked.
+
+"'I will, Barney, Dear,' was the answer.
+
+"'Have yees thought it over, and will yees be satisfied, darlint?' I
+asked.
+
+"'I have, Barney; I shall be satisfied, and I will be a good wife to
+yees, darlint,' was the answer.
+
+[Illustration: MAGGIE.]
+
+"Thin I hild out me arms and she sprang into thim. There was an embrace
+and a kiss and thin--
+
+"'Goodbye, Maggie!'
+
+"'Good bye, Barney!' and I wint away.
+
+"I wint to a ristaurant and got a cup of coffee, and was jist startin'
+fer home, whin a frind come up and said: 'Barney,' said he; 'there's a
+man here you ought to go and punch the nose off of.'
+
+"'What fur,' says I.
+
+"'He's a slanderin' of yer,' says he.
+
+"'Who is the man and what is he sayin?' says I.
+
+"'It's Mike Dougherty, the blacksmith,' says he; and he is a sayin' as
+how your claim is no account, and that you are a bummer.'
+
+"Me heart was too light to think of quarrelin'; on me lips the honey of
+Maggie's kiss was still warm, and what did I care what ony man said. I
+merely laughed, and said: 'Maybe he is right,' and wint upon me way."
+
+With this Corrigan ceased speaking. After a moment or two of silence,
+Carlin said:
+
+"Well, Barney, how was it in six weeks?"
+
+"I had another mirage thin," said Barney. "I wint up to town; called at
+Mrs. O'Kelly's; she mit me, smilin' like, and said: 'Walk in, Mr.
+Corrigan!' I said: 'If you please, Mrs. O'Kelly, can I see Miss Murphy?'
+There was a vicious twinkle in her eye, as she answered, pointin' to a
+nate house upon the hillside, as she spoke.
+
+"'You will find her there, but her name is changed now. She was married
+on Thursday wake, to Mr. Mike Dougherty, the blacksmith. A foine man,
+and man of property, is Mr. Dougherty.'
+
+"Talk about shtrong impressions! For a moment I felt as though I was
+fallin' down a shaft. I----but don't mention it."
+
+Barney was still for a moment, and then said, in a voice almost husky:
+"As I came into town that day, all the great pines were noddin,'
+shmilin' and stretchin' out their mighty arms, as much as to say: 'We
+congratulate you, Mr. Corrigan.' As I turned away from Mrs. O'Kelly's,
+it samed to me that ivery one of thim had drawn in its branches and
+stood as the hoodlum does whin he pints his thumb to his nose and
+wriggles his fingers."
+
+Just then the Potosi whistle rung out on the still night again, the
+others answered the call, and the Club, at the signal, retired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+As the pipes were lighted next evening, Carlin said to Barney:
+"Corrigan, does the ghost of your La Porte mirage haunt you as Wright's
+does him?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," answered Corrigan sharply. "It hurt for awhile, I
+confess it, but a year and a half after Maggie was married, I passed her
+house one avenin' in the gloaming, and in a voice which I knew well,
+though all the swateness had been distilled out of it, this missage came
+out upon the air: 'Mike, if yees have got the brat to slape, yees had
+better lay him down and come out to your tay. I should loike to get
+these supper things put away sometime to-night.' Be dad, there was no
+mirage about that, no ravens about that, Wright; it was the charge of
+the rale Injun!'"
+
+"Speaking of babies," said Miller nonchalantly, "do you know that about
+the most touching scene I ever witnessed was over a baby? It was in
+Downieville. California, way back in '51 or '2. You know at that time
+babies were not very numerous in the Sierras. There were plenty of men
+there who had not seen a good woman, or a baby, for two years or more.
+You may not believe it, but you shut the presence of women and children
+all out of men's lives, for months at a time, and they contract a
+disease, which I call 'heart hunger,' and because of that I suspect that
+more whiskey has been drunk in this country, and more killings have
+grown out of trifling quarrels, than through all other causes combined.
+Without the eyes of women, good women, that he respects, upon a man, in
+a little while the wild beast, which is latent in all men's hearts,
+begins to assert itself. Because of this, men who were born to be good
+and true, have, to kill the unrest within their souls, taken to drink;
+the drink has led naturally up to a quarrel; they have got away with
+their first fight; the fools around them have praised them for their
+'sand'; there has been no look of sorrow and reproach in any honest
+woman's eyes to bring them back to their senses; and after such a
+beginning, look for them in a year, and, in nine cases out of ten, you
+will find that they are lost men.
+
+"But I commenced to tell you about the Downieville baby. It had been
+decided that we would have a Fourth of July celebration. There was no
+trouble about getting it up. We had a hundred men in camp, either one of
+whom could make as pretty a speech as you ever heard; everybody had
+plenty of money, and there was no trouble about fixing things to have a
+lively time. True, there was no chance for a triumphal car, with a
+Goddess of Liberty, and a young lady to represent each State. There was
+a good reason for it. There were not thirty young ladies within three
+hundred miles of us.
+
+"But we had a big live eagle to represent Sovereignty, and a grizzly
+bear as a symbol of Power, which we hauled in the procession; we had
+some mounted men, including some Mexican packers on mule back; a vast
+variety of flags, and many citizens on foot in the procession. Of course
+we had a marshal and his staff, a president of the day, an orator, poet,
+reader and chaplain, and last, but not least, a brass band of a few
+months' training. There were flags enough for a grand army, and every
+anvil in town was kept red hot firing salutes.
+
+"After the parade, the more sedate portion of the people repaired to the
+theatre, to hear the Declaration, poem, and oration. The prayer,
+Declaration and poem had been disposed of, and the president of the day
+was just about to introduce the orator, when a solitary baby but a few
+months old, set up a most energetic yell, and continued it for two or
+three minutes, the frightened mother not daring in that crowd to supply
+the soothing the youngster was evidently demanding. To cause a
+diversion, I suppose, the leader of the brass band nodded to the others,
+and they commenced to play the 'Star Spangled Banner.' The band had not
+had very much more practice than the baby, but the players were doing
+the best they could, when a tremendous, big-whiskered miner sprang upon
+a back seat, and waving his hat wildly, in a voice like a thunder-roll,
+shouted: 'Stop that----d band and give the baby a chance!'
+
+"Nothing like what followed during the next ten minutes had ever been
+seen on this earth, since the confusion of tongues transpired among the
+builders of Babel's Tower. Men shouted and yelled like mad men,
+strangers shook each other by the hand and screamed 'hurrah,' and in the
+crowd I saw a dozen men crying like children.
+
+"For a moment every heart was softened by the memories that baby's cries
+awakened.
+
+"The next time you feel provoked because the children shout and shy
+rocks as they return from school, you may all remember that could the
+world be carried on without children, it would not require more than two
+generations to transform men into wild beasts."
+
+When Miller ceased speaking, Ashley remarked: "Miller, yon talk very
+wisely on the subject of babies, why have you none of your own?"
+
+Miller waited a moment before answering, and then in an absent-minded
+manner said:
+
+"Did you never hear a gilt-edged expert talk familiarly about a mine, as
+though he knew all about it, when he did not really know a streak of ore
+from east country porphyry?"
+
+At this the others all laughed, and Miller joined in the merriment
+heartily, but nevertheless, something in the thoughts which the question
+awakened, had its effect upon him, for he was moody and preoccupied for
+several minutes. Meanwhile, a spell seemed to be upon the whole Club,
+except Brewster, who was reading a pamphlet on "The Creation of Mineral
+Veins," and Carlin, who was absorbed in a daily paper.
+
+"Whoever stops to think," proceeded Miller, speaking as much to himself
+as to the others, "upon what sorrows the foundations of new States are
+laid, how many hearts are broken, how many strong lives are worn out in
+the pitiless struggle?
+
+"Where are the men who were the Argonauts of the golden days? The most
+of them are gone. Every hill side is marked with their graves. They were
+a strong, brave, generous race. They laid the wand of their power on the
+barbarism which met them; it melted away at their touch; they blazed the
+trails and smoothed the paths, that, unsoiled, the delicate sandals of
+civilization might draw near; they rifled the hills and ravines of their
+stores of gold, and poured it into the Nation's lap, until every
+sluggish artery of business was set bounding; they built temples to
+Religion, to Learning, to Justice and to Industry; as they moved on,
+cities sprung up in their wake; following them came the enchantments of
+home and the songs of children; but for them, what was their portion?
+They were to work, to struggle, to be misjudged in the land whence they
+came; to learn to receive any blows which outrageous fortune might hurl
+at them, without plaint; to watch while States grew into place around
+them, and while the frown on the face of the desert relaxed into a smile
+at their toil, that toil was simply to be accepted as a matter of course
+by the world, and in the severe and self-satisfied civilization of older
+States, only pity was to be felt for their ignorance, and only horror
+for their rough ways. They were to be path-finders, the sappers and
+miners to storm the strong-holds of barbarism; through summer's heat,
+and winter's cold, to continue their march, until the final night should
+come, and then to sink to a dreamless bivouac under the stars. What
+wonder if some became over-wearied! if others grew reckless?"
+
+He had risen and was walking the floor, to and fro, like a caged lion,
+as he talked. Going now to the kitchen door, he cried: "Yap, bring some
+hot water, some sugar, a nutmeg and some limes, if you have them."
+
+The heathen obeyed, and Miller made seven big, hot whiskey punches. Then
+lifting his glass he offered this toast:
+
+"Here's to the Old Boys; to those who worked and suffered and died, but
+never complained!"
+
+All rose and drank in silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+At the next meeting, when the pipes were all lighted, Ashley, turning to
+Miller, said:
+
+"You took too gloomy a view of things last night. What you said, or
+rather something in your tone, has haunted me ever since. But you were
+wrong. The Argonauts will not be forgotten.
+
+"The names of the kings who compelled the building of the pyramids are
+mostly matters of conjecture now, but no man who ever gazed upon those
+piles of stone that have borne unscarred the desert storms that have
+been breaking upon and around them through the centuries, has failed to
+think of the tremendous energy of the race that reared those monuments
+above the sand; reared them so that the abrasion of the ages avails not
+against them.
+
+"One loves to dream of how that race must have looked, there under that
+sky, while yet the world was young, and while the energy and beauty of
+youth was upon it. There was no steam power to assist, no power drills,
+there were only rude, untempered tools. The plain wedge, and the lever
+in its more effective form, were about all that was known of mechanics;
+still from the quarries of Syene, far up the Nile, those blocks were
+wrested, hewed, transported, lifted up and laid in place, and with such
+mathematical precision was the work performed, that the ebb and flow of
+the centuries have no effect upon the work. While this material work was
+going on, in the same realm wise men were putting into a language the
+alphabet of the sky, tracing out the procession of the stars and solving
+the mystery of the seasons. When we think of Ancient Egypt, it is not of
+her kings, but what was wrought out there by brain and hand.
+
+"To-day I was at work on the twenty-four hundred-foot level of the mine.
+Around me power drills were working, cars were rattling, cages were
+running; three hundred men were stoping, timbering and rolling cars to
+and from the chutes and ore-breasts, and in the spectral light I thought
+it was a scene for a painter. But while so thinking, for some reason,
+there came to me the thought of the one hundred times three hundred men,
+who, for a generation, worked on a single pyramid; worked without pay
+days, without so much as a kind word, and on poorer fare than one gets
+at a fourth-rate miners' boarding house; and, as I reflected over that,
+our little work here seemed small indeed.
+
+"So, in estimating Greece, we do not pick out a few men or women to
+remember, but we think of the race that made Thermopylae and Marathon
+possibilities, of the men who followed Xenophon, of the women who closed
+their hearts and left their deformed offspring to perish in the woods
+that Greece should rear no woman who could not bear soldiers, no man who
+could not bear arms; of the race so finely strung that poetry was born
+of it; that sculpture and eloquence were so perfected in, that to copy
+is impossible; that was so susceptible to beauty that it turned justice
+aside, and yet that was so valiant that it mastered the world.
+
+"So of Rome! It is not that the great Julius lived that we call it 'The
+Imperial Nation.' We stand in awe of it still, not because out of its
+millions a few superb figures shine. Rather, we think of the valor that
+from a little nucleus widened until it subdued the world; of the ten
+thousand fields on which Romans fought and conquered. We think how they
+marshaled their armies, and taught the nations how to lay out camps; how
+they built roads and aqueducts, that their land might be defended and
+the Imperial City sustained; how they carved out an architecture of
+their own which the world still clings to in its most stately edifices;
+how, from barbarism, they progressed, until they framed a code which is
+still respected; how, in literature and the arts, they excelled, and
+how, for a thousand years, they were the concernment of the world.
+
+"So of England. Which merits the greater glory, King John or the stern,
+half barbarous barons who, with an instinct generations in advance of
+their age, circled around their sullen king and compelled him to give to
+them 'the great charter?' Through the thousand years that have succeeded
+that act, how many individual names can we rescue from the hosts that on
+that little isle have lived and died? Not many. But the grand career of
+the nation is in the mind forever. How, through struggle after struggle,
+the advance has been made; struggles that, though full of errors, knew
+no faltering or despair, until at last, for the world, she became the
+center and the bulwark of civilization; until in material strength she
+had no equal; until the sheen of her sails gave light to all the seas,
+and under her flag signal stations were upreared the world around. We do
+not remember many men, but there is ever in the mind the thought of
+English valor and persistence, and the clear judgment which backed the
+valor by land and sea.
+
+"But we need not go abroad; our own land has examples enough. Not many
+can call over the names of those who came in the 'Mayflower,' or those
+who made up the colonies up and down the Atlantic coast. But the
+spectacle of the 'Mayflower' band kneeling, on their arrival, in the
+snow and singing a triumphal song, is a picture the tints of which will
+deepen in splendor with the ages. We need not call over the names of our
+statesmen and warriors; they give but a slight impression of our race.
+But when we think how, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, the woods
+were made to give place to gardens, fruitful fields and smiling homes;
+when we think that the majority of those families had each of them less
+to start with than any one of us gets for a month's labor, and yet how
+they subdued the land, pressed back the savage, reared and educated and
+created a literature for their children, until over all the vast expanse
+there was peace, prosperity, enlightenment and joy, then it is that we
+begin to grow proud.
+
+"If the Argonauts of the Golden Coast can show that they have wrought as
+well, they will not be forgotten. Those who succeed them will know that
+they were preceded by a race that was strong and brave and true, and
+their memory in the West will be embalmed with the memory of those in
+the East who, starting under the spray that is tossed from the white
+surf of the eastern sea, with no capital but pluck, hewed out and
+embellished the Republic.
+
+"Of course, there have been sorrows; of course, hearts have broken; but
+there has been much of triumph also. It is something to have a home in
+this Far West; there is something in the hills, the trees, the free air
+and action of this region which brings to men thoughts that they would
+never have had in other lands. It is not bad sometimes for men to leave
+their books and turn to Nature for instruction. Here of all the world
+some of the brightest pages of Nature's book are spread open for the
+reader. And many a man that others pity because they think his heart
+must be heavy, does not ask that pity; does not feel its need. Those
+hearts have gathered to themselves delights, which, if not, perhaps, of
+the highest order, still are very sweet. Let me give an instance.
+
+"Last year I went to look at a mine down in Tuolumne county, California.
+I was the guest of a miner who had lived in the same cabin for more than
+twenty years. He was his own cook and housekeeper and seldom had any
+company except his books--a fine collection--his daily papers, his gun
+and some domestic animals. He had a little orchard and garden. Around
+his garden tame rabbits played with his dogs. In explanation, he said:
+'They were all babies at the same time and have grown up together.'
+While walking with him in his garden, he asked me if I had ever seen a
+mountain quail on her nest. At the same moment he parted the limbs of a
+shrub, and there, within six inches of his hand, sat a bird, her bright
+eyes looking up in perfect confidence into his.
+
+"The place was in the high foothills; there was a space in front of his
+cabin. From that point the hills, in steadily increasing waves, swelled
+into the great ridges of the higher Sierras, and far away to the east
+the blue crest of Mount Bodie stood out clear against the sky.
+
+"It was not strange to me that he loved the place. When within doors he
+talked upon every subject with a peculiar terse shrewdness all his own.
+He had had many bouts with the world; he knew men thoroughly; he had in
+a measure withdrawn himself from them, and found a serener comfort in
+his pets, his hills and trees. He had acquired that faculty which men
+often do when a great deal alone in the mountains. He did not reason his
+way up through the proof of a proposition, but with a clear sagacity
+reached the truth at a bound, and left the reasoning for others. He had
+his theory of how fissures were originally formed and filled; he had his
+opinion of ancient and modern authors; he understood politics well, and
+gave brief and true reasons for his belief. In short, he was a
+self-appointed ambassador to the court of the hills, to represent all
+the world.
+
+"My admiration for him increased the longer I remained with him, for he
+knew much of interest to me; but he spoke always in a tone as though he
+was revealing only a little of what he knew. I suspect that was the real
+state of the case. There was a charm, too, about his manner. Though I
+knew that he had suffered many disappointments, if not sorrows, there
+was no bitterness. Whatever he did or said, was with a gentle grace of
+his own. He was free, alike, from either harshness, egotism or
+diffidence. Something of the great calm of the hills around him had
+entered into his soul.
+
+"But the greatest surprise was reserved for me to the last. I had to get
+up at three o'clock in the morning and walk over a dim trail two or
+three miles to a little village, in order to take the stage which passed
+the village at five o'clock. When I was ready, my friend said: 'There
+are so many trails through the hills you might take the wrong one in the
+uncertain light. I will pilot you.'
+
+"When we set out it was yet dark. There was an absolute hush upon the
+world. Up through the branches of the great pines, God's lanterns were
+swinging as though but just trimmed and lighted, and under the august
+roof where they swung, they shone with rays more pure than vestal lamps.
+But at length up the east some shafts of light were shot, and soon the
+miracle of the dawn began to unfold. It was a June morning and entirely
+cloudless. Soon the warm rays of approaching day began to bend over the
+hills from the east; the foliage which had been black began to grow
+green; the scarlet of the hills shone out where the light touched it;
+the sentinel fires above began to grow dim. A little later the hills
+began to grow resonant with the manifold voices which they held, and
+which commenced to awaken to hail the approaching day.
+
+"Then my sententious companion, as though kindled by the same
+influences, opened his lips. He seemed to have forgotten that I was
+near; he was answering the greetings of his friends in the woods. I can
+only give the faintest idea of what he said, and I grieve over it, for
+it was sweeter than music. His words ran something like this:
+
+"'Chirp, chirp; O, my martin, (the swallow's grandmother); as usual you
+are up first, to say good morning, the first to hail the beautiful
+coming day. Ah, there you are, whistling, my lovely quail, you charming
+cockaded glory; and now, my mocking bird, you brown splendor with a flat
+nose, where do you get all your voices? Heigh, O! you are up, Mr. Jacob
+(woodpecker) up to see if Mrs. Jacob is gathering acorns this morning,
+you old miser of the woods, with your black and white clothes and your
+thrift worse than a Chinaman's; and now, my morning dove has commenced
+its daily drone, growling because breakfast is not ready, I suppose. At
+last you have opened your eyes, Mrs. Lark; a nice bird you are to claim
+to be an early riser, but you have a cheery voice, nevertheless. Now, my
+wren and my oreole, you are making some genuine music, if both of you
+together are not as big as one note of an organ. Hist! that was a
+curlew's cry from away down on the river's bank, and now you are all
+awake and singing, you noisy chatterers, as though your hearts would
+burst for joy. Finally, old night-raiding owl, you are saying 'good
+night' this morning, you old burglar of the woods.'
+
+"Meanwhile the banners of the dawn had grown more and more bright in the
+sky, and as he ceased speaking, the full disc of the sun, lighted with
+omnipotent fires, shone full above the hills, with a splendor too severe
+for human eyes.
+
+"I had not interrupted my friend during the half hour that he, striding
+before me on the trail, had been talking. I half suspected that he had
+forgotten that I was near, absorbed as he was in greeting his warblers.
+Of course I have not named the birds in their order; nor have I named
+half that he greeted; I might as well try to repeat to you all the
+scientific terms in one of Professor Stewart's earthquake lectures. But
+all that day, and for many days afterwards, his words were ringing in my
+ears; and often have I wondered, if, with his thoughts and his
+surroundings, he was not with more reason and more peace, passing down
+life's trail, than as though he were out in the pitiless world of men,
+striving for wealth and for power. Never since have I seen a lonely man
+in town, with shy face which revealed that he was unused to the crowds
+of the city, purchasing some few little necessaries, and, apparently,
+hurrying to get away, that I have not said to myself: 'He has a cabin
+somewhere with books and dogs, and with a garden outside, and he knows
+every bird in the forest by its morning call.'"
+
+While Ashley was talking, he had unconsciously fixed his eyes upon the
+light which shone from a reflector, up through the window from the
+hoisting works down the hill, and seemed to forget the presence of any
+one near.
+
+As he ceased and looked around, he discovered that all his auditors had
+fallen asleep in their chairs, except Yap Sing, who had stolen into the
+room. He looked up knowingly, smiled and said:
+
+"You talkie belly nice. Me heap sabbie, clail, chickie, duckie, goosie.
+Me cookie lem flirst late, you bettie."
+
+"You be--" said Ashley, and went to bed. The rest, awakened by the
+whistles, started up in surprise, and Corrigan said: "I was dramin' of
+agles and pacocks and swans and hummin' birds. I must have been afther
+atin too much supper."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The next evening as the club gathered around the hearth, Brewster, who,
+next to Harding, was the most reticent member of the party, said
+apologetically to Ashley:
+
+"It was shabby of us not to give more heed to your story last night, but
+the truth with me was, I was very tired. We were cutting out a station
+on the 2,300 level of the mine, yesterday; the work was hard, the
+ventilation bad, and it was hot and prostrating work. But, I heard most
+of your story, nevertheless. While I know nothing of your miner who
+lives with his books and birds and dogs and flowers; and hence know
+nothing of what storms he has breasted and what heart-aches he has
+borne; and, therefore, cannot, in my own mind, fix his place, still, on
+general principles, it is man's duty never to accept any rebuff of
+unkind fortune as a reason for ceasing to try; but rather he should
+struggle on and do the best he can; if needs be dying with the harness
+on his back. Moreover, as a rule, it is the easier way. It is in harmony
+with nature's first great law, and man seldom errs when he follows the
+laws that were framed before the world's foundations were laid. When man
+was given his two feet to stand upon; his arms to cleave out for himself
+a path and a career, and his brain to be his guide; then with the rich
+earth for a field, in the opinion of the Infinite Goodness, he has all
+the capital that he required. The opportunities of this land, especially
+this free West, with a capacity to plan and work, are enough for any
+man. The trouble is, men falter too soon. On that last night of anxiety,
+before the New World rose out of the sea to greet the eyes of Columbus;
+when his sullen and fear-stricken crews were on the point of mutiny,
+suddenly there came to the senses of the great commander, the perfume of
+earthly flowers. Soon after the veil of the ocean was rent asunder, and
+upon his thrilled eyes there burst a light. Columbus was not the only
+man who ever discovered a new world. They are being found daily. I meet
+men often on the street and know by something in their faces, that, at
+that very moment, the perfume of the flowers of some glory to come is
+upon them, and that the first rays of the dawn of a divine light are
+commencing to fill with splendor their eyes.
+
+"When the idea of the Alexandrian, after having been transmitted from
+mortal to mortal, for more than fifty generations, at last materialized,
+and the care worn man who was watching, heard the first sob of
+artificial life come from a steam engine, to him was the perfume and the
+light.
+
+"When, after generations of turmoil and war, in the deadly double
+struggle to assimilate various peoples, and at the same time out of
+barbarism to construct a stable and enlightened government; when the
+stern old English barons caught the right inspiration, and gathering
+around their sovereign, asked him to recognize the rights of the men on
+whose valor his throne leaned for safety and to sign Magna Charta; to
+them came the perfume and the light.
+
+"When the desire of the colonies, voiceless before, at length through
+the pen of Jefferson, found expression in the words: 'We hold these
+truths to be self-evident--that all men are created equal; that they are
+endowed by their Creater with certain unalienable rights;' then to a
+whole nation, yes to the world, came the perfume and the light.
+
+"In public life these emotions are marked, and the world applauds. In
+humble life they are generally unnoticed, but they are frequent, and the
+enchantment of the perfume becomes like incense, and it is a softer
+light that dawns. When the poor man, who lays aside daily but a pittance
+from his earnings, finds at last, after months and years, that the sum
+has increased until it is certain that he can build a little home for
+his wife--a home which is to be all his own--and that he can educate his
+children; then the perfume and lights of a new world entrance him, and
+in his sphere he is as great as was the dark-eyed Italian.
+
+"In the Bible we read that all the prophets were given to fasting and to
+labor, in order to bring the body under subjection to the soul. This is
+but typical of what a great soul must submit to, if it would catch the
+perfume and the light. The world's wealth rests on labor. Whether a man
+tills a garden or writes a book, the harvest will be worth gathering
+just in proportion to the soil, and to the energy and intelligence of
+the work performed. Columbus could never have discovered a new world by
+standing on the sea shore and straining his eyes to the West. The
+tempests had to be met; the raging seas outrode; the mutinous crew
+controlled. There are tempests, waves and mutineers in every man's path,
+and it is only over and beyond them that there comes the perfume and the
+light. The lesson taught at Eden's gate is the one that must still be
+learned. All that man can gain is by labor, and the sword that guards
+the gate flames just as fiercely as of old.
+
+"To the Argonauts was given a duty. They were appointed to redeem a wild
+and create a sovereign state. I believe they were a brave, true race.
+The proof is, that without the restraint of pure women and without law,
+they enforced order. Their energy, also, was something tremendous. After
+building up California, they, in great part, made a nucleus for
+civilization to gather to in each of half-a-dozen neighboring
+Territories. But they had advantages which the men who settled the
+Eastern States--the region beyond the Mississippi River, I mean--never
+possessed. They had better food to eat, a better climate to live in. If
+they did not have capital, they knew a living, at least, could be had
+from the nearest gravel bank or ravine, and if they lacked the
+encircling love of wife and children, they were spared the sorrow of
+seeing dear women wear out lives of hardship and poverty, as has been
+seen on all other frontiers in America.
+
+"If some fell by the wayside, it was natural, for human nature is weak
+and Death is everywhere; if some in the pitiless struggle failed, they
+had no right to cease to try, for when men do that the hope that to them
+will come the perfume or that upon their eyes will ever shine the light,
+is forever closed."
+
+"All that is good," said Carlin, "but the rule does not always hold
+true. There is sometimes a limit to man's capacity to suffer, and his
+heart breaks; and still after that his face gives no sign, and there is
+no abatement of his energies. In such cases, however, men generally lose
+the capacity to reason calmly and chase impossibilities. I saw a case
+yesterday. I met a man mounted on a cheap mustang, and leading another
+on which was packed a little coarse food, a pick, shovel, pan,
+coffee-pot and frying pan. As he moved slowly up C. street, a
+friend--himself an Argonaut--clutched me by the arm with one hand, and
+with the other pointing to the man on horseback, asked me if I knew him.
+Replying that I did not, he said: 'Why, that is "Prospecting Joe"; I
+thought everybody knew him.' I told him I had never heard of him, when
+he related his story, almost word for word, as follows:
+
+"He came to the far West from some Eastern state in the old, old days.
+He was not then more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old.
+Physically he was a splendid specimen of a man, I am told. He was,
+moreover, genial and generous, and drew friends around him wherever he
+went. He secured a claim in the hills above Placerville. One who knew
+him at that time told me, that, calling at his cabin one night, he
+surprised him poring over a letter written in a fair hand, while beside
+him on his rude table lay the picture of a beautiful girl. His heart
+must have been warmed at the time, for picking up the picture and
+handing it to my friend, he said. 'Look at her! She is my Nora, _my_
+Nora. She, beautiful as she is, would in her divinity have bent and
+married a coarse mold of clay like myself, and poor, too, as I was; but
+her father said: 'Not yet, Joe. Go out into the world, make a struggle
+for two years, then come back, and if by that time you have established
+that you are man enough to be a husband to a true woman, and you and
+Nora still hold to the thought that is in your hearts now, I will help
+you all I can. And, mind you, I don't expect you to make a fortune in
+two years; I only want you to show that the manhood which I think you
+have within you is true.' 'That was square and sensible talk, and it was
+not unkind. So I came away.' Then he took the picture and looked fondly
+at it for a long time, and said: 'I see the delicious girl as she looked
+on that summer's day, when she waved me her last good by. I shall see
+her all my life, if I live a thousand years.'
+
+"Well, Joe worked on week days; on Sundays, as miners did in those days,
+he went to camp to get his mail and supplies. His claim paid him only
+fairly well, but he was saving some money. In eight months he had been
+able to deposit twelve hundred dollars in the local bank. One Sunday he
+did not receive the expected letter from his Nora, and during the next
+hour or two he drank two or three times with friends. He was about to
+leave for home, when three men whom he slightly knew, and who had all
+been drinking too much, met him and importuned him to drink with them.
+He declined with thanks, when one of the three caught him by the arm and
+said he must drink.
+
+"At any other time he would have extricated him self without trouble and
+gone on his way. But on that day he was not in good humor, so he shook
+the man off roughly and shortly told him to go about his own affairs.
+
+"The others were just sufficiently sprung with liquor to take offense at
+this, and the result was a terrific street fight. Joe was badly bruised
+but he whipped all three of the others. Then he was arrested and ordered
+to appear next morning to answer a charge of fighting. He was of course
+cleared without difficulty, but it took one-fourth of his deposit to pay
+his lawyer. Then the miners gathered around him and called him a hero
+and he went on his first spree.
+
+"Next morning when he awoke and thought of as much as he could remember
+of the previous day's events, he was thoroughly ashamed. As he went down
+to the office of the hotel, in response to an inquiry as to how he felt,
+he answered: 'Full of repentance and beer.' A friend showed him the
+morning paper with a full account of the Sunday fight and his trial and
+acquittal. This was embellished with taking head-lines, as is the custom
+with reporters. It cut him to the heart. He knew that if the news
+reached his old home of his being in a street fight on Sunday, all his
+hopes would be ended. His first thought was to draw his money and take
+the first steamer for Panama and New York. He went to the bank and asked
+how his account stood, for he remembered to have drawn something the
+previous day. He was answered that there was still to his credit $150.
+The steamer fare was $275. Utterly crushed, he returned to his claim.
+The fear that the news of his disgrace would reach home, haunted him
+perpetually and made him afraid to write. He continued to work, but not
+with the old hope.
+
+"After some weeks, a rumor came that rich ground had been 'struck' away
+to the north, somewhere in Siskiyou county. He drew what money he had,
+bought a couple of ponies, one to ride and one to pack, and started for
+the new field. Before starting, he confided to a friend that the
+previous night he had dreamed of a mountain, the crest of which
+glittered all over with gold, and he was going to find it.
+
+"The friend told him it was but a painted devil of the brain, the child
+of a distempered imagination, but he merely shook his head and went
+away.
+
+"He has pursued that dream ever since. His eyes have been ever strained
+to catch the reflection from those shining heights. When he began the
+search, his early home and the loving arms which were there stretched
+out to him, began to recede in the distance. In a few years they
+disappeared altogether. Then his hopes one by one deserted him, until
+all had fled except the one false one which was, and still is, driving
+him on. Youth died and was buried by the trail, but so absorbed was he
+that he hardly grieved. As Time served notice after notice upon him; as
+his hair blanched, his form bent and the old sprightliness went out of
+his limbs, he retired more and more from the haunts of men; more and
+more he drew the mantle of the mountains around him. But his eyes, now
+bright with an unnatural splendor, were still strained upon the shining
+height. There were but a few intervening hills and some forests that
+obstructed his view. A little further on and the goal would be reached.
+Last night he was in his cups and he told my friend that this time he
+would 'strike it sure,' that the old man would make his showing yet,
+that he would yet go back to the old home and be a Providence to those
+he loved when a boy.
+
+"Poor wretch. There is an open grave stretched directly across his
+trail. On this journey or some other soon, he will, while his eyes are
+still straining towards his heights of gold, drop into that grave and
+disappear forever.
+
+"Some morning as he awakens, amid the hills or out upon the desert,
+there will be such a weariness upon him that he will say, 'I will sleep
+a little longer,' and from that sleep he will never waken.
+
+"Heaven grant that his vision will then become a reality and that he may
+mount the shining heights at last.
+
+"Of course it is easy to say that he was originally weak, but that is no
+argument, for human nature is prone to be weak. His was a high-strung,
+sensitive, generous nature. He never sought gold for the joy it would
+give him, but for the happiness he dreamed it would give to those he
+loved. His Nora was a queen in his eyes and he wanted to give her, every
+day, the surroundings of a queen. He made one mistake and never rallied
+from it. Had the letter come that fatal Sunday from Nora, as he was
+expecting it, or had he left for home half an hour earlier, or had he
+been of coarser clay, that day's performance would have been avoided, or
+would have been passed as an incident not to be repeated, but not to be
+seriously minded. But he was of different mold, and then that was a blow
+from Fate. It is easy enough to say that there is nothing in that thing
+called luck. Such talk will not do here on the Comstock. There is no
+luck when a money lender charges five dollars for the use of a hundred
+for a month and exacts good security. He gets his one hundred and five
+dollars, and that is business.
+
+"But in this lead where ore bodies lie like melons on a vine, when ore
+is reported in the Belcher and in the Savage, when Brown buys stock in
+the Belcher and Rogers buys in the Savage; when the streak of ore in the
+Belcher runs into a bonanza and Brown wakes up rich some morning, and
+when the streak of ore in the Savage runs into a Niagara of hot water
+which floods the mine and Rogers's stock is sold out to meet an
+assessment, it will not do to call Brown a shrewd fellow and Rogers an
+idiot.
+
+"Still, I do not object to the theory that a man should always keep
+trying, even if the lack is against him, because luck may change
+sometime, and if it does not, he sleeps better when he knows that with
+the lights before him he has done the best he could. A man can stand
+almost anything when his soul does not reproach him as he tries to go to
+sleep.
+
+"Then, too, man is notoriously a lazy animal, and unless he has the
+nerve to spur himself to work, even when unfortunate, he is liable to
+fail and get the dry rot, which is worse than death.
+
+"But my heart goes out in sympathy when I think of the glorified
+spirits, which on this coast have failed and are failing every day,
+because from the first an iron fortune has hedged them round and baffled
+their every effort, struggle as they would."
+
+Carlin ceased speaking, and the silence which prevailed in the Club for
+a moment was broken by Miller, who said: "Don't worry about them,
+Carlin. If they do fail they have lots of fun in trying."
+
+"I would grave more for your mon Joe," interposed Corrigan, "did I not
+remember Mrs. Dougherty, who married the gintleman of properthy, and
+thin your Joe war a fraud onyway. What war there in a bit of a scrap to
+make a mon grave himself into craziness over it?"
+
+"Your stock-buying illustration is not fair, Carlin, for that is only a
+form of gambling at best," suggested Brewster.
+
+The club winced under this a little, for every member dabbled in stocks
+sometimes, except Brewster and Harding.
+
+For two evenings Harding had been scribbling away behind the table, and
+during a lull in the conversation Ashley asked him what he had been
+writing. "Letters?" suggested Ashley.
+
+"No, not letters," answered Harding, sententiously.
+
+"What is it, then," asked Miller; "won't you read it to us?"
+
+"Yes, rade it, rade it," said Corrigan, and the rest all joined in the
+request.
+
+"You won't laugh?" said Harding, inquiringly.
+
+They all promised, and Harding read as follows:
+
+
+                THE PROSPECTOR.
+
+    How strangely to-night my memory flings
+    From the face of the past its shadowy wings,
+    And I see far back through the mist and tears
+    Which make the record of twenty years;
+    From the beautiful days in the Golden State,
+    When life seemed sure by long leases from Fate;
+    From the wondrous visions of "long ago"
+    To the naked shade that we call "now."
+
+    Those halcyon days! There were four with me then--
+    Ernest and Ned, Wild Tom and Ben.
+    Now all are gone; Tom was first to die.
+    I held his hands, closed his glazed eye;
+    And many a tear o'er his grave we shed
+    As we tenderly pillowed his curly head
+    In the shadows deep of the pines, that stand
+    Forever solemn, forever fanned
+    By the winds that steal through the Golden Gate
+    And spread their balm o'er the Golden State.
+
+    And the others, too, they all are dead.
+    By the turbid Gila perished Ned;
+    Brave, noble Ernest, he was lost
+    Amid Montana's ice and frost;
+    And out upon a desert trail
+    Our Bennie met the spectre pale.
+
+    And I am left--the last of all--
+    And as to-night the white snows fall,
+    As barbarous winds around me roar,
+    I think the long past o'er and o'er--
+    What I have hoped and suffered, all,
+    From twenty years rolls back the pall,
+    From the dusty, thorny, weary track,
+    As the tortuous path I follow back.
+
+    In my childhood's home they think me, there,
+    A failure, or lost, till my name in the prayer
+    At eve is forgot. Well, they cannot know
+    That my toil through heat, through tempest and snow,
+    While it seemed for naught but a struggle for pelf,
+    Was more for them, far more, than myself.
+
+    Ah, well! As my hair turns slowly to snow
+    The places of childhood more distantly grow;
+    And my dreams are changing. 'Tis home no more,
+    For shadowy hands from the other shore
+    Stretch nightly down, and it seems as when
+    I lived with Tom, Ned, Ernest and Ben.
+
+    And the mountains of Earth seem dwindling down,
+    And the hills of Eden, with golden crown,
+    Rise up, and I think, in the last great day,
+    Will my claim above bear a fire assay?
+    From the slag of earth, and the baser strains,
+    Will the crucible show of precious grains
+    Enough to give me a standing above,
+    Where in temples of Peace rock the cradles of Love?
+
+"That is good, but it is too serious by half," Miller said, critically.
+"What is a young fellow like you doing with such a melancholy view of
+things?"
+
+"It's a heap better to write such things for pleasure in boyhood than to
+have to feel them for a fact in old age," said Wright.
+
+"I say, Harding, have you measured all the faet in that poem?" remarked
+Corrigan, good-naturedly.
+
+"We have been talking too seriously for two or three evenings and it is
+influencing Harding," was Miller's comment.
+
+Brewster thought it was a good way for Sammie to spend his evenings. It
+would give him discipline, which would help him in writing all his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The next evening Wright had business down town.
+
+"Carlin was right last night," began Miller, "when he said that all men
+were naturally lazy. Laziness is a fixed principle in this world. I can
+prove it by my friend Wand down at Pioche.
+
+"When he was not so old as he has been these last few years, he made a
+visit to San Francisco, and one day, passing a building on Fourth
+street, saw within several hives of bees, evidently placed there to be
+sold. Some whim led him within the building and, from the man in charge,
+he learned that in California, because of the softer climate, bees
+worked quite nine months in the year; that a good swarm of bees would
+gather a certain number of pounds of honey in a season, which sold
+readily at a certain price, making a tremendous percentage on the cost
+of the bees, which was, if I remember correctly, one hundred dollars per
+hive. The idea seemed to strike Wand. He had fifteen hundred dollars,
+and all that day he was mentally estimating how much money could be made
+out of fifteen swarms of bees in a year. The figures looked exceedingly
+encouraging. They always do, you know, when your mind is fixed upon a
+certain business which you want to engage in.
+
+"That evening Wand happened to meet a friend who had just come in from
+Honolulu. This friend was enthusiastic over the Hawaiian Islands. There
+was perpetual summer there and ever-blooming flowers. Before one flower
+cast its leaves, others on the same tree were budding. Their glory was
+ever before the eyes and their incense ever upon the air.
+
+"Wand fell asleep that night trying to estimate how much money a swarm
+of bees would make a year in a land of perpetual summer. The conclusion
+was that next morning Wand bought twelve hives of bees, and that
+afternoon sailed with them for Honolulu.
+
+"He found a lovely place for his bees, and saw with kindling pleasure
+that they readily assimilated with the new country and went to work with
+apparent enthusiasm.
+
+"The bees worked steadily until, in their judgment, it was time for
+winter to come. Then they ceased to work, remained in their hives until
+they ate up their hoarded wealth, and then, as Wand expresses it, 'took
+to the woods.'
+
+"He borrowed the money necessary to pay his passage to San Francisco,
+and ever since has sworn that bees are like men, 'natural loafers,' that
+will not work unless they are forced to. He believes that the much
+lauded ant would be the same way if it were not urged on to work
+perpetually by the miser's fear of starvation."
+
+Carlin suggested that the question be tested nearer home, and called
+out, "Yap Sing!"
+
+The Mongolian came in from the kitchen and Carlin interrogated him.
+
+"Yap, do you like to work?"
+
+"Yes, me heap likee workee."
+
+"How many hours a day do you like to work, Yap?"
+
+"Maybe eight hour, maybe ten hour, maybe slixteen hour."
+
+"We give you forty dollars a month. Would you work harder if we paid you
+fifty dollars?"
+
+"No. Me thinkee not," answered Yap, adroitly. "You sabbie, you hire me,
+me sellee you my time. Me workee all the slame, forty doll's, fifty
+doll's, one hundred doll's. No diffelence."
+
+"Yap, suppose you were to get $3,000, would you work then?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Me workee all the slame, now."
+
+"Suppose, Yap, you had $5,000--what then?"
+
+"Me workee all the slame."
+
+"Do you ever buy stocks?"
+
+"Slum time buy lettle; not muchee."
+
+"Suppose, Yap, that some time stocks would go up and make you $20,000,
+would you work then?"
+
+The Chinaman, with eyes blazing, replied vehemently: "Not one d----d
+bittee."
+
+The Club agreed that Carlin had pretty well settled a vexed question,
+that conditions which would make both the bee and the Chinaman idlers,
+would be apt to very soon cause the Caucasian to lie in the shade.
+
+"And yet," mused Brewster, "there are mighty works going on everywhere.
+This Nation to-day makes a showing such as this world never saw before.
+From sea to sea, for three thousand miles, the chariot wheels of toil
+are rolling and roaring as they never did in any other land. The energy
+that is exhausted daily amounts to more than all the world's working
+forces did a hundred years ago. The thing to grieve about is not that
+there is not enough work being performed, but that in this intensely
+practical, and material age, the gentler graces in the hearts of men are
+being neglected. In the race for wealth the higher aspirations are being
+smothered. If from the 'tongue-less past' there could be awakened the
+silent voices, the cry which would be heard over all others would be: 'I
+had some golden thoughts; I meant to have given them expression, but the
+swiftly moving years with their cares were too much for me, and I died
+and made no sign.'
+
+"If there is such a thing as a ghost of memory, all the aisles of the
+past are full of wailing voices, wailing over facts unspoken, over
+eloquence that died in passionate hearts unuttered, over divine poems
+that never were set to earthly music. Aside from native indolence, most
+men are struggling for bread, and when the day's work is completed,
+brain and hand are too weary for further effort. So the years drift by
+until the zeal of young ambition loses its electric thrill; until cares
+multiply; until infirmities of body keep the chords of the soul out of
+tune, and the night follows, and the long sleep. There were great
+soldiers before Achilles or Hector, but there were no Homers, or if
+there were, they were dissipated fellows, or they were absorbed in
+business, or, under the clear Grecian sky, it was their wont to dream
+the beautiful days away, and so, no sounds were uttered, of the kind
+which, booming through space, strike at last on the immortal heights,
+and there make echoes which thrill the earth with celestial music ever
+after. If fortune had not made an actor of Shakespeare, and if his
+matchless spirit, working in the line of his daily duties, had not felt
+that all the plays offered were mean and poor, as wanting in dramatic
+power as they were false to human nature, and so was roused to fill a
+business need, the chances are a thousand to one that he 'would have
+died with all his music in him,' and would, to-day, have been as
+entirely lost in oblivion as are the boors who were his neighbors. Just
+now there is not much hope for our own country, and probably will not be
+for another century. Present efforts are all for wealth and power and
+are almost all earthly. Everything is calculated from a basis of coin.
+Before that, brains are cowed, and for it Beauty reserves her sweetest
+smiles. The men who are pursuing grand ideas with no motive more selfish
+than to make the masses of the world nobler, braver and better, or to
+give new symphonies to life, are wondrously few. There are splendid
+triumphs wrought, but they are almost every one material and practical.
+
+"The men who created the science of chemistry dreamed of finding the
+elixir of life; the modern chemist pursues the study until he invents a
+patent medicine or a baking powder, and then all his energies are
+devoted to selling his discovery.
+
+"In its youthful vitality the Nation has performed wonders, and from the
+masses individuals have solved many of nature's mysteries and bridled
+many elemental forces.
+
+"The winds have been forced to swing open the doors to their caves and
+show where they are brewed; the lightnings have submitted to curb and
+rein; the ship goes out against the tempest, carried forward on its own
+iron arms; the secret of the sunlight has been fathomed and a
+counterfeit light created; the laws which govern sound have been
+mastered until the human voice now thrills a wire and is caught with
+perfect distinctness sixty miles away, and a thousand other such
+triumphs have been achieved.
+
+"But no deathless poem has been written, no immortal picture has been
+called to life on canvas; no master hand has touched the cold stone and
+transfigured it into something which seems ready, like the fabled statue
+of the old master, to warm into life and smiles.
+
+"Souls surcharged at first with celestial fire have waited for the work
+of the bodies to be finished, that they might materialize into words of
+form and splendor, waited until the tenement around them fell away and
+left them unvoiced, to seek a purer sphere, and a generation, three
+generations have died with their deepest tints unpainted, their sweetest
+music unsung.
+
+"This is one of the penalties attached to the laying of the foundations
+of new States. There is too much to be accomplished, too many purely
+material struggles to be made, and so hearts are stifled and souls,
+glowing with celestial fervor, are forbidden an altar on which to kindle
+their sacred flame.
+
+"England struggled a thousand years before a man appeared to shame
+wealth, power and titles with the majesty of a divine mind. Perhaps it
+will be as long in the United States before some glorified spirit will
+appear to show by example that the things which this generation is
+struggling most for are mere dust, which, when obtained, are but Dead
+Sea apples to the lips of hope."
+
+"But Brewster," said Harding, "do you not think that a good miner is of
+more use to the world than a bad sculptor?"
+
+"Suppose," said Carlin, "we were all to stop this four dollars a day
+business of ours and go to writing poetry, who would pay the Chinaman
+and settle the grocery bills at the end of the month?"
+
+"Were not the Argonauts making pretty good use of their time," asked
+Miller, "when in twelve years they dug up and gave to the world nearly a
+thousand millions of dollars and caused such a change in the business of
+the country as comes to the fainting man's circulation through a
+transfusion of healthy blood into his veins?"
+
+"Did you not tell us last evening," said Ashley, "that when a poor man
+earned a home for his wife and babies, that to him came the perfume and
+the light?"
+
+"I carved out some beautiful stories and shpoke any amount of illegint
+poethry to Maggie Murphy, but it would not do," said Corrigan.
+
+"There is a mirage before Brewster's eyes to-night," said Miller; "the
+business of most men is to earn bread."
+
+Then Brewster, bristling up, responded:
+
+"My answer to all of you is this: Man's first duty is to provide for
+himself, and for those dependent upon him, by honest toil, either of
+hand or brain, or both. For a long time you have each worked eight hours
+out of the twenty-four; perhaps eight hours more have been absorbed in
+eating and sleeping. What have you done with the other eight hours? You
+are miners. You can set timbers in line, you can lie on your backs and
+hit a drill above you with perfect precision; but could you make a
+draught of a mine, or clothe a description of one in good language on
+paper? You look upon a piece of ore, but can you test it and tell how
+much it is worth? These are all legitimate parts of your business as
+miners, and I refer to them merely to illustrate that in the excitements
+of this city, and the dream of getting rich in stock speculations, you
+have not only neglected your better natures, but have failed to
+thoroughly accomplish yourselves in your real business. You can see what
+you have actually lost, but you cannot estimate the pleasure you have
+been denying yourselves. Then when you are too old to work, what
+amusements and diversions are you preparing for old age?"
+
+"For that, matter," said Miller, "ask the man who fell down the Alta
+shaft last week, 800 feet to the sump, and the pieces of whose body,
+that could be found, were sewed up in canvas to be brought to the
+surface."
+
+Then there was a silence for several minutes until a freight train, with
+two locomotives (a double header), came up the heavy grade from Gold
+Hill and, when opposite the house of the Club, both locomotives
+whistled. At this Corrigan said:
+
+"Hear those black horses neigh! What a hail they give to the night! What
+a power they have under their black skins! I wonder if they don't think
+sometimes, the off-colored monsters."
+
+"If the steam engine has not reflective faculties it ought to have,"
+said Harding. "The highest pleasures which a man, in his normal state,
+can have are the approving whispers of his own soul. If in the iron
+frame of the steam engine there could be hidden a soul, what whispers
+would thrill it in these days! Methinks they would be something like
+this:
+
+"'When I was born Invention gave to Progress a child which was to be to
+the modern world what the Genii were to the ancient world, except that I
+am real, while the Genii were but dreams. In me man finds the
+materialization of a dream which haunted mortals through the centuries,
+while the world was slowly pressing onward to a better state. At my
+birth men were glad to give to me their burdens, because I could carry
+them without fatigue. They thought me but a dumb slave to do their
+bidding; they saw that I could add greatly to their achievements by
+enabling them to overcome heavy matter, and with tireless feet to chase
+the swift hours. I cannot add to man's actual years, but I can make one
+hour for him equal to a day in the olden time. At first my work was
+confined to the closely peopled regions. But at length I was pushed out
+beyond the settlements of men, and then something of the divinity within
+me began to assert itself. Savage man and the wild beast retired before
+me; when the path was made for me into the immemorial hills, before my
+scream the scream of the eagle died away. The lordly bird spread his
+wings to seek more impenetrable crags. Following in my wake,
+civilization came; homes sprang up, temples to art and to learning were
+upreared, and on the air, which but a year before was startled only by
+barbarous cries, there fell the benediction of children's voices, as
+with swinging satchels in their hands, they sang their songs going to
+and returning from schools. Then man began to discover that there was
+more to me than polished iron and brass; more than a heart of fire and a
+breath of steam. In my headlight they began to discover a faint
+reflection of the Infinite light, and in whispers began to say: "It is
+not a dumb slave; rather it is to Progress an evangel." As my power
+increased, it was seen that as the wild man and wild beast fled before
+me, old bigotries and old superstitions likewise fled, snarling like
+wolves, from my path; man moved up to a higher plane, and as he
+comprehended himself better, his thoughts were led upward; with enlarged
+ideas and deeper reverence, he turned to the contemplation of the First
+Great Cause who thrilled the dull matter of the universe with His own
+celestial light and order, and established that nothing was made in
+vain. And now a path is to be made down where the terrible Spaniard
+wrested an empire from the Aztecs; where, with the sword, he hewed down
+the altars on which human sacrifices were made, and built up new altars
+consecrated to Christianity. The people there will gather around me and
+rejoice. They think only of material things; how I will carry their
+burdens, take from them the fatigue of travel and increase their trade.
+They do not know that mine is a higher mission; that as I do their work
+there is to gradually fade from the faith that holds them, the
+superstitions which for centuries have environed their better selves and
+benumbed their grander energies. They will not realize, what is true,
+that angels still walk with men; that it is the near presence of the
+angels of Progress, Truth, Free Thought, Mercy and Eternal Justice, all
+rejoicing, which will give the thrill to their hearts. As yet my work
+has hardly commenced. It is not yet fifty years since I became a power
+in the world. Wait until I am better understood, until the smooth paths
+are made for me through all the wilderness, over all the rivers and
+hills, and I am given dominion over all the deep seas, that I may
+swiftly bring together the children of men, till gradually the nations
+will take on common thoughts and return to that tongue which was
+universal when the world was young, and, as yet, man walked in the clear
+image of his Creator. Then armies will melt away before me as savage
+tribes now do; then no more cannons will be cast, no more swords
+fashioned. Then, through my example, labor in the walks of peace will
+become exalted; then the thirst for gold will cease, because I will till
+the field, drive the loom, and take from man all that is servile or
+gross in toil; and gradually the wild beast in men's souls will be bred
+out, and in the peace of perfect brotherhood men will possess the earth,
+and I will be the good angel that will take away the burdens.'"
+
+As if in response to the words of Harding, just as he finished, the
+whistles all up and down the great lode sounded for the eleven o'clock
+change of shift, and the Club retired with this remark from Corrigan:
+
+"Harding, they heard what yez was remarkin' upon, and now hear the whole
+row of them cheerin' your spache."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Just after the lamps were lighted the next evening the door opened and
+the Professor, Colonel Savage and Alex Strong came in. The greetings
+were warm all around, and at once conversation turned upon stocks. The
+Professor insisted that the first great showing was to be made in the
+south end mines, Alex still believed in Overman, the Colonel was
+sanguine over Utah, Ashley asked the opinion of the others on Sierra
+Nevada. The general sentiment was that if Skae had any real indication
+there the Bonanza firm would gobble it up before any outsider could
+realize.
+
+Wright still inclined to the belief that the water must be conquered
+pretty soon in the Savage and that there would be a showing that would
+make every servant girl and hostler on the coast want some Savage.
+
+So the conversation ran on for an hour, until something was said which
+turned the conversation upon the strange characters which had been met
+on the western coast. At length the Colonel settled down for a talk, and
+the others became willing listeners.
+
+"I have met many royal people on this coast," began the Colonel. "Royal,
+though they never wore crowns, at least crowns not visible in the dim
+light of this world. The emblems of their royalty were hidden from most
+mortal eyes. In narrow spheres they lived and died, and only a few,
+besides God, knew of their sovereignty. One of these was
+
+
+OLD ZACK TAYLOR.
+
+"His last years were passed in Plumas and Lassen counties, California.
+When he came there his hair was already silvered; he must have been
+fifty years of age.
+
+"No one knew his antecedents. In the excitements and free-heartedness of
+those days not many questions were asked. Besides the young and hopeful
+there were many who had sought the new land as a balm for domestic
+troubles; as a spot where former misfortunes might be forgotten, where
+early mistakes might, in earnest lives, be buried out of sight. With the
+rest came Zack Taylor. From the first that region seemed to possess a
+charm for him. No person can imagine the splendor in natural scenery of
+Plumas county. It must be seen to be comprehended. The mountains are
+tremendous; the valleys are so fair that they seem like pictures in
+their mountain frames. And so they are. They are the work of a Master's
+hand, whose work never fades. His signet is upon them as it was
+indented, when, in the long ago, it was decided that at last the earth
+was fitted to be a habitation for man.
+
+"The forests are such forests as are no where seen in this world, except
+in the Pacific States of the United States. There is no exaggeration in
+this. Ordinary pines will make ten thousand feet of lumber, and they
+stand very near together, those mighty pines of the Sierras.
+
+"The panoramas that are unrolled there when nature is in the
+picture-making mood are most gorgeous. Some that I saw there linger
+fresh upon my mind still. They come to me sometimes when I am down in
+the depths of the mine, and for a moment I forget the heat and the
+gloom.
+
+"As a rule, all the summer long, the skies are of a crystal clearness;
+the green of the hill tops melts into the everlasting incandescent white
+beyond, and there is no change for days and weeks at a time, except as
+the green of the day fades into the shadows of the night, and the gold
+of the sunlight gives place to the silver of the stars.
+
+"It was to this region that Zack Taylor came and made his abode. About
+him was an air of perfect contentment. Besides his blanching hair, there
+were deep lines about his face, which were an alphabet from which could
+be spelled out stories of past excitements and trials, but if sorrows
+and sufferings were included, the firm lips gave no sign, and the
+bright, black eyes were ever kindly. There were rumors that he had been
+a soldier, but the general impression was, that from childhood, he had
+been tossed about on the frontier. He had the moods, the gestures and
+dialect of the frontier. He liked wild game cooked upon a camp fire,
+and, in frontier phrase, he could 'punish a heap of whisky.'
+
+"He was at home everywhere; in the saloons his coming was always
+welcome; when he met a lady on the street, no matter whether she was
+young or old, fair or ugly, he always doffed his hat, and the few
+children of those early days looked upon him as a father--or an angel.
+He had a cheery, hearty, winsome way about him which drew all hearts to
+him.
+
+"When I saw him last the gray hair had turned to snowy white; the scars
+of time had grooved deeper furrows on cheek and brow, the old elastic,
+merry way had grown sedate, but the black eyes were still kindly and
+bright. At that time he lived, a welcome pauper, on the citizens of
+Susanville, in Lassen county.
+
+"When hungry he went where he pleased and got food; when he needed
+clothes they were forthcoming in any store where he applied for them.
+When, sometimes, merchants would in jest banter him for money on account
+of what he owed, his way was to softly suggest to them that if the
+patronage of the place did not, in their judgments, justify them in
+remaining; there was no constitutional objection that he was aware of to
+prevent their making an auction.
+
+"One fearfully cold winter's night a few of us were sitting around the
+stove in the Stewart House, in Susanville, when old Zack came in. The
+circle was widened for him, and as he drew up to the fire, some one
+said: 'Zack, tell us about that night's work when you tended bar for the
+poker players?'
+
+"'Itwusdown on Noth Fok (North Fork) of Feather River, 'bout '52 or '53,
+I disremember which,' began Zack. 'It wus in the winter, and it being
+too cold for mining, ther boys wus all in camp. Thar wus no women thar,
+least ways, no ladies, and women as isn't ladies--but we dun no who thar
+mothers wus, nor how much they has suffered, and we haint got no
+business to talk about 'em. But, as I wus sayin', the boys wus all in
+camp, and thar wus lots of beans and whisky and sich things, and we hed
+good times, you bet!
+
+"Jake Clark kept a saloon thar, which wus sort of headquarters, and
+sometimes when the boys got warmed up on Jake's whisky thar wus lively
+times. Well, I _should_ remark. It wussent much wonder, neither, for
+Jake made his whisky in the back room, made it out of old boots,
+akerfortis and sich things, and if you believe me, a fire assay of that
+beverage would have shown 93 per cent, of cl'ar hell. Thar wus three or
+four copies of Shakespeare in camp, and everbody got a Sacermento
+_Union_ every week when the express came in; so we kept posted solid.
+Speakin' of that, if folks only jest stick to Shakespeare and then
+paternize one first-class paper, sich as the old _Union_ wus, and read
+'em, in the long run they'd have a heap more sense.
+
+"'Of course the boys would play poker sometimes. Men will always do that
+when the reproach in honest women's eyes is taken away, and I have
+heard, now and then, of one who would play in spite of good influences.
+At least thar is rumors to that effect.
+
+"'Well, they wus playin' one night, five or six of them, inter Jake's
+saloon. It got to be about ten o'clock, and Jake says to me, says he,
+'Zack, them fellers is playin' and will most likely run it all night. By
+mornin' Tom D. will have the hul pile, and Tom never pays nuthin'. I'm
+goin' home. You run the ranch, Zack, and when they call for it you give
+'em whisky outer this 'ere keg, so if they never pay we won't lose too
+much." This he told me in a low voice behind the bar, in confidence
+like.
+
+"'Jake started for home and I went on watch. Thar wus lots of coin and
+dust on the table and the boys wus playin' high. I stood behind the bar
+and watched 'em, and as I watched I said to myself, says I, "The
+doggoned cusses! They come here and bum Jake's fuel and lights, and
+drink his whisky, and don't pay nuthin'. It's too bad."
+
+"'Then an idea struck me. I had a log of fat pine in the back yard. It
+wus fuller of pitch than Bill Pardee is of religion in revival times,
+and I thought of somethin'. I went out, got a lot of the pitch, warmed
+it in the candle down behind the bar and rubbed it all along the bottom
+of my hands, so, and then I waited developments.
+
+"'Pretty soon thar wus a call for whisky. I started out with a bottle in
+one hand and a glass in the other, and, setting down the glass first, I
+said, "'Ere's your glass," and settin' down the bottle, said, "'Ere's
+your whisky."
+
+"'They drank all 'round, when Harlow Porter said: "This is mine, Zack."
+I argued the pint with him and asked him how a man could furnish a
+house, lights, fires and whisky, and keep it up if nobody paid? They
+told me to "hire a hall," and all laughed. It wus only old Zack, you
+know.
+
+"'But I did tolerable well after all. When I sat down the glass half a
+dollar stuck to my hand, and when I sat down the whisky the other hand
+caught up a two and a half piece.
+
+"'The playin' went on, and I warmed my hands. By and by more whisky wus
+called for. I responded. Once more I said, '"Ere's your glass," and
+"'Ere's your whisky." They drank, and then Henry Moore said to Hugh
+Richmond: "Why don't you ante?" "I have," wus Hugh's reply; "I jist put
+up five dollars." "No you didn't," said Henry. "Yes I did," said Hugh,
+hotly. "You're a liar," said Miller, and then biff! biff! biff! came the
+blows.
+
+"'I got down behind the bar, for some of them cusses would shoot if half
+a chance wus given them. The truth wus, I had picked up the five with my
+pitch when I said "'Ere's your whisky."
+
+"'The boys got hold and stopped the row and the players proceeded. The
+oftener they drank the wurs bookkeepers they became, and all the time I
+wus doin' reasonably well.
+
+"'Durin' the night I took in eighty-three dollars and seen a beautiful
+fight.
+
+"'I didn't tell of it, though, for nigh onto three year, 'cept to Jake.
+It nearly killed me to keep it to myself. But Lord! wouldn't they have
+made it tropic for me if they'd ever dropped on the business! Well, I
+should remark!'
+
+"When Zack finished his story I asked if he would not take something.
+
+"He remarked that he was not particularly proud and, besides, the
+weather was 'powerful sarchin';' he believed he would.
+
+"He swallowed a stiff drink, returned to the stove, resumed his seat,
+began and told the whole story over, except that the whisky was having
+its effect, and as he drew towards the close he commenced to exaggerate,
+and wound up by the assertion that he took in one hundred and sixty
+dollars and saw two tremendous fights.
+
+"Some one else asked him to drink. He accepted, then returned to his
+chair and apparently fell into a doze. After a few minutes, however, he
+aroused himself and began again, as follows:
+
+"'It wus down on North Fok of Feather River, in '52 or '53, I
+disremember which. It was in the winter, and it bein' too cold for
+minin' ther boys wus all in camp. Thar wus no women thar, leastways no
+ladies, and women as is no ladies--but we dun no.'
+
+"Here I arose and slipped out of the room. Returning about fifteen
+minutes later. I found old Zack gesticulating wildly and in a high key
+exclaiming:
+
+"'I everlastingly broke the boys with my pitch. I took in _three hundred
+and forty-three dollars_ and seen three the _dod-durndest fights in the
+world_.'
+
+"But it was not this that I began to tell. Three or four years before
+Zack's death, a courier announced to the people of Susanville that three
+days before, out near Deep Hole, on the desert eighty miles east of
+Susanville, a man had been killed by renegade Pi Ute Indians. The
+announcement made only a temporary impression, for such news was often
+brought to Susanville in those days. In a very few years eighty Lassen
+county men were murdered by Indians.
+
+"A few days after the news of this particular murder was brought in,
+Susanville began to be vexed by the evident presence of a mysterious
+thief. If a hunter brought in a brace of grouse or rabbits and left them
+exposed for a little while they disappeared.
+
+"If a string of trout were caught from the river and were left anywhere
+for a few minutes they were lost. Gardens were robbed of fruit and
+vegetables; blankets, flannels and groceries disappeared from stores.
+The losses became unbearable at length, everybody was aroused and on the
+alert, but no thief could be discovered, though the depredations still
+went on. This continued for days and weeks, until the people became
+desperate, and many a threat was made that when the thief should finally
+be caught, in disposing of him the grim satisfaction of the frontier
+should be fully enjoyed. Old Zack was especially fierce in his
+denunciations.
+
+"One morning a horseman dashed into town, his mustang coming in on a
+dead run. Reining up in front of the main hotel, he sprang down from his
+horse and to the people who came running to see what was the matter, he
+explained that half a mile from town, around the bend of the hill, in
+the old deserted cabin, he had found the widow of the man killed weeks
+before by the Indians; had found her and a nest of babies, and none of
+them with sufficient food or clothing.
+
+"When the story was finished, men and women--half the population of the
+village--made a rush for the cabin. It was nearly concealed from view
+from the road by thick bushes, but they found the woman there and four
+little children. The woman seemed like one half dazed by sorrow and
+despair, but when questioned, she replied that she had been there five
+weeks. 'But how have you lived?' asked half a dozen voices in concert.
+Then the woman explained that she and her children would have starved,
+had it not been for a kind old gentleman who brought her everything that
+she required.
+
+"'Indeed,' she added, 'he brought me many things that I did not need,
+and which I felt that I ought not to accept, but he over-persuaded me,
+telling me that I did not know how rich he was, that his supplies were
+simply inexhaustible.
+
+"When asked to describe this man, she began to say: 'He is a heavy-set
+old gentleman; wears blue clothes; his hair is white as snow, but his
+eyes are black, and--'but she was not allowed to go any farther, for
+twenty voices, between weeping and laughing, cried 'Old Zack!'
+
+"The widow and her children were taken to the village, a house with its
+comforts provided for them, and there was, thenceforth, no more trouble
+from the ubiquitous thief.
+
+"Living on charity himself, with the wreck of a life behind him and
+nothing before him but the grave, which he was swiftly nearing, this
+great-hearted, old heavenly bummer and Christian thief, had taken care
+of this helpless family, and had done it because despite the dry rot and
+the whisky which had benumbed his energies, his soul, deep down, was
+royal to the core.
+
+"It is true that he had robbed the town to minister to the woman and her
+babies, but in the books of the angels, though it was written that he
+was a thief, in the same sentence it was also added, 'and God bless
+him,' and these words turned to gold even as they were being written.
+
+"When Old Zack was asked why he did not make the facts about the family
+known, after waiting a moment he replied:
+
+"'You see I've been tossed about a powerful sight in my time; have drank
+heaps of bad whisky; have done a great many no-account things and not a
+great many good ones. Since I wus a boy I have never had chick or kin of
+my own. I met the woman and her babies up by the cabin; they wus as
+pitiful a sight as ever you seen; and besides, the woman wus jist about
+to go stark mad with grief and hunger and anxiety and weariness. I seen
+she must have quiet and that anxiety about her children must be soothed
+some way. Then I did some of the best lyin' you ever heard. I got her to
+eat some supper and waited until the whole outfit wus fast asleep. I
+watched 'em a little while and then I got curis to know what kind of a
+provider I would have made for a family had I started out in life
+different, and that wus all there wus about it.'
+
+"Is it a wonder, then, that when the old man died his body was dressed
+in soft raiment, placed in a costly casket, and that, preceded by a
+martial band playing a requiem, all the people followed sorrowingly to
+the grave; and that, as they gently heaped the sods above his breast
+they sent after him into the Beyond heartfelt 'all-hails and
+farewells?'"
+
+"You see your man through colored spectacles, Colonel," spoke up
+Brewster. "From your description, I think there was more of the border
+deviltry in the old man than there was true royalty. Life had been a
+joke to him always; he played it as a joke to the end. One such a man
+was entertainment to the village; had there been a dozen more like him
+they would have become intolerable nuisances?"
+
+"That," said the Colonel, "only shows how miserable are my descriptive
+powers. There are not a dozen other such men as old Zack Taylor was
+among all the fourteen hundred millions of people on this sorrowful
+earth."
+
+"No," interposed Miller, "you told the story well enough, but it was
+only descriptive of a good-humored bummer at best--of one who was
+warm-hearted without a conscience, of one who was more willing to work
+to perpetrate a joke on others than to honorably earn the bread that he
+ate.
+
+"I will tell you of a royal fellow that I knew. It was Billie Smith. He
+lived in Eureka that first hard winter of '70-71. He was not a miner as
+we are, receiving four dollars per day. He and his partner, a surly old
+fellow, had a claim which they were developing, hoping that it would
+amount to something in the spring. That was before smelting had been
+made a success. The ores were all base and of too low a grade to ship
+away. These men had a little supply of flour, bacon and coffee, and that
+was about all, and it was all they expected until spring.
+
+"It was early in January and the weather was exceedingly cold. Their
+cabin was but a rude hut, open on every side to the winds. I was there
+and I know how things were. One day I was waiting in a tent, which by
+courtesy was called a store, when Billie came in. He had a cheery smile
+and hearty, welcome words for every one. He had been there but a few
+minutes when his partner came in. The old man was fairly boiling with
+rage. So angry was he that he could hardly articulate distinctly.
+Finally he explained that some thief had stolen their mattress, a pair
+of their best blankets and a sack of flour. He wanted an officer
+dispatched with a search warrant. Then I overheard the following
+conversation between the two men:
+
+"'O, never mind,' said Billie; 'some poor devil needed the things or he
+would not have taken them.'
+
+"'Yes, but we need them, too; need them more than anything else,' was
+the response.
+
+"'O, we will get along; we have plenty.'
+
+"'Yes,' retorted the partner, 'but what are we going to do for a bed?
+Our hair mattress and best pair of blankets are gone, and the cabin is
+cold.'
+
+"'We can sew up some sacks into a mattress, and fill it with soft brush
+and leaves, and use our coats for blankets,' replied Billie. 'We'll get
+along all right. The truth is we have been sleeping too warm of late.'
+
+"Too warm!' said the partner, bitterly; 'I should think so. A polar bear
+would freeze in that cabin without a bed.'
+
+"'Do you think so?' asked Billie, smiling. 'Well, that is the way to
+keep it, and so if any wild animal comes that way we can freeze him out.
+Brace up, partner! Why should a man make a fuss about the loss of a
+trifle like that?'
+
+"Later I found out the facts. A little below Billie's cabin was another
+cabin, into which a family of emigrants had moved. They were dreadfully
+poor. Going to and returning from town Billie had noticed how things
+were. One night as he passed, going home in the dark, he heard a child
+crying in the cabin and heard it say to its mother that it was hungry
+and cold.
+
+"Next morning he waited until his partner had gone away, then rolled the
+mattress around a sack of flour, then rolled the mattress and flour up
+in his best pair of blankets, swung the bundle on his shoulder, carried
+it down the trail to the other cabin, where, opening the door, he flung
+it inside; then with finger on his lip he said in a hoarse whisper to
+the woman: 'Don't mention it! Not a word. I stole the bundle, and if you
+ever speak of it you will get me sent to prison,' and in a moment was
+swinging down the trail singing joyously:
+
+    "If I had but a thousand a year, Robin Ruff,
+    If I had but a thousand a year."
+
+"Last winter, after the fire, there was one man in this city, John W.
+Mackay, who gave $150,000 to the poor. It was a magnificent act, and was
+as grandly and gently performed as such an act could be. No one would
+ever have known it, had not the good priest who distributed the most of
+it, one day, mentioned the splendid fact. That man will receive his
+reward here, and hereafter, for it was a royal charity. But he has
+$30,000,000 to draw against, while, when Billie in the wilderness gave
+up his bed and his food, he not only had not a cent to draw against, but
+he had not a reasonably well-defined hope.
+
+"When at last the roll-call of the real royal men of this world shall be
+sounded, if any of you chance to be there, you will hear, close up to
+the head of the list, the name of Billie Smith, and when it shall be
+pronounced, if you listen, you will hear a very soft but dulcet refrain
+trembling along the harps and a murmur among the emerald arches that
+will sound like the beating of the wings of innumerable doves."
+
+"That was a good mon, surely. Did he do well with his mine?" asked
+Corrigan.
+
+"No," answered Miller. "It was but a little deposit, and was quickly
+worked out. He scuffled along until the purchase of the Eureka Con. in
+the spring, then went to work there for a few months, then came here,
+and a day or two after arriving, was shot dead by the ruffian Perkins.
+
+"He was shot through the brain, and people tell me he was so quickly
+transfixed that in his coffin the old sunny smile was still upon his
+face. I don't believe that, though. I believe the smile came when, as
+the light went out here, he saw the dawn and felt the hand clasps on the
+other side.
+
+"By the way, there was a man here who knew him, and who wrote something
+with the thought of poor Billie in his mind while he was writing."
+
+At this Miller arose and went to his carpet-sack, opened it and drew out
+a paper. Then handing it to Harding, he said: "Harding, you read better
+than I do, read it for us all."
+
+Harding took the paper and read as follows:
+
+
+            ERNEST FAITHFUL.
+
+    'Twas the soul of Ernest Faithful
+      Loosed from its home of clay--
+    Its mission on earth completed,
+      To the judgment passed away.
+
+    'Twas the soul of Ernest Faithful
+      Stood at the bar above,
+    Where the deeds of men are passed upon
+      In justice, but in love.
+
+    And an angel questioned Faithful
+      Of the life just passed on earth!
+    What could he plead of virtue,
+      What could he count of worth.
+
+    And the soul of Ernest Faithful
+      Trembled in sore dismay;
+    And from the judgment angel's gaze
+      Shuddering, turned away.
+
+    For memory came and whispered
+      How worldly was that life;
+    Unfairly plotting, sometimes,
+      In anger and in strife;
+
+    For a selfish end essaying
+      To treasures win or fame,
+    And the soul of Ernest cowered 'neath
+      The angel's eye of flame.
+
+    Then from a book the angel drew
+      A leaf with name and date,
+    A record of this Ernest's life
+      Wove in the looms of Fate.
+
+    And said: "O, Faithful, answer me,
+      Here is a midnight scroll,
+    What didst thou 'neath the stars that night?
+      Didst linger o'er the bowl?
+
+    "Filling the night with revelry
+      With cards and wine and dice,
+    And adding music's ecstacy,
+      To give more charms to vice?"
+
+    Then the soul of Faithful answered,
+      "By the bedside of a friend
+    I watched the long hours through; that night
+      His life drew near its end."
+
+    "Here's another date at midnight,
+      Where was't thou this night, say?"
+    "I was waiting by the dust of one
+      Whose soul had passed that day."
+
+    "These dollar marks," the angel said;
+      "What mean they, Ernest, tell?"
+    "It was a trifle that I gave
+      To one whom want befell."
+
+    "Here's thine own picture, illy dressed;
+      What means this scant attire?"
+    "I know not," answered Faithful, "save
+      That once midst tempest dire,
+
+    "I found a fellow-man benumbed,
+      And lost amid the storm
+    And so around him wrapped my vest,
+      His stiffening limbs to warm."
+
+    "Here is a woman's face, a girl's.
+      O, Ernest, is this well?
+    Knowst thou how often women's arms
+      Have drawn men's souls to hell?"
+
+    Then Ernest answered: "This poor girl
+      An orphan was. I gave
+    A trifle of my ample store
+      The child from want to save."
+
+    "Next are some words. What mean they here?"
+      Then Ernest answered low:
+    "A fellow-man approached me once
+      Whose life was full of woe,
+
+    "When I had naught to give, except
+      Some words of hope and trust;
+    I bade him still have faith, for God
+      Who rules above is just."
+
+    Then the grave angel smiled and moved
+      Ajar the pearly gate
+    And said: "O, soul! we welcome thee
+      Unto this new estate.
+
+    "Enter! Nor sorrow more is thine,
+      Nor grief; we know thy creed--
+    Thou who hast soothed thy fellowmen
+      In hour of sorest need.
+
+    "Thou who hast watched thy brother's dust,
+      When the wrung soul had fled;
+    And to the stranger gave thy cloak,
+      And to the orphan, bread.
+
+    "And when all else was gone, had still
+      A word of kindly cheer
+    For one more wretched than thyself,
+      Thou, soul, art welcome here.
+
+    "Put on the robe thou gav'st away
+      'Tis stainless now and white;
+    And all thy words and deeds are gems;
+      Wear them, it is thy right!"
+
+    And then from choir and harp awoke
+      A joyous, welcome strain,
+    Which other harps and choirs took up,
+      In jubilant refrain,
+
+    Till all the aisles of Summer Land
+      Grew resonant, as beat
+    The measures of that mighty song
+      Of welcome, full and sweet.
+
+"That is purty. I hope there were no mistake about the gintleman making
+the showing up above," said Corrigan.
+
+"What lots of music there must be up in that country," chimed in Carlin.
+"I wonder if there are any buildings any where on the back streets where
+new beginners practice."
+
+"That represents the Hebrew idea of Heaven," said Alex. "I like that of
+the savage better, with hills and streams and glorious old woods. There
+is a dearer feeling of rest attached to it, and rest is what a life
+craves most after a buffet of three score years in this world."
+
+"Rest is a pretty good thing after an eight-hours' wrestle with the
+gnomes down on a 2,300 level of the Comstock," said Miller; "suppose we
+say good night."
+
+"Withdraw the motion for a moment, Miller," said Wright. "First, I move
+that our friends here be made honorary members of the Club."
+
+It was carried by acclamation, and thereafter, for several nights, the
+three were present nightly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+When the Club reassembled Carlin, addressing the Colonel, said: "You
+told us of a royal old bummer last night, and Miller told us of an angel
+in miner's garb. Your stories reminded me of something which happened in
+Hamilton, in Eastern Nevada, in the early times, when the thermometer
+was at zero, when homes were homes and food was food. There was a royal
+fellow there, too, only he was not a miner, and though he lived upon the
+earnings of others, he never accepted charity. By profession he was a
+gambler, and not a very 'high-toned' gambler at that. He was known as
+'Andy Flinn,' though it was said, for family reasons, he did not pass
+under his real name.
+
+"Well, Andy had, in sporting parlance, been 'playing in the worst kind
+of luck' for a good while. One afternoon his whole estate was reduced to
+the sum of fifteen dollars. He counted it over in his room, slipped it
+back into his pocket and started up town. A little way from the lodging
+where he roomed he was met by a man who begged him to step into a house
+near by and see how destitute the inmates were.
+
+"Andy mechanically followed the man, who led the way to a cabin, threw
+open the door and ushered Andy in. There was a man, the husband and
+father, ill in bed, while the wife and mother, a delicate woman, and two
+little children, were, in scanty garments, hovering around the ghost of
+a fire.
+
+"Andy took one look, then rushed out of doors, the man who had led him
+into the cabin following. Andy walked rapidly away until out of hearing
+of the wretched people in the house, then swinging on his heel, for full
+two minutes hurled the most appalling anathemas at the man for leading
+him, as Andy expressed it, 'into the presence of those advance agents of
+a famine.'
+
+"When he paused for breath the man said, quietly: 'I like that; I like
+to see you fellows, that take the world so carelessly and easily,
+stirred up occasionally.'
+
+"'Easy!' said Andy; 'you had better try it. You think our work is easy;
+you are a mere child. We don't get half credit. I tell you to make a man
+an accomplished gambler requires more study than to acquire a learned
+profession; more labor than is needed to become a deft artisan. You talk
+like a fool. Easy, indeed!'
+
+"'I don't care to discuss that point with you, Andy,' said the man. 'I
+expect you are right, but that is not the question. What are you, a big,
+strong, healthy fellow, going to do to help those poor wretches in the
+cabin yonder?'
+
+"Andy plunged his hand into his pocket, drew out the fifteen dollars and
+was just going to pass it over to the man when a thought struck him.
+'Hold on,' he said; 'a man is an idiot that throws away his capital and
+then has to take his chances with the thieves that fill this camp. You
+come with me. I am going to try to take up a collection. By the way,' he
+said, shortly, 'do you ever pray?'
+
+"The man answered that he did sometimes. 'Then,' said Andy, 'you put in
+your very biggest licks when I start my collection.'
+
+"Not another word was said until they reached and entered a then famous
+saloon on Main street.
+
+"Going to the rear where a faro game was in progress, Andy exchanged his
+fifteen dollars for chips and began to play. He never ceased; hardly
+looked up from the table for two hours. Sometimes he won and sometimes
+he lost, but the balance was on the winning side. Finally he ceased
+playing, gathered up his last stakes, and beckoning to the man who had
+come with him to the saloon, and who had watched his playing with lively
+interest, he led the way into the billiard room.
+
+"Andy went to a window on one side of the room and began to search his
+pockets, piling all the money he could find on the sill of the window.
+The money was all in gold and silver.
+
+"When his pockets were emptied, with the quickness of men of his class,
+he ran the amount over. Then taking from a billiard table a bit of chalk
+he, with labored strokes, wrote on the window sill the following:
+
+    hul sum                     $263 50
+    starter                       15 00
+                                -------
+        doo ter god             $248 50
+
+"He picked up a ten-dollar piece and a five-dollar piece from the
+amount, then pushing the rest along the sill away from the figures,
+asked the man to count it. He did so and said:
+
+"'I make altogether $248.50, Andy.'
+
+"'I suspect you are correct,' said Andy, 'and now you take that money
+and go and fix up those people as comfortably as you can. Tell 'em we
+took up a collection among the boys; don't say a word about it on the
+outside, and see here. If you ever again show me as horrible a sight as
+that crowd makes in that accursed den down the street, I'll break every
+bone in your body.'
+
+"'But,' said the man, 'this is not right, Andy. It is too much. Fifty
+dollars would be a most generous contribution from you. Give me fifty
+dollars and you take back the rest.'
+
+"'What do you take me for?' was Andy's reply. 'Don't you think I have
+any honor about me? When I went into that saloon I promised God that if
+He would stand in with me, His poor should have every cent that I could
+make in a two hours' deal. I would simply be a liar and a thief if I
+took a cent of that money. You praying cusses have not very clear ideas
+of right and wrong after all.'
+
+"The man went on his errand of mercy, and Andy returned and invested his
+money in the bank again, as he said, 'to try to turn an honest penny.'"
+
+"That was a right ginerous man," remarked Corrigan.
+
+"May be and may be not," was the remark of the Colonel. "It is possible
+that he had been 'playing in bad luck,' as they say, for a good while
+and did it to change that luck. Confirmed gamesters never reason clearly
+on ordinary subjects. They are either up in the clouds or down in the
+depths; they are perpetually studying the doctrine of chances, and are
+as full of superstitions as so many fortune tellers."
+
+"That class of men are proverbially generous, though," said Harding;
+"but the way they get their money, I suspect, has something to do with
+the matter. Had the man earned the money at four dollars a day, running
+a car down in a hot mine, he would hardly have given up the whole sum."
+
+Here Miller took up the conversation. "I knew a man down in Amador
+county, California," said he, "who worked in a mine as we are working
+here, except that wages were $3.50 instead of $4.00 per day. He came
+there in the fall of the year and worked eight months. His clothes were
+always poor. He lived in a cabin by himself, and such miners as happened
+into his cabin at meal time declared their belief that his food did not
+cost half a dollar a day. He never joined the miners down town; was
+never known to treat to as much as a glass of beer. We all hated him
+cordially and looked upon him as a miner so avaricious that he was
+denying himself the common comforts of life. He was the talk of the
+mine, and many were the scornful words which he was made to hear and to
+know that they were uttered at his expense. Still he was quiet and
+resented nothing that was said, and there was no dispute about his being
+a most capable and faithful miner. At last one morning as the morning
+shift were waiting at the shaft to be lowered into the mine, Baxter
+(that was his name) appeared, and, after begging our attention for a
+moment, said:
+
+"'Gentlemen, there is the dead body of an old man up in the cabin across
+from the trail. It will cost sixty dollars to bury it in a decent
+coffin. The undertaker will not trust me, but if twenty of you will put
+in three dollars each, I will pay you all when pay-day comes.'
+
+"Then we questioned him, and it came out at last that Baxter had found
+the old man sick a few days after he came to work, and of his $3.50 per
+day had spent $3.00 in food, medicine and medical attendance upon the
+man, all through the long winter, and had moreover often watched with
+him twelve hours out of the twenty-four. It was not a child that
+something might be hoped for; there was no beautiful young girl about
+the place to be in love with. It was simply a death watch over a
+worn-out pauper. I thought then, I think still, it was as fine a thing
+as ever I saw.
+
+"There were sixty of us on the mine. We put in ten dollars apiece, went
+to Baxter in a body, and, begging his pardon, asked him to accept it.
+
+"With a smile, he answered: 'I thank you, but I cannot take it. I have
+wasted much money in my time. Now I feel as though I had a little on
+interest, and I shall get along first rate.'
+
+"Talk about royalty, our Baxter was an Emperor."
+
+"He did have something on interest," said Brewster. "Something for this
+world and the world to come."
+
+"Did you ever hear about Jack Marshall's attempt to pay his debts by
+clerking in a store?" asked Savage. "Jack brought a good deal of coin
+here and opened a store. He did first rate for several months, and after
+awhile branched out into a larger business, which required a good many
+men. When everything was promising well a fire came and swept away the
+store and a flood destroyed the other property. There was just enough
+saved out of the wreck to pay the laborers.
+
+"When all was settled up Jack had but forty-three dollars left and an
+orphan boy to take care of. Just then a man that Jack had known for a
+good while as a miner, came into town, and hearing of Jack's
+misfortunes, hunted him up and told him that he had given up mining and
+settled down to farming, and begged Jack to come and make his home with
+him until he had time to think over what was best to do. He further said
+that he had twelve acres of land cleared and under fence, with ditches
+all dug for irrigating the crop; that he had a yoke of oxen to plough
+the land; that his intention was to plant the whole twelve acres to
+potatoes; that a fair crop would yield him sixty tons, which, as
+potatoes then were four cents a pound, would bring him nearly $5,000 for
+the season. But he explained that he could not drive oxen, and more than
+that, it required two men to do the work, and as he had not much money
+and did not want to run in debt, his business in town was to find some
+steady man who could drive oxen, who would go with him and help him
+plant, tend, harvest and sell the crop on shares. The ranch was down on
+Carson River, not far from Fort Churchill.
+
+"When the man had finished his story, Jack said to him: 'How would I do
+for a steady man and a bovine manipulator?'
+
+"'My God, Mr. Marshall! you would not undertake to drive oxen and plant
+potatoes, would you?' said the man.
+
+"'That's just what I would,' said Jack, 'if you think you can endure me
+for a partner. I will become a horny-handed tender of the vine--the
+potato vine. What say you?'
+
+"Well, that evening both men started for the farm. No friend of Jack
+knew his real circumstances. They knew he had been unfortunate, but did
+not know that it was a case of 'total wreck.' He bade a few of them
+good-bye, with the careless remark that he was going for a few days'
+hunt down toward the sink of the Carson.
+
+"Well, he ploughed the land, the two men planted the crop and irrigated
+it until the potatoes were splendidly advanced and just ready to
+blossom. It got to be the last of June and the promise for a bountiful
+crop was encouraging. They had worked steadily since the middle of
+March. But just then a thief, who had some money, made a false
+affidavit, got from a court an injunction against the men and shut off
+the water. It was just at the critical time when the life of the crop
+depended upon water. In two weeks the whole crop was ruined. In the
+meantime for seed and provisions, clothes, etc., a debt of one hundred
+and fifty dollars had been contracted at the store of a Hebrew named
+Isaacs. News of the injunction reached the merchant, and one morning he
+put in an appearance.
+
+"'Meester Marshall, hous dings?' asked Isaacs.
+
+"Pointing to the blackened and withering crop, Jack answered: 'They look
+a little bilious, don't you think so?'
+
+"'Mine Gott! Mine Gott!' was the wailing exclamation. Then, after a
+pause, 'Ven does you suppose you might pay me, Meester Marshall?'
+
+"'As things have been going of late, I think in about seven years. It is
+said that bad luck changes about every seven years.'
+
+"'Mine Gott! Meester Marshall,' cried Isaacs; 'haven't you got nodings
+vot you can pay? I vill discount de bill--say ten per cent.'
+
+"'Nothing that I can think of, except a dog. I have a dog that is worth
+two hundred dollars, but to you I will discount the dog twenty-five per
+cent.'
+
+"'O, mine Gott! vot you dinks I could do mit a dog?' said the despairing
+merchant.
+
+"'Why keep him for his society, Mr. Isaacs,' was the bantering answer.
+'With him salary is not so much an object as a comfortable and
+respectable home. There's too much alkali on the soil to encourage fleas
+to remain, so there's no difficulty on that score; and he's an awfully
+good dog, Isaacs; no bad habits, and the most regular boarder you ever
+saw; he has never been late to a meal since we have been here. You had
+better take him; twenty-five per cent is an immense discount.'
+
+"By this time the Hebrew was nearly frantic.
+
+"'Meester Marshall,' he said, hesitatingly, 'did you clerk ever in a
+store?'
+
+"'Oh, yes.'
+
+"'Vould you clerk for me?'
+
+"'Yes: that is, until that bill shall be settled.'
+
+"'Ven could you come?'
+
+"'Whenever you wish.'
+
+"'Vould you come next Monday--von of mine clerks, Henery, goes avay
+Monday?'
+
+"'Yes, I will be on hand Monday. Let us see; it is seven miles to walk.
+I will be there about nine o'clock in the morning.'
+
+"'Vell, I danks you, Meester Marshall; danks you very much.'
+
+"He turned away and rode off a few steps, then stopped and called back:
+'Meester Marshall, if you dinks vot de society of de dog is essential to
+your comfort, bring him.'
+
+"'Thanks, Isaacs,' cried Jack, cheerfully; 'considering where I am going
+to work, and the company I am going to keep, it will not be necessary.'
+
+"Jack went as he had promised. Isaacs, who was a thoroughly good man,
+was delighted to see him, shook hands cordially, and then suddenly, with
+a mysterious look, led him to the extreme rear end of the store, and
+when there, placing his lips close to Jack's ear, in a hoarse whisper,
+said:
+
+"'Meester Marshall, de vater here is ---- bad; it is poison, horrible.
+You drinks nodings but vine until you gets used to de vater.'
+
+"Marshall went to work at once. It was in 1863. The war was at its
+height, and Jack was intensely Union, while Isaacs, his employer, was a
+furious Democrat. Nothing of especial interest transpired for a couple
+of weeks, when one day an emigrant woman, just across the plains,
+leading two little children, came into the store.
+
+"She was an exceedingly poor woman, evidently. All her clothes were not
+worth three dollars, while her children were pitiful looking beyond
+description.
+
+"Isaacs was in the front of the store; Jack was putting up goods in the
+rear, but in hearing, while another clerk was in the warehouse outside
+of the main store. Isaacs went to wait on the woman. She picked out some
+needed articles of clothing for her children, amounting to some six or
+eight dollars, then unrolling a dilapidated kerchief, from its inner
+folds drew out a Confederate twenty-dollar note and tendered it in
+payment.
+
+"Isaacs, who had been all smiles, drew back in horror, exclaiming: 'I
+cannot take dot; dot is not monish, madam.'
+
+"Jack overheard what Isaacs said and the woman's reply, as follows:
+
+"'It is all that I have; it is all the money that we have had in
+Arkansas since the war commenced. Everybody takes it in Arkansas.'
+
+"This conversation continued for two or three minutes, and the woman was
+just about turning away without the goods when Jack, unable to longer
+bear it, stepped forward and said:
+
+"'Mr. Isaacs, Mr. Smith would like to see you in the warehouse; please
+permit me to wait upon the lady.'
+
+"'All right,' said Isaacs, 'only (in a whisper) remember dot ish not
+money.'
+
+"Isaacs passed out of the store and Jack then said: 'If you please,
+madam, let me see your money.'
+
+"The woman, with a trembling hand, presented the Confederate note. Jack
+glanced at it and said:
+
+"'Why, this is first-class money, madam. It is just a prejudice that
+that infernal old Abolitionist has. I will discharge him to-night. They
+would hang him in two hours in Arkansas, and they ought to hang him
+here. Buy all the goods you want, madam.'
+
+"With eyes full of gratitude the woman increased the bill, until it
+amounted to eleven dollars and a half. Jack tied up the goods, took the
+Confederate note, handed the woman a five-dollar gold piece and three
+dollars and fifty cents in silver, and she went on her way holding the
+precious coin, the first she had seen in years, closely clasped in her
+hand.
+
+"Jack charged goods to cash twenty dollars, charged himself to cash
+twenty dollars, and went back to putting up goods, humming to himself.
+
+"'Half the world never knows how the other half lives.' Jack's salary
+was one hundred and fifty dollars a month. He owed one hundred and fifty
+dollars when he went to work. It took him four months to pay off his
+indebtedness, but when he gave up his place he had all his pockets full
+of Confederate money."
+
+As the story was finished, Miller said: "A real pleasant but
+characteristic thing happened right here in this city when Bishop W----
+first came here.
+
+"He wanted to establish a church, and his first work was to select men
+who would act and be a help to him as trustees.
+
+"It is nothing to get trustees for a mining company here, but a church
+is a different thing. In a church, you know, a man has to die to fill
+his shorts, and then, somehow, in these late years men have doubts about
+the formation, so that when a man starts a company on that lead any more
+he finds it mighty hard to place any working capital.
+
+"At the time I was speaking of it was just about impossible to get a
+full staff of trustees that would exactly answer the orthodox
+requirements. But the Bishop is a man of expedients. It was sinners that
+he came to call to repentance, and it did not take him long to discover
+that right here was a big field. He went to work at once with an energy
+that has never abated for a moment since. He selected all his trustees
+but one, and looking around for him, with a clear instinct he determined
+that Abe E---- should be that one if he would accept the place.
+
+"Now Abe was the best and truest of men, but he would swear sometimes.
+Indeed when he got started on that stratum he was a holy terror. But the
+Bishop put him down as a trustee, and, meeting Abe on the street,
+informed him that he was trying to organize a church; had taken the
+liberty to name him as a trustee, and asked Abe to do him the honor of
+attending a trustees' meeting at 1 o'clock the next afternoon.
+
+"'I would be glad to help you, Bishop,' said Abe, 'but----it----I
+don't know. I can run a mine or a quartz mill, but I don't know any more
+than a Chinaman about running a church.'
+
+"But the Bishop plead his case so ably that Abe at length surrendered,
+promised to attend the meeting, and, having promised, like the sterling
+business man that he was, promptly put in an appearance.
+
+"Besides Abe and the Bishop, there were six others. When all had
+assembled the Bishop explained that he desired to build a church; that
+he had plans, specifications and estimates for a church to cost $9,000,
+with lot included; that he believed $1,500 might be raised by
+subscription, leaving the church but $7,500 in debt, which amount would
+run at low interest and which in a growing place like Virginia City the
+Bishop thought might be paid up in four or five years, leaving the
+church free. He closed by asking the sense of the trustees as to the
+wisdom and practicability of making the attempt.
+
+"There was a general approval of the plan expressed by all present
+except Abe, who was silent until his opinion was directly asked by the
+Bishop.
+
+"'Why ---- it, Bishop,' said he, 'I told you that I knew nothing about
+church business, but I don't like the plan. If you were to get money at
+fifteen per cent per annum, which is only half the regular banking rate,
+your interest would amount to nearly $1,200 a year, or almost as much as
+you hope to raise for a commencement. I am afraid, Bishop, you would
+never live long enough to get out of debt. You want a church, why ----
+it, why don't you work the business as though you believed it would pay?
+That is the only way you can get up any confidence in the scheme.'
+
+"Abe sat down and the Bishop's heart sank with him.
+
+"With a smile, one of the other gentlemen asked Abe what his plan for
+getting a church would be.
+
+"'I will tell you,' said Abe, 'I move that an assessment of one thousand
+dollars be levied upon each of the trustees, payable immediately.'
+
+"It was a startling proposition to the Bishop, who was just from the
+East and who had not become accustomed to Comstock ways. With a
+faltering voice he said:
+
+"'Mr. E., I fear that I cannot at present raise $1,000.'
+
+"'Never mind, Bishop,' said Abe, 'we will take yours out in preaching;
+but there is no rebate for any of the rest of you. If you are going to
+serve the Lord, you have got to be respectable about it. Your checks if
+you please, gentlemen.'
+
+"All were wealthy men, the checks were laughingly furnished, with joking
+remarks that it was the first company ever formed in Virginia City where
+the officers really invested any money.
+
+"'Abe took the checks, added his own to the number, begged the Bishop to
+excuse him, remarking as he went out that while he had every faith in
+the others still he was anxious to reach the bank a little in advance of
+them, and started up town.
+
+"He met this man and that and demanded of each a check for from $50 to
+$250, as he thought they could respectively afford to pay.
+
+"When asked how long he would want the money his reply was: 'I want it
+for keeps, ---- it. I am building a church.' In forty minutes he had the
+whole sum. He took the checks to the bank and for them received a
+certificate of deposit in the Bishop's name. Carrying this to the
+Bishop's house he rang the bell.
+
+"'The Bishop had seen his coming and answered the summons in person.
+Handing him the certificate Abe said:
+
+"'Take that for a starter, Bishop. It won't be enough, for a church is
+like an old quartz mill. The cost always exceeds the estimates a good
+deal, but go ahead, and when you need more money we will levy another
+assessment on the infernal sinners.'"
+
+Strong, who had been listening attentively said: "I heard the Bishop
+preach and pray over Abe's dead body three years ago, and watched him as
+he took a last, long look at Abe's still, clear-cut splendid face as it
+was composed in death. Abe never joined the church, and I am told that
+he swore a little to the last. His part in building the church was
+simply one of his whims, but for years he was a Providence here to
+scores of people. No one knew half his acts of bountiful, delicate
+charity, or in how many homes bitter tears were shed when he died.
+
+"But the Bishop knew enough to know and feel as he was praying over his
+remains, that while it was well as a matter of form, it was quite
+unnecessary; that, so far as Abe was concerned, he was safe; that in the
+Beyond where the mansions are and where the light is born; where, over
+all, are forever stretched out the brooding wings of celestial peace,
+Abe had been received, and that, upon his coming, while the welcomes
+were sounding and the greetings were being made to him, flowers burst
+through the golden floor and blossomed at his feet.
+
+"Among the royal ones of the earth, the soul of Abe E---- bore the
+sceptre of perfect sovereignty."
+
+"I knew him," said Corrigan, "may his soul rest in peace, for he was a
+noble man."
+
+"I knew him," interposed Carlin, "no words give an idea of how sterling
+and true a man he was."
+
+"I knew him," added Wright. "When he died Virginia City did not realize
+the loss which his death entailed."
+
+"I knew him," concluded Strong. "His heart was a banyan tree, its limbs
+were perpetually bending down and taking root, till it made shade for
+the poor of the city."
+
+Then Carlin, opening the door to the kitchen, called Yap Sing to bring
+glasses. A night-cap toddy was made and as it was drank the good nights
+were spoken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+With the lighting of the pipes the next night Miller said:
+
+"All your royal people so far, though not perfect men, have had
+redeeming traits. I once knew one who had not a single characteristic,
+except, perhaps, some pluck. My man was simply a royal liar. In Western
+parlance, 'he was a boss.' His name was Colonel Jensen.
+
+"Now, in my judgment, lying is the very grossest of human evils. A
+common liar is a perpetual proof of the truth of the doctrine of
+original sin. By that vice more friendships are broken and more real
+misery is perpetrated and perpetuated in the world than comes through
+any other channel.
+
+"But as genius excites admiration even when exerted for sinister
+purposes, so when the art of lying is reduced to an absolute science
+there is something almost fine about it.
+
+"My liar, when I first knew him, seemed to be between fifty and sixty
+years of age; but no one ever knew what his real age was.
+
+"But he was quite an old man, for his hair was perfectly white, and
+that, with a singularly striking face and fine faculty of expressing his
+ideas, gave him an appearance at once venerable and engaging. It was
+hard to look into his almost classical face and to think that if he had
+told the truth within twenty years, it must have been an accident; but
+such was the fact, nevertheless.
+
+"He was indeed a colossal prevaricator. He was at home, too, on every
+theme, and there was the charm of freshness to every new falsehood, for
+he spoke as one who was on the spot--an actor. If it was an event that
+he was describing, he was a participant; if a landscape or a structure,
+it was from actual observation; if it chanced to be a scientific theme,
+he invariably reported the words of some great scientist 'just as they
+fell from his lips.'
+
+"He knew and had dined with all the great men of his generation--that
+is, he said so. He always spoke with particularly affectionate
+remembrance of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, always referring to them
+as 'Hank' and 'Dan,' so intimate had he been with them.
+
+"My introduction to him was on a stormy winter night, in the early years
+of the Washoe excitement. A few of us were conversing in a hotel. One
+gentleman was describing something that he had witnessed in his boyhood,
+in Columbus, Ohio.
+
+"As he finished his story, a venerable gentleman, who was a stranger in
+Washoe, and who had, for several minutes, been slowly pacing up and down
+the room, suddenly stopped and inquired of the gentleman who had been
+talking if he was from Columbus? When answered in the affirmative, the
+stranger extended his hand, dropped into a convenient seat as he spoke,
+and expressed his pleasure at meeting a gentleman from Columbus, at the
+same time introducing himself as Colonel Jensen and remarking that one
+of the happiest recollections of his life was of a day in Columbus, on
+which day all his prospects in life were changed and wonderfully
+brightened.
+
+"With such an exordium, the rest could do no less than to press the old
+gentleman to favor the company with a rehearsal of what had transpired.
+
+"The story was as follows:
+
+"I had just returned with the remnant of my regiment from Mexico, and
+had received the unanimous thanks of the Legislature of Ohio for--so the
+resolution was worded--"the magnificent ability and steadfast and
+desperate courage displayed by Colonel Jensen for twelve consecutive
+hours on the field of Buena Vista." I was young at the time and had not
+got over caring for such things. The day after this resolution of thanks
+was passed the Governor of the State ordered a grand review, at the
+capital, of the militia of the State in honor of the soldiers who had
+survived the war. As a mark of especial honor I was appointed
+Adjutant-General on the Governor's staff. My place at the review was
+beside the Governor--who was, of course, Commander-in-Chief--except when
+my particular regiment was passing.
+
+"'There are a few things which I have never outgrown a weakness for. One
+is a real Kentucky blood horse. I had sent to Kentucky and paid four
+thousand dollars for a son of old Gray Eagle. I bought him cheap, too,
+because of his color. He was a dappled gray. The Boston stock of horses
+was just then becoming the rage, and gray was beginning to be an off
+color for thoroughbreds. My horse was a real beauty. He had been trained
+on the track, and from a dead stand would spring twenty-two feet the
+first bound. But he was thoroughly broken and tractable, though he had
+more style than a peacock, and when prancing and careering, though not
+pulling five pounds on the bit, he looked as though in a moment he would
+imitate Elijah's chariot and take to the clouds.
+
+"'As the hour for the review approached I mounted my horse and took my
+position, as assigned, beside the Governor.
+
+"'I was quietly conversing with him and with our Brigadier-General, when
+a runaway team, attached to an open carriage in which were two ladies,
+dashed past us.
+
+"'What followed was instinct. I gave Gray Eagle both rein and spur. In a
+few seconds he was beside the running horses. I sprang from his back
+upon the back of the near carriage horse, gathered the inside reins of
+the team, drew the heads of the two horses together and brought them to
+a standstill only a few feet from the bluffs, which any one from that
+city will remember, and over which the team would have dashed in a
+moment more.
+
+"'People gathered around instantly, took the horses in hand and helped
+the ladies from the vehicle. Being relieved, I caught and remounted my
+horse, took my place and the review proceeded.
+
+"'After the review, I received a note from the Governor asking me to
+dine with him that evening.
+
+"'I accepted, supposing the invitation was due to my Mexican record.
+Judge my surprise, then, when going to the Governor's mansion, I was
+shown into the parlor, and, on being presented to the Governor's wife
+and her beautiful unmarried sister, in a moment found myself being
+overwhelmed by the grateful thanks of the two ladies, learning for the
+first time, from their lips, that they were the ladies I had rescued.
+
+"'Of course, after that, I was a frequent visitor at the house, and in a
+few months the young lady became my wife.'
+
+"His story was told with an air of such modest candor and at the same
+time with such dramatic effect, that what might have seem improbable or
+singular about it, had it been differently related, was not thought of
+at the time. The old man was a real hero for a brief moment at least.
+
+"When, later, we knew the Colonel had never been in the Mexican war or
+any other war; that he had never been married; that if he had ever
+witnessed a military review it was from a perch on a fence or tree; that
+he had never possessed four thousand or four hundred dollars with which
+to buy a horse, and that his oldest acquaintances did not believe that
+he had ever been on a horse's back, still, while the admiration for the
+man was somewhat chilled, there was no difference of opinion as to the
+main fact, which was that as a gigantic and dramatic liar, on merit, he
+was entitled to the post of honor on a day when the Ananiases of all the
+world were passing in review.
+
+"Old and middle-aged men in the West will remember the delightful
+letters, which Lieut. B., under the _nom de plume_ of 'Ching Foo,' used
+to write to the Sacramento _Union_. Once in the presence of Colonel
+Jensen these letters were referred to as masterpieces. The Colonel
+smiled significantly and said:
+
+"'They were delicious letters, truly. Take him all in all, Ching Foo was
+the most intelligent Chinaman I ever saw. He cooked for me three years
+in California. I taught him reading and writing. I reckon he would have
+been with me still, but the early floods in '54 washed out my bed-rock
+flume in American River and I had to break up my establishment. I had a
+ton of gold in sight in the river bed, but next morning the works were
+all gone and with them $125,000 which I had used in turning the river.'
+
+"One day an Ohio man and a Tennessee man engaged in a warm dispute over
+the relative excellencies of the respective State houses in Ohio and
+Tennessee. Finally they appealed to Colonel Jensen for an opinion. The
+Colonel, with his sovereign air, said to the Ohio man:
+
+"'You are wrong, Tom. I had just completed the State house at Columbus,
+when I was sent for to go and make the plans and superintend the
+construction of the State house at Nashville. It would have been strange
+if I had not made a great many improvements over the Ohio structure, in
+preparing plans for the one to be erected in Tennessee.'
+
+"The Colonel was a bungling carpenter by trade, and never built anything
+more complicated or imposing than a miner's cabin.
+
+"One more anecdote and I will positively stop. Two neighbors had a law
+suit in Washoe City. One was an honest man, the other a scoundrel. As is
+the rule in Nevada, both the plaintiff and defendant testified. The
+defendant denied point blank the testimony of the plaintiff. It was
+plain that one or the other had committed terrible perjury. Some other
+witnesses were called, the case was closed and the jury retired to
+consider upon a verdict. But how to decide was the question. Which was
+the honest man and which the scoundrel?
+
+"At last one juror hit upon a happy thought. He said:
+
+"Gentlemen, did you notice closely the last witness for the defendant?
+His hair was white as snow, his body bent, his steps were feeble and
+tottering. That man has already one foot in the grave; he will not
+survive another month. Surely a man in his condition would tell the
+truth.' The argument seemed logical and the reasoning sound. The verdict
+was unanimous for the defendant.
+
+"No case ever showed clearer the 'infallibility' of a jury. The witness
+was Colonel Jensen. The defendant was the perjurer, and all the Colonel
+knew of the case was what the defendant had, that morning, out behind a
+hay corral, drilled him to know and to swear to, for a five-dollar
+piece.
+
+"The Colonel has gone now to join his ancestors on the other side. In
+the old orthodox days there would not have been the slightest doubt as
+to who his original ancestor was, or of the temperature of his present
+quarters, but who knows?
+
+"I only know that, while upon the earth, he was one of the few men whom
+I have known that I believed was a native genius; a very Shakespeare (or
+Bacon) in language; a Michael Angelo in coloring; a colossal,
+all-embracing, magnificent, measureless liar."
+
+"He was a good one, sure," said Carlin.
+
+"He was a bad one, sure," remarked Ashley.
+
+Then Brewster, taking up the theme, said: "He had a chronic disease,
+that was all. He was as much of an inebriate in his way as ever was
+drunkard a slave to alcohol. He had great vanity and self-esteem and a
+flowery imagination. These were chastened or disciplined by no moral
+attributes. He could no more help being what he was than can the raven
+avoid being black."
+
+"There was bad stock in the mon," said Corrigan. "He should have been
+strangled in his cradle; for sich a mon is forever making bitterness in
+a neighborhood, and is not fit to live."
+
+"Boys," asked the Colonel, "do you believe that lying is ever
+justifiable?"
+
+Brewster, Harding and Ashley simultaneously answered "No."
+
+"It depends," said Carlin.
+
+"Hardly iver," said Corrigan.
+
+Miller thought it might be necessary.
+
+"For one's self, no; for another, perhaps yes," said the Professor.
+
+"That is just the point," remarked the Colonel. "Let me tell you about a
+case which transpired right here in this city. There were two men whose
+first names were the same, while their surnames were similar. Their
+given names were Frank and their surnames were, we will say, Cady and
+Carey, respectively. Cady was a young married man. He had a beautiful
+wife, a lovely little girl three years of age and a baby boy a year old
+at the time I am speaking of. Carey was five or six years younger and
+single. They were great friends, notwithstanding that Cady was pretty
+fast while Carey was as pure-hearted a young man as ever came here.
+More, he was devotedly attached to a young lady who was a close friend
+of the wife of Cady. The young couple were expecting to be married in a
+few weeks at the time the incident happened which I am going to relate.
+
+"Cady was wealthy, while Carey was poor and a clerk in a mercantile
+establishment. One day Cady said to his friend: 'Carey, I bought some
+Con. Virginia stock to-day at $55. I have set aside eighty shares for
+you. Some people think it is going to advance before long. If it does
+and there is anything made on the eighty shares it shall be yours.'
+Sixty days later the stock struck $463, when it was sold and the bank
+notified Carey that there was a deposit of $32,000 to his credit. When
+this stroke of good fortune came the youth hastened to tell the good
+news to the girl of his heart, and before they separated their troth was
+plighted and the marriage day fixed.
+
+"During this delicious period, one morning Carey stepped into the outer
+office of Cady and was horrified to hear from behind the glass screen
+which separated the inner office from the main office the wife of Cady
+upbrading her husband in a most violent manner. Her back was to the
+front of the building. She was holding a letter in her hand, and as
+Carey entered the building she began and read the letter through, and
+wound up by crying: 'Who is this Marie who is writing to you and
+directing the letters simply to Frank, Postoffice box 409? You are
+keeping a private box, are you? But you are too careless by half; you
+left this letter in your overcoat pocket, and when I went to sew a
+button on the coat this morning it fell out, so I could not help but see
+it.'
+
+"Just then Cady looked up and saw Carey through the glass petition. The
+latter with a swift motion touched a finger to his lips and shook his
+head, which in perfect pantomime said: 'Don't give yourself away,' then
+in a flash slipped noiselessly from the building.
+
+"Once outside, he hastily, on a leaf of his memorandum book, wrote to
+the postmaster that if he called with a lady and asked what his
+postoffice box was to answer 409; to at once take out anything that
+might be in the box, and if he had time to seal and stamp an envelope,
+direct it to him and put it in 409, and he added: 'Don't delay a
+moment.'
+
+"Calling a bootblack who was standing near, he gave him the note and a
+silver dollar, bade him run with the letter to the postoffice and to be
+sure to deliver the note only to some of the responsible men there, to
+the postmaster himself if possible.
+
+"Then, with a good deal of noise, he rushed into his friend's place of
+business again.
+
+"As he entered he heard his friend's wife, through her sobs, saying:
+'Oh, Frank! I should have thought that respect for our children would
+have prevented this, even if you have no more love for me.'
+
+"Carey dashed through the sash door, seemed taken all aback at seeing
+Cady's wife in the office. In great apparent confusion he advanced and
+said: 'Excuse me, Cady, but I am in a little trouble this morning. I was
+expecting a letter last night directed simply to my first name and my
+postoffice box. It has not come, and as you and myself have the same
+first name, I did not know but the mistake might have been made at the
+postoffice.' He was apparently greatly agitated and unstrung and seemed
+particularly anxious about the letter.
+
+"Cady replied: 'With my mail last night a letter came directed as you
+say. I opened and glanced over it, thought it was some joke, put it in
+my pocket and thought no more about it until my wife brought it in this
+morning. Somehow she does not seem satisfied at my explanation.'
+
+"At this the lady sprang up, and, confronting the young man, said:
+'Frank Carey, what is the number of your box in the postoffice?'
+
+"With steady eyes and voice he answered; '409.' The woman was dumfounded
+for a moment, but she quickly rallied.
+
+"'Come with me,' she said. The young man obeyed. She took her way
+directly to the postoffice. Arriving, she tapped at the delivery window
+and asked if she could see the postmaster in person. The boy delivered
+the message and in a moment the door opened and the pair were ushered
+into the private office of the postmaster. Hardly were they seated when
+the lady said abruptly: 'We have come, Judge, on a serious business.
+Will you be kind enough to tell me the number of this gentleman's
+postoffice box?'
+
+"The postmaster looked inquiringly at Carey, who nodded assent. Then in
+response to the lady, he replied: 'I do not exactly remember. I will
+have to look at the books.'
+
+"He passed into the main office, but returned in a moment with a petty
+ledger containing an alphabetical index. He opened at the 'C's' and
+read: 'Frank Carey, box 409; paid for one quarter from Jan----'
+Continuing, he said: 'I remember now, Frank, you hired the box about the
+time you realized on Con. Virginia, and the quarter has about a month
+more to run.'
+
+"This he said with an imperturbable, and incorruptible face, and with an
+air of mingled candor and business which it was charming to behold.
+
+"The lady was nearly paralyzed, but she made one more effort.
+
+"'There can be no possible mistake in what you have told me, Judge?' she
+asked.
+
+"'I think not the least in the world,' was the reply, and, rising, he
+continued: 'Please step this way.' He led the way to the boxes, and
+there over 409 was the name of Frank Carey. More, there was a sprinkle
+of dust over it, showing that it had been there for some time.
+
+"'By the way,' said the postmaster, you have a letter, Frank. It must be
+a drop letter, as no mail has been received this morning.' He took the
+letter from the box in a manner so awkward that the lady could not help
+seeing that it had evidently been directed in a disguised female hand,
+and that the superscription was simply 'Frank, P. O. Box 409.'
+
+"Arrived again in the private office, the lady said to the young man, in
+a latitude 78-degree north tone, 'I see, sir, you have a very extensive,
+and I have no doubt, very _select_ correspondence.'
+
+"At the same time she caught up her skirts--the ladies wore long skirts
+that year--and, with a 'I thank you, Judge; good morning,' started
+toward the door. As she passed Carey she drew close to the wall, as
+though for her robes to touch the hem of his garments would be
+contamination, and passed haughtily into the street.
+
+"When she had disappeared Carey sank into a chair and drew a long breath
+of relief, while the grave face of the ancient 'Nasby' unlimbered and
+warmed into a smile which shone like virtue's own reward.
+
+"'Lord! Lord!' he said, 'but it was a close shave. I had just got things
+fixed when you came. And was not she mad though? She looked like the
+prospectus of a cyclone. But tell me, Carey, am I not rather an
+impressive liar, when, in the best interests of domestic peace, my duty
+leads me into that channel?'
+
+"Frank answered, 'As Mark Twain told those wild friends of his who
+perpetrated the bogus robbery upon him, "You did a marvelous sight too
+well for a mere amateur." But now, Judge, mum is the word about this
+business.'
+
+"'Mum is the word,' was the reply.
+
+"That evening Carey called at the home of his betrothed. A servant
+showed him into the parlor, but for the first time the young lady did
+not put in an appearance. In her stead her mother came. The elder lady,
+without sitting, in a severe tone said: 'Mr. Carey, my daughter has
+heard something to-day from Mrs. Cady. Until you explain that matter to
+my satisfaction my daughter will beg to decline to see you.'
+
+"Carey replied: 'Since your daughter has heard of the matter, it does
+concern _her_, and I shall very gladly explain to her; but I cannot to
+any one else, not even to you.'
+
+"'You could easily impose upon a silly girl who is in love, but I am no
+silly girl, and am not in love, especially not with _you_, and you will
+have to explain to _me_,' said the lady.
+
+"'My dear madam,' said Carey, mildly, 'in one sense there is nothing in
+all that gossip. In another sense so much is involved that I would not
+under the rack whisper a word of it to any soul on earth save she who
+has promised to give her happiness into my keeping. When your daughter
+becomes my wife your authority as mother in our home shall never be
+questioned by me. Until then my business is not with you.'
+
+"'It is not worth while to prolong this discussion,' said the old lady,
+excitedly. 'If you have nothing more to say, I will bid you good
+evening.'
+
+"'Good evening, madam,' said Carey, and went out into the night.
+
+"A year later the young lady married the wildest rake on the Comstock,
+but Carey never married, and died last year.
+
+"When Cady saw how things were going, he went to Carey and said: 'Carey,
+let me go and explain to those ladies. It kills me to see you as your
+are.'
+
+"'It will never do,' was the reply. 'They would not keep the secret,
+especially the elder one never would. It would kill her not to get even
+with your wife. It worried me a little at first, for I feared that ----
+might grieve some and be disappointed; but she is all right. I watched
+her covertly at the play last night. She will forget me in a month. She
+will be married within the year. We will take no chance of having your
+home made unhappy. Dear friend, it is all just as I would have it.'"
+
+"It was too bad," said Harding.
+
+"That Carey was a right noble fellow," was Wright's comment.
+
+Miller thought if he had been right game he would have seen that girl,
+old woman or no old woman.
+
+"He was punished for his falsehood. He had to atone for his own and his
+friend's sins," was Brewster's conclusion.
+
+"O, murther! I think he had a happy deliverance from the whole family
+intoirely," said Corrigan.
+
+Carlin, addressing Brewster, said: "You say he was punished for the sins
+of himself and his friend; how do you dispose of the wickedness of the
+postmaster?"
+
+"Possibly," was the response, "he is wicked by habit, and it may be he
+is being reserved for some particular judgment."
+
+"All that I see remarkable about Carey's case," said Ashley, "is that he
+made the money in the first place. Had that stock been carried for me,
+the mine would have been flooded the next week and my work would have
+been mortgaged for a year to come to make good the loss."
+
+"It was a hard case, no doubt," said Strong, "but I think with Corrigan,
+that the punishment was not without its compensations."
+
+"He had his mirage and it was worse than wild Injuns, was it not,
+Wright?" asked Corrigan.
+
+"Or worse, Barney," said Wright, "than a blacksmith, a foine mon and a
+mon of property."
+
+"O, murther, Wright," said Corrigan; "stop that. There go the whistles.
+Let us say good night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+About this time Virginia City was visited one day by a heavy rain storm
+accompanied with thunder. But as the sun was disappearing behind Mount
+Davidson, the clouds broke and rolled away from the west, while at the
+same time a faint rainbow appeared in the East, making one of those
+beautiful spectacles common to mountainous regions.
+
+At the same time the flag on Mount Davidson caught the beams from the
+setting sun and stood out a banner of fire. This, too, is not an
+unfrequent spectacle in Virginia City, and long ago inspired a most
+gifted lady to write a very beautiful poem, "The Flag on Fire."
+
+The storm and the sunset turned the minds of the Club to other beautiful
+displays of nature which they had seen. Said Miller, "I never saw
+anything finer than a sunset which I witnessed once at sea down off the
+Mexican coast.
+
+"We were in a tub of a steamship, the old "Jonathan." We had been in a
+storm for four days, three of which the steamer had been thrown up into
+the wind, the machinery working slowly, just sufficient to keep
+steerageway on the ship.
+
+"There were 600 passengers on board, with an unusual number of women and
+children, and we had been miserable past expression. But at last, with
+the coming of the dawn, the wind ceased; as soon as the waves ran down
+so that it was safe to swing the ship, she was turned about and put upon
+her course.
+
+"In a few hours the sea grew comparatively smooth, and the passengers by
+hundreds sought the deck.
+
+"All the afternoon the Mexican coast was in full view, blue and
+rock-bound and not many miles away.
+
+"Just before the sun set its bended rays struck those blue head-lands
+and transfigured them. They took on the forms of walls and battlements
+and shone like a city of gold rising out of the sea in the crimson East,
+and looked as perhaps the swinging gardens of Semiramis did from within
+the walls of Babylon. In the West the disc of the sun, unnaturally
+large, blazed in insufferable splendor, while in glory this seeming city
+shone in the East. Between the two pictures the ship was plunging on her
+course and we could feel the pulses of the deep sea as they throbbed
+beneath us. The multitude upon the deck hardly made a sound; all that
+broke the stillness was the heavy respirations of the engines and the
+beating of the paddles upon the water. The spell lasted but a few
+minutes, for when the sun plunged beneath the sea, the darkness all at
+once began as is common in those latitudes, but while it lasted it was
+sublime.
+
+"Speaking of Nature's pictures, in my judgment about the most impressive
+sight that is made in this world, is a storm at sea. I mean a real storm
+in which a three thousand ton ship is tossed about like a cork, when the
+roar of the storm makes human voices of no avail, and when the billows
+give notice that 'deep is answering unto deep.'
+
+"When a boy I often went down under the overhanging rock over which the
+current of Niagara pours. As I listened to the roar and tried to compute
+the energy which had kept those thunders booming for, heaven only knows
+how many thousands of years, it used to make me feel small enough; but
+it never influenced me as does an ocean storm. When all the world that
+is in sight goes into the business of making Niagaras, and turns out a
+hundred of them every minute, I tell you about all an ordinary landsman
+can do is to sit still and watch the display.
+
+"A real ocean storm--a shore shaker--is about the biggest free show that
+this world has yet invented."
+
+Corrigan spoke next; said he: "Spakin' of storms, did you iver watch the
+phenomenon of a ragin' snow storm high up in the Sierras? When it is
+approaching there is a roar in the forest such as comes up a headland
+when the sea is bating upon its base. This will last for hours, the
+pines rocking like auld women at a wake, and thin comes the snow. Its no
+quiet, respectable snow such as you see in civilized countries, but it
+just piles down as though a new glacial period had descinded upon the
+worreld. As it falls all the voices of the smaller streams grow still
+and the wind itself grows muffled as though it had a could in the head.
+The trees up there are no shrubs you know. They grow three hundred feet
+high and have branches in proportion, and whin they git to roarin' and
+rockin', it is as though all the armies of the mountains were presentin'
+arms.
+
+"When the storm dies away, thin it is you see a picture, if the weather
+is not too cold. The snow masses itself upon the branches, and thin you
+stand in a temple miles in extent, the floor of which is white like
+alabaster while the columns that support it are wrought in a lace-work
+of emerald and of frost more lofty and dilicate than iver was traced out
+by the patient hand of mortal in grand cathadrals."
+
+Here Carlin interrupted.
+
+"Say, Barney, is there not a great deal of frieze to one of those Sierra
+temples?"
+
+"It might same so, lookin' from the standpoint of the nave," was
+Barney's quick reply.
+
+Groans followed this outbreak, from various members of the Club. They
+were the first puns that had been fired into that peaceful company and
+they were hailed as omens of approaching trouble.
+
+The gentle voice of Brewster next broke the silence.
+
+"I saw," he said, "in Salt Lake City, three years ago on a summer
+evening, a sunset scene which I thought was very beautiful. The electric
+conditions had been strangely disturbed for several days; there had been
+clouds and a good deal of thunder and lightning. You know Salt Lake City
+lies at the western base of the Wasatch range. On this day toward
+evening the sky to the west had grown of a sapphire clearness, but in
+the east beyond the first high hills of the range a great electric storm
+was raging. The clouds of inky blackness which shrouded the more distant
+heights, and through which the lightnings were incessantly zigzaging,
+were in full view from the city, though the thunders were caught and
+tied in the deep caverns of the intervening hills. To the southeast the
+range with its imposing peaks was snow-crowned and under a clear sky. In
+the southwest the Oquirrh range was blue and beautiful. Just then from
+beyond the great lake the setting sun threw out his shafts of fire, and
+the whole firmament turned to glory. The sun blazed from beyond the
+waters in the west, the lightnings blazed beyond the nearer hills in the
+east, the snowy heights in the southeast were turned to purple, while in
+the city every spire, every pane of glass which faced the west, every
+speck of metal on house and temple in a moment grew radiant as burnished
+gold, and there was a shimmer of splendor in all the air. Then suddenly
+over the great range to the east and apparently against the black clouds
+in which the lightnings were blazing the glorious arch of a magnificent
+rainbow was upreared. All the colors were deep-dyed and perfectly
+distinct. There was neither break nor dimness in all the mighty arch.
+There it stood, poised in indescribable splendor for quite five minutes.
+So wonderful was the display that houses were deserted: men and women
+came out into the open air and watched the spectacle in silence and with
+uncovered heads.
+
+"No one stopped to think that the glory which shone on high was made
+merely by sunlight shining through falling water; the cold explanation
+made by science was forgotten, and hundreds of eyes furtively watched,
+half expecting to catch glimpses of a divine hand and brush, for the
+pictures were rare enough to be the perfect work of celestial beings
+sent to sketch for mortals a splendor which should kindle within them
+dim conceptions of the glories which fill the spheres where light is
+born.
+
+"Salt Lake City is famous for its sunsets, but to this one was added new
+and unusual enchantments by the storm which was wheeling its sable
+squadrons in the adjacent mountains.
+
+"As I watched that display I realized for the first time how it was that
+before books were made men learned to be devout and to pray; for the
+picture was as I fancy Sinai must have appeared, when all the elements
+combined to make a spectacle to awe the multitude before the mountain;
+and when they were told that the terrible cloud on the mountain's crest
+was the robe which the infinite God had drawn around Himself in mercy,
+lest at a glimpse of His unapproachable brightness they should perish,
+it was not strange if they believed it."
+
+It was not often that Brewster talked, but when he did there was about
+him a grave and earnest manner which impressed all who heard him with
+the perfect sincerity of the man.
+
+After he ceased speaking the room was still for several seconds. At
+length the Colonel broke the silence:
+
+"Brewster, you spoke of Sinai. What think you of that story; of the Red
+Sea affair; of the Sinai incident, and the golden calf business?"
+
+"Believed literally," Brewster continued, "it is the most impressive of
+earthly literature; looked upon allegorically, still it is sublime. Its
+lesson is, that when in bondage to sorrow and to care, if we but bravely
+and patiently struggle on, the sea of trouble around us will at length
+roll back its waves into walls and leave for us a path. Unless we keep
+straining onward and upward, no voice of Hope, which is the voice of
+God, will descend to comfort us. If we are thirsty we must smite the
+rock for water; that is, for what we have we must work, and if we cease
+our struggle and go into camp, we not only will not hold our own, but in
+a little while we will be bestowing our jewels upon some idol of our own
+creation. If we toil and never falter, before we die we shall climb
+Pisgah and behold the Promised Land; that is, we shall be disciplined
+until we can look every fate calmly in the face and turn a smiling brow
+to the inevitable.
+
+"I found a man once, living upon almost nothing, in a hut that had not
+one comfort. He had graded out a sharp hillside, set some rude poles up
+against the bank, covered them with brush, and in that den on a bleak
+mountain's crest he had lived through a rough winter. I asked him how he
+managed to exist without becoming an idiot or a lunatic. His answer was
+worthy of an old Roman. 'Because,' said he, 'I at last am superior to
+distress.'
+
+"He had reached the point that Moses reached when he gained the last
+mountain crest. After that the Promised Land was forever in sight."
+
+"Suppose," asked Savage, "you buy stocks when they are high and sell
+them, or have them sold for you, when they are low, where does the
+Promised Land come in?"
+
+"What becomes of the 'superior to distress' theory," asked Carlin, "when
+a man in his fight against fate gets along just as the men do in the
+Bullion shaft, finding nothing but barren rock, and all the time the air
+grows hotter and there is more and more hot water?"
+
+"Oh, bother the stocks and the hot water," said Strong. "Professor, we
+have heard about the Wasatch Range and Mount Sinai, shake up your memory
+and tell us about old Mount Shasta! I heard you describe it once. It is
+a grand mountain, is it not?"
+
+"The grandest in America, so far as I have seen," was the reply. "It is
+said that Whitney is higher, but Whitney has for its base the Sierras,
+and the peaks around it dwarf its own tremendous height. But Shasta
+rises from the plain a single mountain, and while all the year around
+the lambs gambol at its base, its crown is eternal snow. Men of the
+North tell me that it is rivaled by Tacoma, but I never saw Tacoma. In
+the hot summer days as the farmers at Shasta's base gather their
+harvests, they can see where the wild wind is heaping the snow drifts
+about his crest. The mountain is one of Winter's stations, and from his
+forts of snow upon its top he never withdraws his garrison. There are
+the bastions of ice, the frosty battlements; there his old bugler, the
+wind, is daily sounding the advance and the retreat of the storm. The
+mountain holds all latitudes and all seasons at the same time in its
+grasp. Flowers bloom at its base, further up the forest trees wave their
+ample arms; further still the brown of autumn is upon the slopes and
+over all hangs the white mantle of eternal winter.
+
+"Standing close to its base, the human mind fails to grasp the immensity
+of the butte. But as one from a distance looks back upon it, or from
+some height twenty miles away views it, he discovers how magnificent are
+its proportions.
+
+"For days will the mountain fold the mist about its crest like a vail
+and remain hidden from mortal sight, and then suddenly as if in
+deference to a rising or setting sun, the vapors will be rolled back and
+the watcher in the valley below will behold gems of topaz and of ruby
+made of sunbeams, set in the diadem of white, and towards the sentinel
+mountain, from a hundred miles around, men will turn their eyes in
+admiration. In its presence one feels the near presence of God, and as
+before Babel the tongues of the people became confused, so before this
+infinitely more august tower man's littleness oppresses him, and he can
+no more give fitting expression to his thoughts.
+
+"It frowns and smiles alternately through the years; it hails the
+outgoing and the incoming centuries, changeless amid the mutations of
+ages, forever austere, forever cold and pure. The mountain eagle strains
+hopelessly toward its crest; the storms and the sunbeams beat upon it in
+vain; the rolling years cannot inscribe their numbers on its naked
+breast.
+
+"Of all the mountains that I have seen it has the most sovereign look;
+it leans on no other height; it associates with no other mountain; it
+builds its own pedestal in the valley and never doffs its icy crown.
+
+"The savage in the long ago, with awe and trembling, strained his eyes
+to the height and his clouded imagination pictured it as the throne of a
+Deity who issued the snow, the hoar frost and the wild winds from their
+brewing place on the mountain's top.
+
+"The white man, with equal awe, strains his eye upward to where the
+sunlight points with ruby silver and gold the mimic glaciers of the
+butte, and is not much wiser than the unlettered savage in trying to
+comprehend how and why the mighty mass was upreared.
+
+"It is a blessing as well as a splendor. With its cold it seizes the
+clouds and compresses them until their contents are rained upon the
+thirsty fields beneath; from its base the Sacramento starts, babbling on
+its way to the sea; despite its frowns it is a merciful agent to
+mankind, and on the minds of those who see it in all its splendor and
+power a picture is painted, the sheen and the enchantment of which will
+linger while memory and the gift to admire magnificence is left."
+
+"That is good, Professor," said Corrigan; "but to me there is
+insupportable loneliness about an isolated mountain. It sames always to
+me like a gravestone set up above the grave of a dead worreld. But
+spakin' of beautiful things, did yees iver sae Lake Tahoe in her glory?
+
+"I was up there last fall, and one day, in anticipation of the winter, I
+suppose, she wint to her wardrobe, took out all her winter white caps
+and tied them on; and she was a daisy.
+
+"Her natural face is bluer than that of a stock sharp in a falling
+market; but whin the wind 'comes a wooin' and she dons her foamy lace,
+powders her face with spray and fastens upon her swellin' breast a
+thousand diamonds of sunlight, O, but she is a winsome looking beauty,
+to be sure. Thin, too, she sings her old sintimintal song to her shores,
+and the great overhanging pines sway their mighty arms as though keeping
+time, joining with hers their deep murmurs to make a refrain; and thus
+the lake sings to the shore and the shore answers back to the song all
+the day long. Tahoe, in her frame of blue and grane, is a fairer picture
+than iver glittered on cathadral wall; older, fairer and fresher than
+ancient master iver painted tints immortal upon. There in the strong
+arms of the mountains it is rocked, and whin the winds ruffle the azure
+plumage of the beautiful wathers, upon wather and upon shore a splendor
+rists such as might come were an angel to descend to earth and sketch
+for mortals a sane from Summer Land."
+
+"You are right, Corrigan," said Ashley. "If the thirst for money does
+not denude the shores of their trees, and thus spoil the frame of your
+wonderful picture, Lake Tahoe will be a growing object of interest until
+its fame will be as wide as the world.
+
+"But while on grand themes, have you ever seen the Columbia River? To me
+it is the glory of the earth. It is a great river fourteen hundred miles
+above its mouth, and from thence on it rolls to the sea with increasing
+grandeur all the way. Where it hews its way through the Cascades a new
+and gorgeous picture is every moment painted, and when the mountain
+walls are pierced, with perfect purity and with mighty volume it sweeps
+on toward the ocean. It is, through its last one hundred and fifty
+miles, watched over by great forests and magnificent mountains. There
+are Hood and St. Helens and the rest, and where, upon the furious bar,
+the river joins the sea, there is an everlasting war of waters as
+beautiful as it is terrible.
+
+"It makes a man a better American to go up the Columbia to the Cascades
+and look about him. He is not only impressed with the majesty of the
+scene, but thoughts of empire, of dominion and of the glory of the land
+over which his country's flag bears sovereignty, take possession of him.
+He looks down upon the rolling river and up at Mount Hood, and to both
+he whispers, 'We are in accord; I have an interest in you,' and the
+great pines nod approvingly, and the waterfalls babble more loud.
+
+"The Mississippi has greater volume than the Oregon, the Hudson makes
+rival pictures which perhaps are as beautiful as any painted in the
+Cascades; but there is a power, a beauty, a purity and a wildness about
+the river of the West which is all its own and which is unapproachable
+in its charms.
+
+"More than that. To me the river is the emblem of a perfect life.
+Through all the morning of its career it fights its way, blazing an
+azure trail through the desert. There is no green upon its banks, hardly
+does a bird sing as it struggles on. But it bears right on, and so
+austere is its face that the desert is impotent to soil it. Then it
+meets a rocky wall and breaks through it, roaring on its way. Then it
+takes the Willamette to its own ample breast, and it bears it on until
+it meets the inevitable, and then undaunted goes down to its grave.
+
+"It fights its way, it bears its burdens, it remains pure and brave to
+the last. That is all the best man that ever lived could do."
+
+As Ashley concluded Strong said: "Why, Ashley! that is good. Why do you
+not give up mining and devote yourself to writing?"
+
+Ashley laughed low, and said: "Because I have had what repentant sinners
+are said to have had, my experience. Let me tell you about it.
+
+"It was in Belmont in Eastern Nevada, during that winter when the small
+pox was bad. It took an epidemic form in Belmont, and a good many died.
+
+"Among the victims was Harlow Reed. Harlow was a young and handsome
+fellow, a generous, happy-hearted fellow, too, and when he was stricken
+down, a 'soiled dove,' hearing of his illness, went and watched over him
+until he died.
+
+"The morning after his death, Billy S. came to me, and handing me a slip
+of paper on which was Reed's name, age, etc., asked me to prepare a
+notice for publication. I fixed it as nearly as I could, as I had seen
+such things in newspapers. It read:
+
+     DIED--In Belmont, Dec. 17, Harlow Reed, a native of New Jersey
+     aged twenty-three years.
+
+"Billie glanced at the paper and then said: 'Harlow was a good fellow
+and a good friend of ours, can you not add something to this notice?'
+
+"In response I sat down and wrote a brief eulogy of the boy, and closed
+the article in these words:
+
+     And for her, the poor woman, who braving the dangers of the
+     pestilence, went and sat at the feet of the man she loved,
+     until he died; for her, though before her garments were soiled,
+     we know that this morning, in the Recording Angel's book it is
+     written "her robes are white as snow."
+
+"Billie took the paper to the publisher, and as he went away, I had a
+secret thought that, all things being considered, the notice was not
+bad.
+
+"Next morning I went into a restaurant for breakfast and took a seat at
+a small table on one side of the narrow room. Directly opposite me were
+two short-card sharps. One was eating his breakfast, while the other,
+leaning back to catch the light, was reading the morning paper. Suddenly
+he stopped, and peering over his paper, though with chair still tilted
+back, said to his companion: 'Did you see this notice about that woman
+who took care of Harlow Reed while he was sick?'
+
+"'No,' was the reply. 'What is it?' asked the companion.
+
+"'It's away up,' said the first speaker. 'But what is it?' asked the
+other.
+
+"The first speaker then threw down the paper, leaned forward, and,
+seizing his knife and fork, said shortly:
+
+"'Oh, it's no great shakes after all. It says the woman while taking
+care of Harlow got her clothes dirty, but after he died she changed her
+clothes and she's all right now.'
+
+"Since then I have never thought that I had better undertake a literary
+career so long as I could get four honest dollars a day for swinging a
+hammer in a mine; but I have always been about half sorry that I did not
+kill that fellow, notwithstanding the lesson that he taught me."
+
+There was a hearty laugh at Ashley's expense, and then Strong roused
+himself and said:
+
+"The Columbia is very grand, but you must follow it up to its chief
+tributary if you would find perfect glory--follow it into the very
+desert. You have heard of the lava beds of Idaho. They were once a river
+of molten fire from 300 feet to 900 feet in depth, which burned its way
+through the desert for hundreds of miles. To the east of the source of
+this lava flow, the Snake River bursts out of the hills, becoming almost
+at once a sovereign river, and flowing at first south-westerly, and then
+bending westerly, cuts its way through this lava bed, and, continuing
+its way with many bends, finally, far to the north merges with the
+Columbia. On this river are several falls. First, the American Falls,
+are very beautiful. Sixty miles below are the Twin Falls, where the
+river, divided into two nearly equal parts, falls one hundred and eighty
+feet. They are magnificent. Three miles below are the Shoshone Falls,
+and a few miles lower down the Salmon Falls. It was of the Shoshone
+Falls that I began to speak.
+
+"They are real rivals of Niagara. Never anywhere else was there such a
+scene; never anywhere else was so beautiful a picture hung in so rude a
+frame; never anywhere else on a background so forbidding and weird were
+so many glories clustered.
+
+"Around and beyond there is nothing but the desert, sere, silent,
+lifeless, as though Desolation had builded there everlasting thrones to
+Sorrow and Despair.
+
+"Away back in remote ages, over the withered breast of the desert, a
+river of fire one hundred miles wide and four hundred miles long, was
+turned. As the fiery mass cooled, its red waves became transfixed and
+turned black, giving to the double desert an indescribably blasted and
+forbidding face.
+
+"But while this river of fire was in flow, a river of water was fighting
+its way across it, or has since made the war and forged out for itself a
+channel through the mass. This channel looks like the grave of a volcano
+that has been robbed of its dead.
+
+"But right between its crumbling and repellant walls a transfiguration
+appears. And such a picture! A river as lordly as the Hudson or the
+Ohio, springing from the distant snow-crested Tetons, with waters
+transparent as glass, but green as emerald, with majestic flow and
+ever-increasing volume, sweeps on until it reaches this point where the
+august display begins.
+
+"Suddenly, in different places in the river bed, jagged, rocky reefs are
+upraised, dividing the current into four rivers, and these, in a mighty
+plunge of eighty feet downward, dash on their way. Of course, the waters
+are churned into foam and roll over the precipice white as are the
+garments of the morning when no cloud obscures the sun. The loveliest of
+these falls is called "The Bridal Veil," because it is made of the lace
+which is woven with a warp of falling waters and a woof of sunlight.
+Above this and near the right bank is a long trail of foam, and this is
+called "The Bridal Train." The other channels are not so fair as the one
+called "The Bridal Veil," but they are more fierce and wild, and carry
+in their furious sweep more power.
+
+"One of the reefs which divides the river in mid-channel runs up to a
+peak, and on this a family of eagles have, through the years, may be
+through the centuries, made their home and reared their young, on the
+very verge of the abyss and amid the full echoes of the resounding boom
+of the falls. Surely the eagle is a fitting symbol of perfect
+fearlessness and of that exultation which comes with battle clamors.
+
+"But these first falls are but a beginning. The greater splendor
+succeeds. With swifter flow the startled waters dash on and within a few
+feet take their second plunge in a solid crescent, over a sheer
+precipice, two hundred and ten feet to the abyss below. On the brink
+there is a rolling crest of white, dotted here and there, in sharp
+contrast, with shining eddies of green, as might a necklace of emerald
+shimmer on a throat of snow, and then the leap and fall.
+
+"Here more than foam is made. Here the waters are shivered into fleecy
+spray, whiter and finer than any miracle that ever fell from India loom,
+while from the depths below an everlasting vapor rises--the incense of
+the waters to the water's God. Finally, through the long, unclouded
+days, the sun sends down his beams, and to give the startling scene its
+crowning splendor, wreaths the terror and the glory in a rainbow halo.
+On either sullen bank the extremities of its arc are anchored, and there
+in its many-colored robes of light it stands outstretched above the
+abyss like wreaths of flowers above a sepulcher. Up through the glory
+and the terror an everlasting roar ascends, deep-toned as is the voice
+of Fate, a diapason like that the rolling ocean chants when his eager
+surges come rushing in to greet and fiercely woo an irresponsive
+promontory.
+
+"But to feel all the awe and to mark all the splendor and power that
+comes of the mighty display, one must climb down the steep descent to
+the river's brink below, and, pressing up as nearly as possible to the
+falls, contemplate the tremendous picture. There something of the energy
+that creates that endless panorama is comprehended; all the deep
+throbbings of the mighty river's pulses are felt; all the magnificence
+is seen.
+
+"In the reverberations that come of the war of waters one hears
+something like God's voice; something like the splendor of God is before
+his eyes; something akin to God's power is manifesting itself before
+him, and his soul shrinks within itself, conscious as never before of
+its own littleness and helplessness in the presence of the workings of
+Nature's immeasurable forces.
+
+"Not quite so massive is the picture as is Niagara, but it has more
+lights and shades and loveliness, as though a hand more divinely skilled
+had mixed the tints, and with more delicate art had transfixed them upon
+that picture suspended there in its rugged and sombre frame.
+
+"As one watches it is not difficult to fancy that away back in the
+immemorial and unrecorded past, the Angel of Love bewailed the fact that
+mortals were to be given existence in a spot so forbidding, a spot that
+apparently was never to be warmed with God's smile, which was never to
+make a sign through which God's mercy was to be discerned; that then
+Omnipotence was touched, that with His hand He smote the hills and
+started the great river in its flow; that with His finger He traced out
+the channel across the corpse of that other river that had been fire,
+mingled the sunbeams with the raging waters and made it possible in that
+fire-blasted frame of scoria to swing a picture which should be, first
+to the red man and later to the pale races, a certain sign of the
+existence, the power and the unapproachable splendor of the Great First
+Cause.
+
+"And as the red man through the centuries watched the spectacle,
+comprehending nothing except that an infinite voice was smiting his
+ears, and insufferable glories were blazing before his eyes; so through
+the centuries to come the pale races will stand upon the shuddering
+shore and watch, experiencing a mighty impulse to put off the sandals
+from their feet, under an overmastering consciousness that the spot on
+which they are standing is holy ground.
+
+"There is nothing elsewhere like it; nothing half so weird, so wild, so
+beautiful, so clothed in majesty, so draped with terror; nothing else
+that awakens impressions at once so startling, so winsome, so profound.
+While journeying through the desert to come suddenly upon it, the
+spectacle gives one something of the emotions that would be experienced
+to behold a resurrection from the dead. In the midst of what seems like
+a dead world, suddenly there springs into irrepressible life something
+so marvelous, so grand, so caparisoned with loveliness and irresistible
+might, that the head is bowed, the strained heart throbs tumultuously
+and the awed soul sinks to its knees."
+
+The whistles had sounded while Strong was speaking, and as he finished
+the good nights were spoken and the lights put out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+With the lighting of the pipes one evening, the conversation of the Club
+turned upon what constituted courage and a high sense of honor; whether
+they were native or acquired gifts. A good deal of talk ensued, until at
+last Wright's opinion was asked:
+
+"You are all right," said he, "and all wrong. Some men are born
+insensible to fear, and some have a high sense of honor through
+instinct. But this, I take it, is not the rule and comes, I think,
+mostly as an hereditary gift, through long generations of proud
+ancestors. In my judgment, no gift to mortals is as noble as a lofty,
+honest pride. I do not mean that spurious article which we see so much
+of, but the pride which will not permit a man or woman to have an
+unworthy thought, because of the sense of degradation which it brings to
+the breast that entertains it. This, I believe, is more common in women
+than in men, and I suppose that it was this divine trait, manifesting
+itself in a brutal age, which gave birth to the chivalry of the Middle
+Ages.
+
+"I have known a few men who, I believe, were born without the instinct
+of fear. Charley Fairfax was one of these. He was a dead shot with a
+pistol. He had some words with a man one day on the street in
+Sacramento, and the man being very threatening, Fairfax drew and cocked
+his Derringer. At the same moment the man drove the blade of a sword
+cane through one of the lungs of Fairfax, making a wound which
+eventually proved fatal. Fairfax raised his Derringer and took a quick
+aim at the heart of the murderer, but suddenly dropped the weapon and
+said: 'You have killed me, but you have a wife and children; for their
+sakes I give you your life,' and sank fainting and, as he thought,
+dying, into the arms of a friend who caught him as he was falling.
+
+"There are other men as generous as Fairfax was, but to do what he did,
+when smarting under a fatal wound, requires the coolness and the nerve
+of absolute self-possession.
+
+"Not one man in a million under such circumstances could command himself
+enough to think to be generous. Many a man has, for his courage, had a
+statue raised to his memory who never did and never could have given any
+such proof of a manhood absolutely self-contained as did Fairfax on that
+occasion.
+
+"But, as a rule, we are all mere creatures of education. A friend of
+mine came 'round the Horn in a clipper ship. He told me that when off
+the cape they encountered a gale which drove the ship far to the
+southward; that the weather was so dreadfully cold that the ship's
+rigging was sheeted with ice from sleet and frozen spray.
+
+"One evening the gale slackened a little and some sails were bent on,
+but toward the turn of the night the wind came on again and the sails
+had to be taken in. Said my friend: 'The men went up those swaying masts
+and out upon those icy yards apparently without a thought of danger,
+while I stood upon the deck fairly trembling with terror merely watching
+them.' After awhile the storm was weathered, the cape was rounded and
+the ship put into Valparaiso for fresh supplies.
+
+"The sailors were given a holiday. They went ashore and hired saddle
+horses to visit some resort a few miles out of town. They mounted and
+started away, but within three minutes half of them returned leading
+their horses, and one spoke for all when he said: 'The brute is crank; I
+am afraid he will broach to and capsize.'
+
+"The men who rode the icy spars off Cape Horn on that inky midnight were
+afraid to ride those gentle mustangs.
+
+"There are, I suppose, in this city to-night one hundred men who, with
+knife or pistol, would fight anybody and not think much about it. But
+what would they do were they placed where I saw Corrigan unconcernedly
+working to-day?
+
+"He was sitting on a narrow plank which had been laid across a shaft at
+the eight hundred-foot level, repairing a pump column. He was eight
+hundred feet from the surface, and there was only that plank between him
+and the bottom of that shaft nine hundred feet below. Put the ordinary
+ruffian who cuts and shoots on that plank and he would faint and fall
+off through sheer fright."
+
+"I guess you are right," interposed Carlin. "There is the Mexican who
+lives across the street from us. If I were to take a revolver and go
+over there in the morning and attack him, the chances are I would scare
+him to death; were I to try the same experiment with a bowie knife the
+chances are more than even that he would give me more of a game than I
+would want, and simply because he is accustomed to a knife and not to a
+pistol.
+
+"So the mountain trapper will attack a grizzly bear with perfect
+coolness, or cross the swiftest stream in a canoe without any fear, but
+bring the same man for the first time here to the mine and ask him to
+get on a cage with you and go down a shaft, and he will grow pale and
+tremble like a girl."
+
+"An Indian," suggested the Professor, "at the side of a white man will
+go into a desperate battle and never flinch; so long as the white man
+lives he will fight even unto death. But let a white man engage in a
+hand to hand fight with two or three Indians, and if he has the nerve to
+hold him up to the fight for two or three minutes he will conquer,
+because an hereditary fear overcomes the savage that the pale face will
+conquer in the end. That is really the cowardice which Falstaff assumed
+to feel, the cowardice of instinct in the presence of the true prince,
+and is the mark which the Indian mothers have impressed upon their babes
+for ten generations.
+
+"The rule is that we follow our trades!"
+
+"Then some men are brave at one time and cowardly at another," said the
+Colonel. "Men who will fight without shrinking, by day, are often
+completely demoralized by a night attack. With such men the trouble is,
+they cannot see to estimate their danger, and their imaginations
+multiply and magnify it a hundred fold. I know a man in this city who
+has been in a hundred fights, many of them most desperate encounters. He
+told me once that he believed it would frighten him to death to be
+awakened at night by a burglar in his room.
+
+"This is the fear, too, which paralyzes men in the presence of an
+earthquake. The sky may be clear and the air still, but the thought that
+in a moment chaos may come is too much for the ordinary nerves of
+mortals."
+
+"The bravest act I ever witnessed was on C street in this city,"
+responded Strong. "It was a little Hebrew dunning a desperado for the
+balance due on a pair of pantaloons. The amount was six dollars and
+fifty cents. I would not have asked the fighter for the money for six
+times the sum, but the little chap not only asked for it, but when the
+fighter tried to evade him, he seized him by the arm with one hand and
+putting the forefinger of his other hand alongside his own nose, in the
+most insulting tone possible said: 'You does not get avay. Der man vot
+does not bay for his glose is, vots yer call him? one d----d loafer. I
+vants my monish.'
+
+"The fighter could no more escape from that eye than a chicken hawk can
+from the spell of the eye of the black snake, and so he settled.
+
+"That was the courage which it required the hardships and persecutions
+of one hundred generations of suffering men to acquire, and I tell you
+there was something thrilling in the way it was manifested."
+
+"So, too, men's ideas of honor are often warped strangely by education,"
+Miller said. "Do you remember there was a Frenchman hanged in this city
+a few years ago? On the scaffold, with a grandiloquent air, just before
+the cap was drawn over his face, he said: 'Zey can hang me, but zey
+cannot hang Frawnce.' He had from childhood entertained the belief that
+there was but one entirely invincible nation on this earth, and that was
+France; and the thought that to the last France must be honored
+possessed him.
+
+"That man had murdered a poor woman of the town for her money."
+
+"I should say there were some queer ideas of honor in this country,"
+chipped in the Colonel. "I believe the rule among some or all sporting
+men is, that it is entirely legitimate to practice any advantage on an
+opponent in a game, so long as the same idea controls the opponent.
+Still those men have most tenacious ideas of honor. Indeed they have a
+code of their own. If one borrows money of another he pays it if he has
+to rob someone to do it. If one stakes another--that is gives him money
+to play--and a winning is made, the profits are scrupulously divided. If
+one loses more at night than he has money to pay, he must have it early
+next morning or go into disgrace.
+
+"A friend of mine who lived on Treasure Hill during that first fearful
+winter, told me that during that season a faro game was running, and the
+owners of the bank had won some thirty-five hundred dollars. The
+dealer's habit was to lock up his place in the forenoon and not return
+until evening. The interval was his only time for sleep, as the game
+frequently ran all night.
+
+"Three or four 'sports' who lived together in a house, had lost heavily
+at this game. One morning, one of them said that if he could only get
+that dealer's cards for half an hour he believed he could 'fix' them so
+that the luck of the boys would change.
+
+"They had for a cook and servant a young man who had confessed that he
+left the East without any extensive or extended preparations, and that
+he did it to avoid paying a penalty for picking a lock and robbing a
+till.
+
+"He was called up, it was explained to him what was wanted and for what
+reason, and asked if it was not possible for him to procure those cards.
+
+"The youth took kindly to the proposition, went away, and in a few
+minutes returned--not with the cards--but with the dealer's sack of
+coin, saying as he laid down the sack: 'As I picked the lock of the
+drawer I found the sack and the cards lying side by side. I thought it
+would be easier to take the coin than to fool with the cards, and here
+it is.'
+
+"Instantly there was a commotion, and a perfect storm of imprecations
+was poured out upon the thief. On every side were shouts of: 'Take back
+that money! you miserable New York thief! What do you take us for? Take
+back that sack or we will sell you for headcheese before night!'
+
+"The youth carried back the coin and brought the cards. They were found
+to be 'fixed'; they were 'fixed' over and returned, and that night 'on
+the dead square,' the bank was broken. The boys had the sack for the
+second time, but this time the transaction, according to their code, was
+entirely legitimate.
+
+"By the operation the professional thief obtained new ideas of the nice
+distinctions which are made in the gamblers' code of honor."
+
+"I once in Idaho knew a most conscientious judge," said Miller. "In his
+court a suit involving the title of some mining ground was pending
+between two companies. In another part of the district the Judge had
+some claims which were looked upon as mere 'wild cat.'
+
+"He had for a year been trying to raise money to open his claims, but
+without avail. He had incorporated with 40,000 shares and held his
+shares at one dollar, with the understanding that twenty per cent. of
+the stock should be set aside as a working capital. But no one could see
+the ground with the sanguine eyes of the Judge, so he still had all his
+stock.
+
+"But one night quite late the Judge heard a soft knock on the door. In
+answer to his 'come in,' the president of the company that was plaintiff
+in the mining suit entered, when this conversation ensued:
+
+"'I was looking at your claims over on the east side to-day,' said the
+President, 'and I believe they are good and would like some of the
+stock.'
+
+"There is some of it for sale at one dollar,' was the reply.
+
+"'I will take ten thousand shares,' said the President. 'If you please,
+have the stock ready and I will call at nine o'clock to-morrow morning
+with the money.'
+
+"'I suppose this transaction had better be kept secret at present,'
+suggested the Judge.
+
+"'Oh, yes. It is a private speculation of my own and I would rather my
+company would not hear of it.'
+
+"'Very well, the stock will be ready.'
+
+"The money was promptly paid and the stock delivered.
+
+"The day of trial drew near, when one day the Judge met the
+superintendent of the company which was defendant in the suit. The Judge
+told the superintendent that he had some promising claims, and added
+impressively that if he could afford to purchase about 10,000 shares he
+felt sure that he would do well. The superintendent admitted that he had
+examined the claims with considerable care, and believed with the Judge,
+that there was promise in them. The result was that the next day another
+ten thousand dollars was paid to the Judge and ten thousand more shares
+delivered. The Judge deposited sixteen thousand dollars to his own
+account and four thousand dollars to the credit of the company. With the
+four thousand dollars he let a contract for work on the mine.
+
+"In due time the case in court came on and was decided in favor of the
+plaintiff and an appeal provided for. The plaintiff kept still about the
+stock transaction, but the superintendent of the defendant company did
+not hesitate to declare that the Judge was a thief. So matters ran along
+for some months, when one day the aforesaid president and superintendent
+each received a note asking them to call at the office of the Judge at a
+certain hour. Both responded, and each was greatly surprised to see the
+other.
+
+"The Judge opened the business by saying that a grand deposit of ore had
+been struck on one of the claims from which enough ore had already been
+taken to enable the company to pay a dollar per share dividend on the
+capital stock, upon which he pushed a check for ten thousand dollars to
+each of the men. He then went on to say that he had that morning
+received an offer of two hundred thousand dollars for the property,
+which he thought was a fair price, and asked the opinion of the others.
+They thought so too, and in a few days the money was paid over and each
+of the two received fifty thousand dollars.
+
+"'Now,' said the Judge, 'let me give you some advice. Settle up that
+foolish lawsuit outside of court. The claim is not worth what either one
+of you will pay out in attorneys' fees if you fight it out in the
+courts.'
+
+"By this time the three men had grown familiar, so the superintendent
+ventured to say:
+
+"'Judge, will you tell me what caused you to urge me to buy those
+shares?'
+
+"'I thought it was a good investment,' was the reply.
+
+"'But was not there something else?' asked the superintendent.
+
+"'To tell you the truth,' replied the Judge, 'I had received ten
+thousand dollars from the President here, and I was afraid if the matter
+went that way into the court I might be prejudiced, so I sold you a like
+amount that I might go upon the bench, to try the case, _entirely
+unbiased_.'"
+
+"He was a good judge, no doubt, but he ividently had a leaning toward
+the east side," said Corrigan.
+
+"That was one case where the only justification was success," said
+Brewster.
+
+"He took his chances, that was all," Miller remarked, "and that is the
+corner-stone on which every fortune on the coast has been builded. I
+mean every fortune in mining."
+
+"That is so," chimed in Carlin. "Mining is simply a grand lottery and is
+about as much of a game of chance as poker or faro."
+
+"Oh, no, Carlin," said Strong. "You have picked up the idea that is
+popular, but there is nothing to it. I am not referring to mining on
+paper, that mining which is done on Pine and California streets. That is
+not only gambling, but it is, nine times out of ten, pure stealing. But
+what I mean is where a man, or a few men, from the unsightly rock, by
+honest labor, wrest something, which all men, barbarous and civilized
+alike, hold as precious; something which was not before, but which when
+found, the whole world accepts as a measure of values, and the
+production of which makes an addition to the world's accumulated wealth,
+and not only injures none, but quickens the arteries of trade
+everywhere; that is not gambling. Of course there are mistakes, of
+course worlds of unnecessary work have been performed, of course hopes
+have been blasted and hearts broken through the business, but in this
+world men have to pay for their educations. Twenty years ago there was
+not a man in America who could work Comstock ores up to seventy-five per
+cent. of their money value; only a scholarly few knew anything about the
+formations in which ore veins are liable to be found; processes to work
+ores and economical methods to open and work mines had to be invented;
+so far as the West was concerned the business of mining and reducing
+ores had to be created. The results do not justify any man in calling
+mining a lottery. In my judgment, it is the most legitimate business in
+the world; the only one in which there can be no overproduction, and the
+one which, above all others, advances every other industry of the
+country.
+
+"When the steam engine was first invented steam boilers blew up every
+day. This was no argument against the engine, but was a notice to men to
+build better boilers. For the same reason the sixty-pound steel rail has
+been substituted for the old wooden rail with an iron strap on top on
+railways, and the sixteen ton Pullman car for the old rattle trap that
+the slightest collision would smash. The Westinghouse air brake and the
+Miller platform are part of the same education.
+
+"By and by men will learn to know the rocks, and when their marks and
+signs are reduced to a perfect alphabet the crude work of mining as
+carried on now will take on the dignity of a science, and mining will
+become what it deserves to be, the most honored of industries."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+At length the first sorrow fell upon the Club. The mail brought to
+Corrigan one day the news of the death of his mother in New York. It was
+a terrible blow to him. It had been his dream all through the years that
+he had been absent from his home that some time he would accumulate
+money enough to provide her with a home, where around her life every
+comfort would be drawn, and from her life every heart-breaking care
+would be driven away. But time would not wait for him, and the letter,
+which only in gentle words told him of his mother's death, kindled in
+his heart such bitter self-reproaches that for awhile the warm-hearted
+man's grief was inconsolable.
+
+The Club heartily sympathized with him, but there was little said. The
+men who face death daily in a deep mine either come to think, after
+awhile, that this life hangs on too tender a thread to be grieved over
+so very much when that thread is broken, or, because of the nature of
+their occupation, which is necessarily carried on mostly in silence,
+they lose the faculty to say the words which in society circles are
+intruded upon people who are in deep sorrow.
+
+On this evening the supper was eaten in silence, Corrigan hardly tasting
+anything.
+
+As the Club took their seats Ashley found opportunity to covertly
+whisper to Yap Sing that Corrigan had received bad news and he must
+prepare something especially tempting for him to eat. When the meal was
+nearly finished Yap Sing brought a mammoth dish of strawberries, a bowl
+of sugar and pitcher of cream, and after the noiseless manner of his
+race, set them in front of Corrigan's plate. No one else at the table
+seemed to notice the act of the Chinaman. Corrigan gave a quick glance
+around the table and when he saw that no one else was to be served with
+the berries--that it was meant as a special act of sympathy for him--his
+eyes filled with tears and he hastily withdrew from the room.
+
+At his leisure during the evening Yap Sing ate the berries and the
+cream, remarking to himself as he did so:
+
+"Me heap slory Meester Clorigan; me likee be heap slory ebbly day."
+
+For an hour after supper the Club did little but smoke. At length,
+however, Harding, who usually spent his evenings absorbed in reading,
+laid aside his book and in his low and kindly voice, began to talk.
+
+"Often when a boy I heard my father tell a story of a woman, a Sister of
+Charity, which, I think, may be, it will be good to tell to-night. In
+one of the mountain towns of Northern California a good many years ago,
+while yet good women, compared to the number of the men, were so
+disproportionately few, suddenly one day, upon the street, clad in the
+unattractive garb of a Sister of Charity, appeared a woman whose
+marvelous loveliness the coarse garments and uncouth hood peculiar to
+the order could not conceal.
+
+"There was a Sisters' Hospital in the place and this nun was one of the
+devoted women who had come to minister to the sick in that hospital.
+
+"She was of medium size and height, and despite her shapeless garments
+it was easy to see that her form was beautiful. The hand that carried a
+basket was a delicate one; under her unsightly hood glimpses of a brow
+as white as a planet's light could be caught; the coarse shoes upon her
+feet were three sizes too large. When she raised her eyes from the inner
+depths a light like that of kindly stars shone out, and though a Sister
+of Charity, there was something about her lips which seemed to say that
+of all famines a famine of kisses was hardest to endure. There was a
+stately, kindly dignity in her mien, but in all her ways there was a
+dainty grace which, upon the hungry eyes of the miners of that mountain
+town, seemed like enchantment. She could not have been more than twenty
+years of age.
+
+"It was told that she was known as 'Sister Celeste,' that she had
+recently come to the Western Coast, it was believed, from France, and
+that was all that was known of her. When the Mother Superior at the
+hospital was questioned about the new sister, she simply answered:
+'Sister Celeste is a sister now; she will be a glorified saint by and
+by.'
+
+"The first public appearance of Sister Celeste in the town was one
+Sunday afternoon. She emerged from her hospital and started to carry
+some delicacy to a poor, sick woman, a Mrs. De Lacy, who lived on the
+opposite side of the town from the hospital; so to visit her the nun was
+obliged to walk almost the whole length of the one long, crooked street
+which, in the narrow canon, included all the business portion of the
+town.
+
+"When the nun started out from the hospital the town was full of miners,
+as was the habit in those days on Sunday afternoons, and as the Sister
+passed along the street hundreds of eyes were bent upon her. She seemed
+unconscious of the attention she was attracting; had she been walking in
+her sleep she could not have been more composed.
+
+"Many were the comments made as she passed out of the hearing of
+different groups of men. One big, rough miner, who had just accepted an
+invitation to drink, caught sight of the vision, watched the Sister as
+she passed and then said to the companion who had asked him:
+
+"'Excuse me, Bob, I have a feeling as though my soul had just partaken
+of the sacrament. No more gin for me to-day.'
+
+"Said another: 'It is a fearful pity. That woman was born to be loved,
+and to love somebody better than nine hundred and ninety out of every
+thousand could. Her occupation is, in her case, a sin against nature.
+Every hour her heart must protest against the starvation which it feels;
+every day she must feel upon her robes the clasp of little hands which
+are not to be.'
+
+"One boisterous miner, a little in his cups, watched until the Sister
+disappeared around a bend in the crooked street, and then cried out:
+'Did you see her, boys? That is the style of a woman that a man could
+die for and smile while dying. Oh! Oh!' Then drawing from his belt a
+buckskin purse, he held it aloft and shouted: 'Here are eighty ounces of
+the cleanest dust ever mined in Bear Gulch; it's all I have in the
+world, but I will give the last grain to any bruiser in this camp who
+will look crooked at that Sister when she comes back this way, and let
+me see him do it. In just a minute and a half--but no matter, I'm better
+that I have seen her.'
+
+"After that, daily, for all the following week, Sister Celeste was seen
+going to and returning from the sick woman's house. It suddenly grew to
+be a habit with everybody to uncover their heads as Sister Celeste came
+by.
+
+"Sunday came around again, and it was noticed that on that morning the
+nun went early to visit her charge and remained longer than usual. On
+her return, when just about opposite the main saloon of the place, a
+kindly, elderly gentleman, who was universally known and respected,
+ventured to cross the path of the Sister, and address her as follows:
+
+"'I beg pardon, good Sister, but you are attending upon a sick person.
+We understand that it is a woman. May I not ask if we can not in some
+way assist you and the woman?'
+
+"A faint flush swept over the glorious face of Sister Celeste as she
+raised her eyes, but simply and frankly, and with a slight French
+accent, she answered:
+
+"'The lady, kind sir, is very ill. Unless, in some way, we can manage to
+remove her to the hospital, where she can have an evenly warmed room and
+close nursing, I fear she will not live; but she is penniless and we are
+very poor, and, moreover, I do not see how she can be moved, for there
+are no carriages.'
+
+"She spoke with perfect distinctness, notwithstanding the slight foreign
+accent. The accent was no impediment; rather from her lips it gave her
+words a rhythm like music.
+
+"The man raised his voice: 'Boys,' he shouted, 'there is a suffering
+woman up the street. She is very destitute and very ill, and must be
+removed to the hospital. The first thing required is some money.' Then,
+taking off his hat with one hand, with the other he took from his pocket
+a twenty-dollar piece, put the money in the hat, then sprang upon a low
+stump that was standing by the trail and added: 'I start the
+subscription, those who have a trifle that they can spare will please
+pass around this way and drop the trifle into the hat.'
+
+"Then Sister Celeste had a new experience. In an instant she was
+surrounded by a shouting, surging, struggling crowd, all eager to
+contribute. There was a Babel of voices, but for once a California crowd
+were awakened to full roar without an oath being heard. The boys could
+not swear in the presence of Sister Celeste.
+
+"In a few minutes between seven and eight hundred dollars was raised. It
+was poured out of the hat into a buckskin purse, the purse was tied, and
+handed, by the man who first addressed her, to Sister Celeste, with the
+remark that it was for her poor and that when she needed more the boys
+would stand in.
+
+"Again the nun raised her eyes and in a low voice which trembled a
+little, she said:
+
+"'Please salute the gentlemen and say to them that God will keep the
+account.'
+
+"The man turned around and with an awkward laugh said: 'Boys! I am
+authorized, by one of His angels, to say that for your contribution, God
+has taken down your names, and given you credit.'
+
+"Then a wild fellow cried out from the crowd:
+
+"'Three cheers for the Angel!'
+
+"The cheers rang out like the braying of a thousand trumpets in accord.
+Then in a hoarse under-tone a voice shouted 'Tiger!' and the deep-toned
+old-day California 'Tiger' rolled up the hillsides like an ocean roar.
+It would have startled an ordinary woman, but Sister Celeste was looking
+at the purse, and it is doubtful if she heard it at all.
+
+"Then the first speaker called from the crowd eight men, by name, and
+said:
+
+"'You were all married men in the States and for all that I know to the
+contrary, were decent, respectable gentlemen. As master of ceremonies I
+delegate you, as there are no carriages in this camp, to go to the sick
+woman's house, and carry her to the hospital, while the good Sister
+proceeds in advance and makes a place for her.'
+
+"This was agreed to, and the Sister was told that in half an hour she
+might expect her patient.
+
+"Then she hurried away, the crowd watching her and remarking that her
+usual stately step seemed greatly quickened.
+
+"Long afterward, the Mother Superior related that, when Sister Celeste
+reached the hospital on that day, she fell sobbing into the Mother's
+arms, and when she could command her voice, said: 'Those shaggy men that
+I thought were all tigers are all angels disguised. O, Mother, I have
+seen them as Moses and Elias were, transfigured.'
+
+"The eight men held a brief consultation in the street, then going to a
+store they bought a pair of heavy white blankets, an umbrella and four
+pick handles. Borrowing a packer's needle and some twine they began to
+sew the pick handles into the sides of the blanket, first rolling the
+handles around once or twice in the edges of the blanket. They then
+proceeded to the sick woman's house; one went in first and told the sick
+woman, gently, what they had come to do, and bade her have no fears,
+that she was to be moved so gently that if she would close her eyes she
+would not know anything about it. The others were called in; the blanket
+was laid upon the floor; the bed was lifted with its burden from the
+bedstead and laid on the blanket; the covers were neatly tucked under
+the mattress; four men seized the pickhandles at the sides, lifted the
+bed, woman and all from the floor, a fifth man stepped outside, raised
+the umbrella and held it above the woman's face, and so, as gently as
+ever mother rocked her babe to sleep, the sick woman was carried the
+whole length of the street to the hospital, where Sister Celeste and the
+Mother Superior received her.
+
+"Then all hands went up town and talked the matter over, and I am afraid
+that some of them drank a little, but the burden of all the talk and all
+the toasts, was Sister Celeste.
+
+"After that the nun was often seen, going on her errands of mercy, and
+it is true that some men who had been rough and who had drank hard for
+months previous to the coming of the Sister, grew quiet in their lives
+and ceased to go to the saloons.
+
+"One day a most laughable event transpired. Two men got quarrelling in
+the street which in a moment culminated in a fight. The friends of the
+respective men joined and soon there was a general fight in which
+perhaps thirty men were engaged. When it was at its height (and such a
+fight meant something) Sister Celeste suddenly turned the sharp bend of
+the street and came into full view not sixty yards from where the melee
+was raging in full fury.
+
+"One of the fighters saw her and made a sound between a hiss and a low
+whistle, a peculiar sound of alarm and warning, so significant that all
+looked up.
+
+"In an instant the men clapped their hands into their side pockets, and
+commenced moving away, some of them whistling low and dancing as they
+went, as though the whole thing was but a jovial lark. When Sister
+Celeste reached the spot a moment afterward, the street was entirely
+clear. The men washed their faces, some wag began to describe the
+comical scene which they made when they concluded that the street under
+certain circumstances was no good place for a fight; good humor was
+restored, the chief combatants shook hands with perfect cordiality, a
+drink of reconciliation was ordered all around, and when the glasses
+were emptied, a man cried out: 'Fill up once more, boys. I want you to
+drink with me the health of the only capable peace officer that we have
+ever had in town--Sister Celeste.' The health was drank with enthusiasm.
+
+"The winter came on at length and there was much sickness. Sister
+Celeste redoubled her exertions; she was seen at all hours of the day,
+and was met, sometimes, as late as midnight, returning from her watch
+beside a sick bed.
+
+"The town was full of rough men; some of them would cut or shoot at a
+word, but Sister Celeste never felt afraid. Indeed, since that Sabbath
+when the subscription was taken up in the street she had felt that
+nothing sinister could ever happen to her in that place.
+
+"Once, however, she met a jolly miner who had been in town too long, and
+who had started for home a good deal the worse for liquor. She met him
+in a lonely place where the houses had been a few days previous burned
+down on both sides of the street. Emboldened by rum, the man stepped
+directly in front of the nun and said:
+
+"'My pretty Sister, I will give your hospital a thousand dollars for one
+kiss.'
+
+"The Sister never wavered; she raised her calm and undaunted eyes to the
+face of the man, an incandescent whiteness warmed upon her cheek, giving
+to her striking face unwonted splendor. For a moment she held the man
+under the spell of her eyes, then stretching her right arm out toward
+the sky, slowly and with infinite sadness in her tones said:
+
+"'If your mother is watching from there, what will she think of her
+son?'
+
+"The man fell on his knees, crying 'pardon,' and Sister Celeste, with
+her accustomed stately step, passed slowly on her way.
+
+"Next day an envelope directed to Sister Celeste was received at the
+hospital. Within there was nothing but a certificate of deposit from a
+local bank for one thousand dollars, made to the credit of the hospital.
+
+"On another occasion the nun had a still harder trial to bear. A young
+man was stricken with typhoid fever and sent to the hospital. He was a
+rich and handsome man. He had come from the East only a few weeks before
+he was taken down. His business in California was to settle the estate
+of an uncle recently deceased, who had died leaving a large property.
+
+"When carried to the hospital Sister Celeste was appointed his nurse.
+The fever ran twenty-one days, and when it left him finally, he lay
+helpless as a child and hovering on the very threshhold of the grave for
+days.
+
+"With a sick man's whim, no one could do anything for him but Sister
+Celeste. She had to move him on his pillows, give him his medicines and
+such food as he could bear. In lifting him her arms were very often
+around him and her bosom was so near his breast that she could feel the
+throbbing of his heart.
+
+"As health slowly returned, the young man watched the nurse with
+steadily increasing interest.
+
+"At length the time came when the physician said that in another week
+the patient would require no further attendance, but that he ought, so
+soon as possible, to go to the seaside, where the salt air would furnish
+him the tonic that he needed most.
+
+"When the physician went away the young man said: 'Sister Celeste, sit
+down and let us talk.' She obeyed. 'Let me hold your hand,' he said: 'I
+want to tell you of my mother and my home, and with your hand in mine it
+will seem as though the dear ones there were by my side.' She gave him
+her hand in silence.
+
+"Then he told her of his beautiful home in the East; of the love that
+had always been a benediction to that home; of his mother and little
+sister, of their daily life and their unbroken happiness.
+
+"Insidiously the story flowed on until at length he said, with returning
+health, his business being nearly all arranged, he should return to
+those who awaited, anxiously, his coming. And before Sister Celeste had
+any time for preparation or remonstrance, the young man added:
+
+"'You have been my guardian angel; you have saved my life. The world
+will be all dark without you. You can serve God and, humanity better as
+my wife than as a lowly and poor Sister here. Some women have higher
+destinies and a nobler sphere to fill on earth than as Sisters of
+Charity; you were never meant to be a nun, but a loving wife. Be mine.
+If it is the poor you wish to serve, a thousand shall bless you where
+one blesses you here; but come with me, filling my mother's heart with
+joy and taking your rightful place as my wife. Be my guardian angel
+forever!'
+
+"The face of Sister Celeste was white as the pillow on which her hand
+lay; for a moment she seemed choking, while about her lips and eyes
+there was a tremulousness as though she was about to break into a storm
+of uncontrollable sobs. But she rallied under a tremendous effort at
+self-control, gently disengaged her hand from the hand that held it,
+rose to her feet and said:
+
+"'I ought not to have permitted this; ought not to have heard what you
+said. However, we must bear our cross. I do not belong to the world; but
+do not misjudge me, I have not always been as you see me. I can only
+tell you this: To a woman now and then there comes a time when either
+her heart must break or she must give it to God. I have given mine to
+Him. I cannot take it back. I would not if I could.
+
+"'If you suffer a little now, you will forget it with returning
+strength. I only ask that when you are strong and well and far away, you
+will sometimes remember that the world is full of heart aches. Comfort
+as many as you can. And now, God bless you, and farewell.'
+
+"She laid her hand a moment on his brow, then drew it down upon his
+cheek, where it lingered for a moment like a caress, and then she was
+gone.
+
+"After that the Mother Superior became the young man's nurse until he
+left the hospital. He tried hard, but never saw Sister Celeste again.
+While he remained in the place she ceased to appear on the street.
+
+"Another year passed by and Sister Celeste grew steadily in the love of
+the people. With the winter months some cases of smallpox broke out. The
+country was new, the people careless, and no particular alarm was felt
+until the breaking out of ten cases in one day awakened the people to
+the fact that the disease prevailed generally.
+
+"Sister Celeste labored almost without rest, night or day, until the
+violence of the contagion had passed; then she was stricken. She
+recovered, but was shockingly marked by the disease.
+
+"She was in a darkened room, and how to break to her the news of her
+disfigurement was a matter of sore distress to the other nuns. But one
+day, to a Sister who was watching by her bed side, she suddenly said:
+
+"'I am almost well now, Sister. Throw back the blinds and bring me a
+mirror,' and, with a gentle gaiety that never forsook her when with her
+sister nuns, she added: 'It is time that I began to admire myself.'
+
+"The nun opened the blinds, brought the glass, laid it upon the bed and
+sat down in fear and trembling.
+
+"Sister Celeste, without glancing at the mirror, laid one hand upon it,
+and, shading her eyes with the other hand, for a moment was absorbed in
+silent prayer. Then she picked up the glass and held it before her face.
+The watching nun; hardly breathing and in an agony of suspense, waited.
+After a long, earnest look, without a shade passing over her face,
+Sister Celeste laid down the glass, clasped her hands and said: 'God be
+praised! Now all is peace. Never, never again will my face bring sorrow
+to my heart.'
+
+"The waiting nun sank, sobbing, to her knees; but as she did so, she
+saw, on the face of the stricken woman, a smile which she declared was
+as sweet as the smile of God.
+
+"With the return of health, Sister Celeste again took up her work of
+mercy, and for a few months more her presence was a benediction to the
+place. At last, however, it began to be noticed that her presence on the
+street was less frequent than formerly, and soon an unwelcome rumor
+began to circulate that she was ill. The truth of this was soon
+confirmed, and then, day by day, for some weeks, the report was that she
+was growing weaker and weaker, and finally, one morning, it was known
+that she was dead.
+
+"A lady of the place who was greatly attached to Sister Celeste, because
+of that attachment and because of her devotion to 'Mother Church,' was
+permitted to watch through the last hours of the nun's life. Of the
+closing moments of the glorified woman's life she gave the following
+account:
+
+"For an hour the dying nun had been motionless, as though hushed in a
+peaceful sleep. When the first rays of the dawn struck on the window, a
+lark lighted on the sill, and in full voice warbled its greeting to the
+day. Then the Sister opened her eyes, already fringed by the death
+frost, and in faint and broken sentences murmured:
+
+"'A delicious vision has been sent me. _Deo gratias_, every act meant in
+kindness that I have ever done, in the vision had become a flower,
+giving out an incense ineffable. These had been woven into a diadem for
+me. Every word, meant in comfort or sympathy, that I have ever spoken,
+had been set to exquisite music, which voices and harps not of this
+world were singing and playing while I was being crowned. Every tear of
+mine shed in pity had become a precious gem. These were woven into the
+robes of light that they drew around me. A glass was held before me;
+from face and bosom the cruel scars were all gone, and to eye and brow
+and cheek the luster and enchantment of youth had returned, and near all
+radiant'--
+
+"'The eyes, with a look of inexpressibly joyous surprise in them, grew
+fixed, and all was still save where on the casement the lark was
+repeating her song.'
+
+"Among the effects left by Sister Celeste was found a package addressed
+to the same lady who had watched during the closing hours of the dead
+nun's life. This was brought to her by the Mother Superior. On being
+opened, within was found another package, tied with silver strings,
+sealed with wax, and the seal bore the date on which she took her vows.
+This in turn was opened, and a large double locket was revealed. In one
+side was the picture of a young man in the uniform of a French colonel.
+From the other side a picture had evidently been hastily removed, as
+though in a moment of excitement, for there were scars upon the case
+which had been made by a too impetuous use of some sharp instrument. On
+the outer edge of the case was a half-round hole, such as a bullet
+makes, and there were dark stains on one side of the case. Below the
+picture in a woman's delicate hand-writing, were the words: 'Henrie.
+Died at Majenta.'
+
+"The lady called the Mother Superior aside and showed her the picture.
+Tears came to the faded eyes of the devoted woman.
+
+"'Now God be praised!' said she. 'Three nights since, as I watched by
+the poor child, I heard her murmur that name in her fevered sleep, and I
+was troubled, for I feared she was dreaming of the youth she nursed back
+to life here in the hospital. It was not so. Her work was finished on
+earth, she was nearing the spheres where love never brings sorrow; her
+soul was already outstretching its wings to join--' the poor nun
+stopped, breathed short and hard a few times, and then incoherently
+began to tell her beads in Latin.
+
+"While they were conversing the body of Sister Celeste lay dressed for
+the grave in another apartment, watched over by two Sisters. When the
+Mother Superior ceased speaking, the lady said to her:
+
+"Mother, come with me to where Sister Celeste is sleeping! When we reach
+the room, send the watchers away, and then do not look at me. I want to
+put this picture away.'
+
+"The Mother Superior was strangely agitated, but she led the way to the
+room, bade the nuns there go and get some rest, then knelt by the foot
+of the casket, and bowed her head in prayer.
+
+"The lady slipped the locket beneath the folds of the winding sheet,
+where it lay above the pulseless heart of the dead nun.
+
+"The whole population of the place were sorrowing mourners at the
+obsequies of Sister Celeste, and for years afterward, every morning, in
+summer and winter, upon her grave, a dressing of fresh flowers could be
+seen.
+
+"On the day of the funeral the miners made up a purse and gave it to
+Mrs. De Lacy, the consideration being that every day for a year, the
+grave of the Sister should be flower-crowned. The contract was renewed
+yearly until Mrs. De Lacy moved away. In the meantime a wild rosebush
+and cypress had been planted beside the grave, and they keep watch there
+still."
+
+The good-night whistles had already blown when Harding finished his
+story. Not much was said as the Club retired, but Corrigan,
+understanding why the story had been told, in silence wrung Harding's
+hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+The Club had now been running a month. It had been most enjoyable. When
+Yap Sing had been installed as cook and housekeeper he was given a
+memorandum book, on the first page of which was written an order for
+such supplies as the Club might require at the stores and markets.
+Brewster had objected to this at first, inasmuch as the Mongolian was a
+stranger, and because it was not good to make bills. But he was
+overruled by the explanation that almost everything required, except
+fresh vegetables and, now and then, fresh meat, had already been
+provided, and that the Chinaman could not cheat very much with seven men
+to watch him.
+
+But from the first day the Club fared sumptuously. Yap Sing was a
+thorough artist in his way. He had a trick of preparing substantials and
+dainties, and of arranging a table, which was wonderful. His breakfasts
+and suppers were masterpieces, and daily as the dinner buckets, which
+Yap Sing had filled, were opened at the mines, the members of the Club
+were the envy of all the men, underground, who were their companions. It
+was a change from the boarding houses, so delicious, that the members of
+the Club did not care to consider what the probable extra expense would
+be. Moreover, each had a feeling that so long as the rest were satisfied
+it was not worth while to interrupt the pleasant course which events
+were taking by intruding questions which possibly might lead to
+unpleasant developments.
+
+But on pay day the bills were sent in. For provisions and crockery they
+amounted to more than three hundred dollars, or about one dollar and a
+half per day for each member of the Club. This was in addition to the
+stock of food purchased at the beginning.
+
+The first thought was that Yap Sing had been robbing the Club. He was
+called in, confronted with the bills and questioned as to what he had to
+say to the amount.
+
+He declared it to be his belief that it was "belly cheapee."
+
+Miller took up the case for the plaintiffs and said: "But, Yap, you
+understand when you came here a month ago we had plenty of
+provisions--flour, butter, bacon, lard, tea, coffee, sugar--everything
+required except fresh vegetables and, now and then, fresh meat."
+
+"Yes, me sabbe; got plentie now, allee samee," said Yap.
+
+"But, Yap," said Miller, "you know in boarding-houses and restaurants
+board is only eight dollars a week. Besides what you had at the
+beginning, this is costing a dollar and a half a day for each one of us.
+What have you to say to that?"
+
+"Me say him heap cheapee," said Yap. "Me no care for bloarding-housie;
+me no care for lestaulent; me heap sabbie 'em. You likie 'em, you
+bletter go lare eatie. You no likie loyster; you likie hashie. You no
+likie tlenderloin; you likie corn beefe. You no likie turkie; you likie
+bull beefe. You no likie plum puddie; you likie dlied apples. All litie,
+me cookie him; me no care. You no likie bloiled tongue, loast chickie
+and devil ham for dinner bucket; you likie blead and onion. All litie,
+me fixie him. You wantie one d----d cheapee miners' bloarding-housie.
+All litie, no difflence me."
+
+It was hard to argue the point with the countryman of Confucius.
+Notwithstanding the magnificent fare, the impression was general that
+Yap Sing had been feeding three or four of his cousins and making a
+little private pocket change for himself by the transaction, but it
+would have been useless to try to convict him. Indeed, it would have
+been impossible, for when any particularly outrageous item was pointed
+out he would cite some special occasion when he had outdone himself in
+his art.
+
+"What a time-keeper he would make for a mine!" said Carlin. "He would
+have his pay-roll full every day if he had to rob a graveyard of all the
+names on its monuments to fill it."
+
+"What a superintendent he would make!" said Miller. "There would not be
+an item in the monthly accounts that he would not be prepared to explain
+with entire satisfaction and appalling promptness, and all the time he
+would have looked like a sorrowful statue of unappreciated innocence."
+
+"What a mining expert he would be!" said Ashley. "With his faculty for
+making doubtful things look plausible, and his powers of expression, he
+would convince the ordinary man that he could see further into the
+ground than you could bore with a diamond drill."
+
+"But his cooking is lovely; you must all admit that," said Wright.
+
+"If there be blame anywhere, it rests on us," said Brewster, "for we
+could all see that we were living a little high, and yet not one of us
+so much as cautioned Yap to go slow."
+
+It was finally decided that there must be a return to sound and economic
+principles. Yap was paid his month's salary and instructed that, in
+future, the fare must be reduced to plain, solid miner's food. The money
+to pay all the bills, together with what was due on the previous month,
+and also the rent, was contributed and placed in Miller's hands as
+treasurer and paymaster, that he might pay the accounts, and the Club
+settled down to its pipes and conversation.
+
+In the meantime the honorary members had come in. As usual, the first
+theme was the condition of stocks. Miller believed that Silver Hill was
+the best buy on the lode, Corrigan had heard that day that a secret
+drift had been run west from the thirteen hundred level of the Con.
+Virginia; that up in the Andes ground an immense body of ore had been
+cut through, but that nothing would come of it until the Bonanza firm
+could gather in more of the stock. Carlin was disposed to believe that a
+development was about to be made in Chollar Potosi, because during the
+past month the superintendent had come up twice from Oakland,
+California, to look at the property. Strong was disposed to unload all
+the stocks that he had and invest in Belcher and Crown Point because the
+superintendent of both mines had that day assured him that they had no
+developments worth mentioning.
+
+At length the conversation turned on silver. The Club had that day
+received a portion of their month's pay in silver, and some grumbled,
+thinking they should have received their full wages in gold. After a
+good deal had been said, the Professor, who had been quietly reading and
+had taken no part in the discussion, was asked for his opinion. He
+answered as follows:
+
+"It is not right to pay laboring men in a depreciated currency; it is a
+still greater wrong that there is a discount on silver. It is the
+steadiest measure of values that mankind has ever found; it is the only
+metal that three-fifths of the human race can measure their daily
+transactions in; its full adoption by our Government, as a measure of
+values and basis of money, would mean prosperity; its rejection during
+the past five years and the denying to it its old sovereignty, have
+wrought incalculable loss.
+
+"Here on the Comstock it sleeps in the same matrix with gold, the
+proportion in bullion being about forty-four per cent. gold to fifty-six
+per cent. silver. The Nation cannot make a better adjustment than to
+keep that proportion good in her securities. Five years ago silver
+commanded a premium over gold. Since then two dollars in gold to one in
+silver have been taken from the earth, but silver is at a discount,
+because through unwise if not dishonest legislation, its sovereignty as
+a measure of values, its recognition as money was taken away. The whole
+burden was put upon gold, and the result is that the purchasing power of
+gold has been enhanced, and silver is, or seems to be, at a discount.
+Those who have accomplished this wrong affect to scorn the proposition
+that legislation could restore to silver its old value, ignoring the
+fact that the present apparent depreciation is due entirely to
+unfriendly legislation, and conveniently forgetting that with silver,
+everything else is at a discount when measured by gold. That is, gold is
+inflated by the discriminations which have been made in its favor. The
+chief use of silver in the world is for a measure of values, as the
+chief use of wheat is for material out of which to make bread. Were men
+forbidden to make any more bread from wheaten flour and compelled to use
+corn meal as a substitute, would the present prices of wheat and corn
+remain respectively the same?
+
+"Silver should be restored to its old full sovereignty, side by side
+with gold. Then, in this country, just as little of either metal as
+possible should be used in men's daily transactions. Handling gold and
+silver directly in trade is but continuing the barter of savage men, and
+is a relic of a dark age. Moreover, the loss by abrasion is very great.
+Both metals should be cast into ingots and their values stamped upon
+them. Then they should be stored in the Treasury and certificates
+representing their value should be issued as the money of the people. If
+this makes the Government a banker no matter, so long as it supplies to
+the people a money on which there can be no loss. The thought that this
+would drain our land of gold has not much force, because the trade
+balances are coming our way and will soon be very heavy; if the gold
+shall be taken away something will have to be returned in lieu of it,
+and after all the truth is that four-fifths of our people do not see a
+gold piece twice a year. Our internal commerce is very much greater than
+our foreign commerce, and to keep that moving without jar should be the
+first anxiety of American statesmen. For that purpose nothing could be
+better than the silver certificate.
+
+"The Government has commenced to coin silver and has partially
+remonetized it. It is only partial because gold is still made the
+absolute measure of values and preference is reserved for it in ways
+which will keep silver depressed until there shall come a demand for it
+which cannot at once be met; then it will be discovered that it is still
+one of the precious metals and it will take its place in trade as it has
+its place here in the mines, side by side and the full brother of gold.
+Were the Government to-morrow to commence to absorb and hoard all the
+product of our mines and keep this up for a generation, issuing
+certificates on the same for the full value, at the end of about thirty
+years there would be on deposit as security for the paper afloat more
+than one thousand millions of dollars. This seems like a vast sum, but
+it would then amount to but ten dollars per capita for our people. You
+have each received two and a half times that amount to-day on account of
+your last month's wages, and the only serious inconvenience it has
+inflicted upon you is the discount which wicked legislation has given to
+silver.
+
+"But long before one thousand millions in silver could be secured it
+would command a premium, because that would mean one-fourth of all the
+silver in circulation, and this old world cannot spare to one Nation
+that amount and still keep her commerce running and the arts supplied."
+
+"But, Professor," said Alex, "why hoard the metals? Why may not money be
+represented by paper backed by the Nation's faith? Why pile up the
+metals in the Government vaults when the printing press can supply as
+good money as the people want?"
+
+"That," replied the Professor, "is an argument for times of peace and
+prosperity only. The failure of one crop would so lessen the faith of
+the people that a serious discount would fall upon the money that was
+only backed by faith. And suppose Europe were to combine to fight the
+United States, then what would the loss be to the people? We can only
+estimate the amount by thinking what the United States currency was
+worth in 1864.
+
+"Such a combination is not at all impossible. There is a vast country to
+the south of us, the trade of which should be ours, and with the
+Governments of which we have notified Europe there must be no
+interference from beyond the Atlantic. There are channels for ships to
+be hewed through the Spanish American Isthmus, and their control is to
+become a question.
+
+"Above all, the light and majesty of our Republic are becoming a terror
+to the Old World. Think of it. The immigrants that come to us annually,
+together with the young men and women that annually reach their majority
+here, are enough to supply the places of all the people of this coast
+were they to go away. Who can estimate the swelling strength that is
+sufficient to fully equip a new state annually?
+
+"Before the spectacle thrones are toppling and kings sleep on pillows of
+thorns. If our soil was adjacent to Europe, the nations would combine
+and assail us to-morrow, in sheer self-defense. They have tremendous
+armies; they are accumulating mighty navies and arming them as ships
+were never armed before. Suppose that sometime they decide that the
+world's equilibrium is being disturbed by the Great Republic, even as
+they did when Napoleon the first became their terror, and that, as with
+him, they determine that our country shall be divided or crushed. What
+then? Of course they will maneuver to have a rebellion in our country
+and espouse the cause of the weaker side. This is what nearly happened
+in 1862; what would have surely happened had not Great Britain possessed
+the knowledge that if she joined with France in the proposed scheme,
+whatever the outcome might be, one thing was certain, for a season at
+least, there would be no night on the sea; the light made by British
+ships in flames would make perpetual day.
+
+"Then ocean commerce was carried mostly in ships that had to trust alone
+to the fickle winds for headway. In twenty years more steam will be the
+motive power for carrying all valuable freights, and will be
+comparatively safe as against pursuing cruisers.
+
+"Imagine such a crisis upon us, what then would the unsupported paper
+dollar be worth? But imagine that behind the Republic there was in the
+treasury a thousand millions of dollars in silver, the original money of
+the world, and another thousand millions in gold, what combination of
+forces could place the money of the Nation in danger of loss by
+depreciation?
+
+"Gold and silver when produced are simply the measures of the labor
+required to produce them; they are labor made imperishable; and when
+either is destroyed--and demonetization is destruction--just so much
+labor is destroyed, and you who work have to make up the loss by working
+more hours for a dollar. You are supposed to receive the same wages that
+the miners did who worked on this lode six years ago, for a month's
+work. But you do not because, through the mistake of honest men or the
+manipulation of knaves, twenty per cent. of the twenty-five dollars paid
+you in silver for last month's work has been destroyed; and now those
+who have dealt this blow insist that money can in no wise be changed in
+value by legislation.
+
+"The trouble is our law-makers do not estimate at half its worth their
+own country. They stand in awe of what they call the money centers of
+the world, and refuse to see that already the world is placed at a
+disadvantage by our Republic; that within thirty years all existing
+nations, all the nations that have existed through all the long watches
+of the past, will, in material wealth and strength, seem mean and poor
+in comparison with our own.
+
+"Look at it! Five hundred thousand foreigners absorbed annually, and not
+a ripple made where they merge with the mighty current of our people!
+What is equal to a new State, with all its people and equipments,
+launched upon the Union every year--it makes me think of the Creator
+launching worlds--with immeasurable resources yet to be utilized; the
+wealth of the country already equal to that of Great Britain, with all
+her twelve hundred years of spoils; all our earnings our own; no five
+millions of people toiling to support another million that stand on
+guard, as is required in France and Germany and Russia and Austria and
+Italy; our great Southern staple commanding tribute from all the world;
+hungry Europe looking to our Northern States for meat and bread, and to
+our rivers for fish; our Western miners supplying to business the tonic
+which keeps its every artery throbbing with buoyant health, while over
+all is our flag, which symbols a sovereignty so awful in power and yet
+so beneficent in mercies, that while the laws command and protect, they
+bring no friction in their contact; rather they guarantee the perfect
+liberty of every child of the Republic, to seize with equal hand upon
+every opportunity for fortune, or for fame, which our country holds
+within her august grasp.
+
+"To carry on the business of such a land an ocean of money is needed,
+and infinitely more will be required in future. And for this money there
+must be a solid basis; not merely a faith which expands with this year's
+prosperity and contracts with next year's calamity; not something which
+the death of a millionaire or a visitation of grasshoppers will throw
+down; but something which is the first-born child of labor, and is
+therefore immortal and without change. This is represented by gold and
+silver, and to commerce they are what 'the great twin brethren' at Lake
+Regillus were to Rome."
+
+When the Professor ceased speaking, Harding said: "Professor, what you
+have been saying about our Republic sounds to me almost like a
+coincidence. Did you dream what you have been saying?"
+
+The Professor replied that he did not, and asked what in the world
+prompted such a question.
+
+Harding smiled and blushed, and then said: "Because I had a dream last
+night."
+
+All wanted to hear what it was.
+
+"You won't laugh, Carlin?" said Harding.
+
+Carlin said he would not.
+
+"And you will not call me a fool, Wright?" Harding asked.
+
+Wright promised to conceal his sentiments, if necessary.
+
+"You will not call it a mirage, Corrigan?" asked Harding.
+
+Corrigan agreed to refrain.
+
+"And, Colonel, you will not ask mysterious questions about who usually
+sits as a commission of lunacy in Virginia City?" Harding inquired.
+
+The Colonel agreed to restrain himself.
+
+"And, Alex, you will not expose me in the paper?" questioned Harding.
+
+Alex promised to be merciful to the public.
+
+In final appeal, Harding said: "And you, Professor, you will not say it
+is a tough, hard formation and too nearly primitive to carry any
+treasure?"
+
+The Professor assured him that faults and displacements were common in
+the richest mineral-bearing veins.
+
+"Well," said Harding, "I was tired and nervous last night. I could not
+sleep, and so determined to get up and read for an hour. I happened to
+pick up a volume of Roman history, and became so absorbed in it that I
+read for an hour or two more than I ought to. I went to bed at last, and
+my body dropped to sleep in a moment, but my brain was still half awake,
+and for a while ran things on its own account in a confused sort of a
+way.
+
+"I thought I was sitting here alone, when, suddenly, a stranger appeared
+and began to pace, slowly, up and down the room. He had an eye like a
+hawk, nose like an eagle's beak and an air that was altogether martial.
+His walk had the perfect, measured step of the trained veteran soldier.
+After watching him for a little space, I grew bold and demanded of him
+his name and business. When I spoke the sound of my own voice startled
+me, for he was more savage looking than a shift boss. He turned round to
+me--don't laugh, I pray you--and said:
+
+"'I am that Scipio to whom Hannibal the terrible capitulated. I was
+proud of my Rome and my Romans. We were the "Iron Nation," truly. All
+that human valor and human endurance could do we accomplished. Amid the
+snows of the Alps and the sands of Africa we were alike invincible. We
+were not deficient either in brain power. We left monuments enough to
+abundantly establish that fact. To us the whole civilized world yielded
+fealty, but we were barbarians after all. Listen!'
+
+"Just then there floated in through the open window what seemed a full
+diapason of far-off but exquisite music.
+
+"'Do you know what that is?' he asked. 'It is the echo of the melody
+which the children of this Republic awaken, singing in their free
+schools. It smites upon and charms the ear of the sentinel angel, whose
+station is in the sun, through one-eighth of his daily round; those
+echoes that with an enchantment all their own ride on the swift pinions
+of the hours over all the three thousand miles between the seas.
+
+"My Rome had nothing like that. We trusted alone to the law of might,
+and though we tried to be just, the slave was chained daily at our
+gates; we sold into slavery our captives taken in war; we fought
+gladiators and wild beasts for the amusement of our daughters and wives;
+we never learned to temper justice with mercy; only the first leaves of
+the book of knowledge were opened to us; our brains and our bodies were
+disciplined, but our hearts were darkened and we perished because we
+were no longer fit to rule.
+
+"'Whether by evolution the world has advanced, or whether, indeed, the
+lessons of that Nazarene, whom our soldiers crucified, are bearing
+celestial fruit, who knows! But surely our Rome, with all its power, all
+its splendor, all its heroic men and stately women; its victories in the
+field, its pageants in the Imperial City on the days when, returning
+from a conquest, our chieftians were laurel-crowned; our art, our
+eloquence--all, were nothing compared with this song of songs. It
+started at first where the sullen waves wash against Plymouth Rock; it
+swelled in volume while the deep woods gave place to smiling fields;
+over mountain and desert it rolled in full tones and only ceases, at
+last, where the roar of the deep sea, breaking outside the Golden Gate,
+or meeting in everlasting anger the Oregon upon her stormy bar, gives
+notice that the pioneer must halt at last in his westward march.'
+
+"As he ceased to speak the melody was heard again, sweeter, clearer and
+fuller than before. My guest faded away before me and I awoke. In all
+the air there was no sound save the deep respirations of the hoisting
+engine in the Norcross works, and the murmur of the winds, as on slow
+beating wings they floated up over the Divide and swept on, out over the
+desert."
+
+The verdict of the Club was that if old Scipio talked in that strain he
+had softened down immensely since the days when he was setting his
+legions in array against the swarthy hosts of the mighty Carthagenian.
+
+After a while Corrigan spoke: "You native Americans," he said, "at least
+the majority of yees, do not half appreciate your country. I was but a
+lad whin, after a winter of half starvation, in the care of an uncle, I
+lift Ireland in an English imigrant ship. One mornin' as me uncle and
+meself were watchin' from the deck a sail rose out of the say directly
+in our path. It grew larger and larger, in a little while the hull
+appeared, and soon after we could discern that it was a frigate. The
+wind was off her beam, blowing fresh; every sail was crowded on, and as
+her black beak rose and fell with the says, I thought her more beautiful
+than the smile of the sunlight on the hills of Kildare. Half careened as
+she was under the pressure on her sails, but still resolutely rushing
+on, she made a pictur' of courage which has shone before me eyes a
+thousand times since, when me heart has been heavy. She drew quite near,
+and as she swung upon her tack her flag was dipped in salute. Then me
+uncle bent and said: 'Barney, lad, mark will that flag! That is an
+Amirican ship of war.'
+
+"Great God! Child that I was, I think in that moment I knew how the
+young mother feels, when in the curtained dimness of her room, she half
+fainting, hears the blissful whisper that unto her is born a son.
+
+"There was the ensign of the land which held all joy in thought for us;
+which to us opened the gates of hope; that wondrous land in the air of
+which the pallid cheek of Want grows rosy red and Irish hearts cast off
+hereditary dispair.
+
+"I rushed forward, where thray hundred imigrants were listlessly
+lounging about the deck, and, in mad excitement, shouted: 'See! See! It
+is the Amirican flag!' Just then the sunlight caught in its folds and
+turned it to gold.
+
+"O, but thin there was a transformation sane. Ivery person on that deck
+sprang up and shouted. Men waved their hats and women embraced each
+other, and with a mighty 'All Hail' those Irish imigrants--Irish no
+longer, but henceforth forever to be Amiricans--greeted that flag. In
+response the marines manned the yards, and off to us across the wathers
+came the first ringing Amirican chare that we had iver heard. We
+answered back with a yell like that which might have been awakened at
+Babel. It was not a disciplined chare, but simply a wild cry of joy, and
+it was none the less hearty that over us swung haughtily the red cross
+of St. George.
+
+"You native Amiricans are like spiled children, that niver having known
+an unsatisfied want, surfeit on dainties."
+
+Corrigan relapsed into silence, but his eyes were glistening and there
+was a tremble about his lips. His mind was still in the burial place,
+where "memory was calling up its dead."
+
+While the spell of Barney's words was still upon the Club, Yap Sing
+softly opened the door and announced that the evening luncheon was
+ready. The heathen had inaugurated these luncheons on the first day of
+his coming. They were at once accepted and had become a regular thing.
+Seeing that they were received approvingly, Yap had exhausted every
+device to make them a marked feature of the Club.
+
+On this occasion the table was fully set, but there was no food on the
+table. Beside each plate stood a glass of water and a dish of salt. When
+the company was seated, Yap went to the cooking range, took out and set
+upon the table an immense platter which was piled high with huge baked
+potatoes, after which, with a face utterly destitute of expression, he
+went to his bench in the corner of the room and sat down.
+
+Wright, who was nearest him, said: "What is the matter, Yap? Are you
+sick?"
+
+"Nothing matter; me no sickie," said Yap.
+
+"But why do you not bring on the supper?" asked Wright.
+
+"No catchie any more," was the answer.
+
+"What! Just potatoes straight, Yap? What is the matter?" said Wright.
+
+"I no sabbie what's the matter," said the sullen Oriental. "You livie
+belly cheapie now. Potato belly good. Blenty potato, blenty saltie,
+blenty cold water; no makie you sickie; I dink belly good."
+
+The Club took in the situation with great hilarity; the cause of Yap
+Sing's frugality was briefly explained to the guests; each seized a
+potato and commenced their meal.
+
+At length Carlin asked Yap Sing if he could not furnish a little butter
+with the salt. Yap shook his head resolutely, and said:
+
+"No catchie. Blutter five bittie [sixty-two and a half cents] one pound.
+No buy blutter for five bittie to putee on potato; too muchie money
+allee time pay out for hashie."
+
+Then Ashley asked for a pickle, but Yap Sing was firm. Said he: "Pickle
+slix bittie one bottle; no can standee."
+
+A great many other things were banteringly asked for, from cold tongue
+and horse-radish to blackberry jam; but the imperturbable face of the
+Mongolian never relaxed and his ears remained deaf to all entreaties.
+
+The potatoes were eaten with a decided relish, though there was no
+seasoning except salt, and when the repast was over the Club still sat
+at the table while the Colonel delivered a dissertation upon the virtues
+of the potato in general and upon the Nevada potato in particular. He
+insisted that the potato was the great modern mind food, and instanced
+the effect of potato diet upon the people of Ireland, pointing out that
+the failure of a crop there meant mental prostration and despair, while
+the news of a bountiful crop was a certain sign of a lively revolution
+within the year. From a scientific standpoint he demonstrated that no
+where else on the continent were the conditions absolutely perfect for
+producing potatoes that were potatoes, except upon the high, dry,
+slightly alkaline table lands between the Sierras and the Wasatch Range,
+and, giving his lively imagination full play, he pictured that region as
+it would be fifty years hence; when transportation shall be reduced;
+when artesian wells shall be plenty; when the rich men of the earth will
+not be able to give entertainments without presenting their guests with
+Nevada or Utah potatoes, and when to say that a man has a potato estate
+in the desert will be as it now is to say that a man has a wheat farm in
+Dakota, an orange orchard in Los Angeles, or a cotton plantation in
+Texas.
+
+While talking, the Colonel managed, between sentences, to dispose of a
+second potato.
+
+When the pipes were resumed, the joke of Yap Sing was fully discussed,
+and finally the Chinese question came up for consideration.
+
+Strong took up this latter theme and said:
+
+"The men of the Eastern States think that we of the West are a cruel,
+half-barbarous race, because we look with distrust upon the swelling
+hosts of Mongolians that are swarming like locusts upon this coast. They
+say: 'Our land has ever been open to the oppressed, no matter in what
+guise they come. The men of the West are the first to stretch bars
+across the Golden Gate to keep out a people. And this people are
+peaceable and industrious; all they petition for is to come in and work.
+Still, there is a cry which swells into passionate invective against
+them. It must be the cry of barbarism and ignorance. It surely fairly
+reeks with injustice and cruelty and sets aside a fundamental principle
+of our Government which dedicates our land to freedom and opens all its
+gates to honest endeavor.'
+
+"Those people will not stop to think that we came here from among
+themselves. We were no more ignorant, we were no worse than they when we
+came away. We have had better wages and better food since our coming
+than the ordinary men of the East obtain. Almost all of us have dreamed
+of homes, of wives and children that are men's right to possess, but
+which are not for us; and though they of the East do not know it, this
+experience has softened, not hardened our hearts, toward the weak and
+the oppressed. If they of the East would reflect they would have to
+conclude that it is not avarice that moves us; that there must be a less
+ungenerous and deeper reason.
+
+"Our only comfort is, that, by and by, maybe while some of us still
+live, those men and women who now upbraid us, will, with their souls on
+their knees, ask pardon for so misjudging us.
+
+"We quarantine ships when a contagion is raging among her crew; we frame
+protective laws to hold the price of labor up to living American rates;
+New England approves these precautions, but when we ask to have the same
+rules, in another form, enforced upon our coast, her people and her
+statesmen, in scorn and wrath, declare that we are monsters.
+
+"There is Yap Sing in the kitchen. You have just paid him forty dollars
+for a month's work. All the clothes that he wears were made in China. If
+he boarded himself, as nearly as possible, he would eat only the food
+sent here from China. Of his forty dollars just received, thirty at
+least will be returned to China and be absorbed there. There are one
+hundred thousand of his people in this State and California. We will
+suppose that they save only thirty cents each per day. That means, for
+all, nine hundred thousand dollars per month, or more than ten million
+dollars per annum that they send away. This is the drain which two
+States with less than one million inhabitants are annually subjected to.
+How long would Massachusetts bear a similar drain, before through all
+her length and breadth, her cities would blaze with riots, all her air
+grow black with murder? Ireland, with six times as many people, and with
+the richest of soils, on half that tax, has become so poor that around
+her is drawn the pity of the world.
+
+"'But,' say the Eastern people, 'you must receive them, Christianize
+them, and after awhile they will assimilate with you.'
+
+"Waiving the degradation to us, which that implies, they propose an
+impossibility. They might just as well go down to where the Atlantic
+beats against the shore, and shout across the waste to the Gulf stream,
+commanding it to assimilate with the 'common waters' of the sea. Not
+more mysterious is the law that holds that river of the deep within its
+liquid banks, than is the instinct which prevents the Chinaman from
+shaking off his second nature and becoming an American. He looks back
+through the halo of four thousand years, sees that without change, the
+nation of his forefathers has existed, and with him all other existing
+nations except Japan and India and Persia, are parvenues.
+
+"For thousands of years, he and his fathers before him, have been waging
+a hand-to-hand conflict with Want. He has stripped and disciplined
+himself until he is superior to all hardships except famine, and that he
+holds at bay longer than any other living creature could.
+
+"Through this training process from their forms everything has
+disappeared except a capacity to work; in their brains every attribute
+has died except the selfish ones; in their hearts nearly all generous
+emotions have been starved to death. The faces of the men have given up
+their beards, the women have surrendered their breasts and the ability
+to blush has faded from their faces.
+
+"Like all animals of fixed colors they change neither in habits nor
+disposition. In four thousand years they have changed no more than have
+the wolves that make their lairs in the foothills of the Ural mountains,
+except that they have learned to economize until they can even live upon
+half the air which the white man requires to exist in. They have trained
+their stomachs until they are no longer the stomachs of men; but such as
+are possessed by beasts of prey; they thrive on food from which the
+Caucasian turns with loathing, and on this dreadful fare work for
+sixteen hours out of the twenty-four.
+
+"The moral sentiments starved to death in their souls centuries ago.
+They hold woman as but an article of merchandise and delight to profit
+by her shame.
+
+"Other foreigners come to America to share the fortunes of Americans.
+Even the poor Italian, with organ and monkey, dreams while turning his
+organ's crank, that this year or next, or sometime, he will be able to
+procure a little home, have a garden of his own, and that his children
+will grow up--sanctified by citizenship--defenders of our flag.
+
+"But the Chinaman comes with no purpose except for plunder; the sole
+intention is to get from the land all that is possible, with the design
+of carrying it or sending it back to native land. The robbery is none
+the less direct and effective for being carried on with a non-combatant
+smile instead of by force.
+
+"It is such a race as this that we are asked to welcome and compete
+with, and when we explain that the food we each require--we, without
+wife or child to share with--costs more in the market daily than these
+creatures are willing to work for and board themselves; the question,
+with a lofty disdain, is asked: 'Are you afraid to compete with a
+Chinaman?'
+
+"It is an unworthy question, born of ignorance and a false
+sentimentality; for no mortal can overcome the impossible.
+
+"In the cities these creatures fill the places of domestics and absorb
+all the simpler trades. The natural results follow. Girls and boys grow
+up without ever being disciplined to labor. But girls and boys must have
+food and clothes. If their parents can not clothe and feed them other
+people must. If poor girls with heads and hands untrained have nothing
+but youth and beauty to offer for food, when hungry enough they will
+barter both for bread.
+
+"The vices and diseases which the Chinese have already scattered
+broadcast over the west, are maturing in a harvest of measureless and
+indescribable suffering.
+
+"The Chinese add no defense to the State. They have no patriotism except
+for native land; they are all children of degraded mothers, and as
+soldiers are worthless.
+
+"Moreover it is not a question of sharing our country with them; it is
+simply a question of whether we should surrender it to them or not. When
+the western nations thoroughly understand the Chinese they will realize
+that with their numbers, their imitative faculties, their capacity to
+live and to work on food which no white man can eat, with their
+appalling thrift and absence of moral faculties, they are, to-day, the
+terror of the earth.
+
+"The nations forced China to open her gates to them. It was one of the
+saddest mistakes of civilization.
+
+"To ask that their further coming be stopped, is simply making a
+plea for the future generations of Americans, a prayer for the
+preservation of our Republic. It springs from man's primal right of
+self-preservation, and when we are told that we should share our country
+and its blessings with the Chinese, the first answer is that they
+possess already one-tenth of the habitable globe; their empire has
+everything within it to support a nation; they have, besides, the
+hoarded wealth of a hundred generations, and if these were not enough,
+there are still left illimitable acres of savage lands. Let them go
+occupy and subdue them.
+
+"The civilization of China had been as perfect as it now is for two
+thousand years when our forefathers were still barbarians. While our
+race has been subduing itself and at the same time learning the lessons
+which lead up to submission to order and to law; while, moreover, it has
+been bringing under the aegis of freedom a savage continent, the
+Mongolian has remained stationary. To assert that we should now turn
+over this inheritance (of which we are but the trustees for the future),
+or any part of it, to 'the little brown men,' is to forget that a
+nation's first duty is like a father's, who, by instinct, watches over
+his own child with more solicitude than over the child of a stranger,
+and who, above all things, will not place his child under the influence
+of anything that will at once contaminate and despoil him.
+
+"Finally, by excluding these people no principle of our Government is
+set aside, and no vital practice which has grown up under our form of
+government. Ours is a land of perfect freedom, but we arrest robbers and
+close our doors to lewd women. While these precautions are right and
+necessary it is necessary and right to turn back from our shores the
+sinister hosts of the Orient."
+
+With this the whole Club except Brewster heartily agreed. Brewster
+merely said: "Maybe you are right, but your argument ignores the saving
+grace of Christianity, and maybe conflicts with God's plans."
+
+Then the good-nights were said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+The next evening when supper was prepared, Harding was not present. He
+had bruised one hand so badly in the mine the previous day, that he was
+forced to have it bound up and treated with liniments and had not worked
+that day. Thinking he would be home soon the rest ate their suppers, but
+it was an hour before he came. When he arrived he had a troubled look,
+and being pressed to tell what had gone wrong, he stated that he had met
+a group of five miners from the Sierra Nevada day shift, men whom they
+all knew, who, without provocation, had commenced abusing him; jeering
+him about joining with six or seven more miners, hiring a house and a
+cook, and putting on airs; that finally they dared him to fight, and
+when he offered to fight any one of them, they said it was a mere
+"bluff," that he would not fight a woman unless she were sick, and
+further declared their purpose at some future time to go up and "clean
+out" the whole outfit.
+
+Harding was the younger member of the Club; the rest knew about his
+former life; how his father, joining the reckless throng of the early
+days, lived fast, and suddenly died, just as the boy came from school;
+how the young man had put aside his hopes, learned mining, and with a
+brave purpose was working hard and dreaming of the time when he would
+wipe away every reproach which rested on his father's memory.
+
+To have him set upon by roughs, causelessly, was like a blow in the face
+to every other member of the Club. When Harding had told his story,
+Miller said: "Who did you say these men were, Harding?"
+
+Harding told their names.
+
+"Why, they are not miners at all," said Carlin. "They are a lot of
+outside bruisers who have come here because there is going to be an
+election this year, and they have got their names on a pay roll to keep
+from being arrested as vagrants. You did just right, Harding, to get
+away from them with your crippled hand without serious trouble."
+
+"Indeed you did, Harding," said Brewster. "One street fight at your age
+might ruin you for life."
+
+"That is quite true," said Miller; "I am glad you had no fight."
+
+Said Corrigan: "You offered to fight any one of the blackguards, and
+whin they refused, you came away? It was the proper thing to do."
+
+"Did you have any weapons with you, Harding?" asked Ashley.
+
+"Not a thing in the world," was the reply.
+
+"I am glad of that," said Ashley. "The temptation to wing one or two of
+the brutes, would have been very great had you been 'fixed.'"
+
+"I am glad it was no worse," said Wright. "You said it was down by the
+California Bank corner?"
+
+"No," replied Harding; "it was by the Fredericksburg Brewery corner, on
+Union Street, just below C."
+
+"You managed the matter first-rate, Harding," said Wright. "Do not think
+any more about it."
+
+Harding, thus reassured by his friends, felt better, but said if three
+of the Club would go with him he would undertake to do his part to bring
+hostilities to a successful close with the bullies.
+
+Ashley and Corrigan at once volunteered, but Wright and Carlin
+interfered and said it must not be, and Brewster expostulated against
+any such thing.
+
+Corrigan and Ashley caught a look and gesture from Wright which caused
+them to subside, and Harding at length went out to supper.
+
+When Harding came in from up town, Miller was making arrangements to go
+out, as he said, to meet a broker as per agreement. As Harding went to
+supper, Miller went out and Brewster resumed the reading of a book in
+which he was engaged. The Professor, Colonel and Alex had not yet come
+in.
+
+Significant glances passed between the others, and soon Wright arose and
+said: "Boys! the Emmetts drill to-night; suppose we go down to the
+armory and look on for half an hour."
+
+The rest all agreed that it would be good exercise, and quietly the four
+men went out, Wright saying as he started: "Brewster, if the others
+come, tell them we have just gone down to the Emmetts armory, and will
+be back in half an hour or so."
+
+The Professor and Alex shortly after came in, a little later the Colonel
+and Miller. It was nearly an hour before the others returned. When they
+did they were in the best possible humor; spoke of the perfectness of
+the Emmetts' drill; told of something they had heard down town which was
+droll, while Barney in particular was full of merriment over a speech
+that had that day been made by a countryman of his, Mr. Snow, in a
+Democratic convention, and insisted upon telling Brewster about it.
+
+Brewster laid down his book and assumed the attitude of a listener.
+
+"It was this way," said Barney. "The convintion had made all its
+nominations, when it was proposed that on Friday nixt a grand
+mass-ratification matin' should be hild at Carson City, the matin' to be
+intinded for the inauguratin' of the campaign, where all the faithful
+from surroundin' counties might mate and glorify, and thus intimidate
+the inemy from the viry commincement.
+
+"The proposition was carried by acclamation, and jist thin a mimber
+sprang up and moved that the matin' should be a barbecue. This motion
+likewise carried by an overwhilmin' vote. Whin the noise died away a
+bit, my ould friend Snow, he of the boardin' house, arose and made a
+motion. It was beautiful. Listen!
+
+"'Mr. Spaker! Bain that the hift of the Dimocratic party do not ate
+_mate_ of a Friday, I move yees, sir, that we make it a _fish_
+barbecue.'"
+
+A great laugh followed Barney's account of the motion, and then the
+usual comparison of notes on stocks took place. Miller was sure that
+Silver Hill was the best buy on the lode; Corrigan had been told by a
+Gold Hill miner that Justice was looking mighty encouraging; the Colonel
+had heard the superintendent of the Curry tell the superintendent of the
+Belcher that he was in wonderfully kindly ground on the two thousand
+foot level; the Professor had that day heard the superintendent of the
+Savage declare that the water was lowering four feet an hour, while all
+were wondering when the Sierra Nevada would break, as it was too high
+for the development. By all is meant all but Brewster and Harding; they
+never joined in any conversations about stocks.
+
+At length the stock talk slackened, when Corrigan again referred to the
+fish barbecue resolution. Naturally enough, the conversation drifted
+into a discussion of the humor of the coast, when the Colonel said:
+
+"There is not much pure humor on this coast. There is plenty of that
+material called humor, which has a bitter sting to it, but that is not
+the genuine article. The men here who think as Hood wrote, are not
+plenty. I suspect the bitter twang to all the humor here comes from the
+isolation of men from the society of women, from broken hopes, and it
+seems to me is generally an attempt to hurl contempt, not upon the
+individual at whom it is fired, but at the outrageous fortunes which
+hedge men around. The coast has been running over with that sort of
+thing, I guess since 'forty-nine.'
+
+"A man here, fond of his wife and children, said to a friend a day or
+two after they went away for a visit to California: 'Did you ever see a
+motherless colt?'
+
+"'Oh, yes,' was the reply.
+
+"'Then,' said the man, 'you know just how I feel.'
+
+"'Yes,' said the friend. 'I suppose you feel as though you are not worth
+a dam.'
+
+"I know a brother lawyer who is somewhat famous for getting the clients
+whom he defends convicted. One morning he met a brother attorney, a wary
+old lawyer, and said to him: 'I heard some men denouncing you this
+morning and I took up your defense.'
+
+"'What did you say?' the other asked.
+
+"'Those men were slandering you and I took it upon myself to defend
+you,' said the first lawyer.
+
+"The old lawyer took the other by the arm, led him aside, then putting
+his lips close to the ear of his friend, in a hoarse whisper said:
+'Don't do it any more.'
+
+"'I am going to lecture to-night at C----,' said a pompous man.
+
+"'I am glad of it,' was the quick answer. 'I have hated the people there
+for years. No punishment is too severe for them.'
+
+"'I am particular who I drink with,' said a man curtly to another.
+
+"'Yes?' was the answer. 'I outgrew that foolish pride long ago. I would
+as soon you would drink with me as not.'
+
+"'I do not require lecturing from you,' said a man. 'I am no reformed
+drunkard.'
+
+"'Then why do you not reform?' was the response.
+
+"This coast is full of the echoes of such things."
+
+The Professor spoke next. "I think," said he, "that there is more
+extravagance in figures of speech on this coast than in any other
+country. Marcus Shults had a difficulty in Eureka the other day, when I
+was there. He told me about it. Said he: 'I told him to keep away; that
+I was afraid of him. I wanted some good man to hear me say that, but I
+had my eye on him every minute, and had he come a step nearer, why--when
+the doctors would have been called in to dissect him they would have
+thought they had struck a new lead mine.'"
+
+Here Wright interrupted the Professor. "Marcus was from my State,
+Professor. Did you ever hear him explain why he did not become a
+fighter?"
+
+The Professor answered that he never had, when Wright continued:
+
+"Marcus never took kindly to hard work. Indeed, he seems to have
+constitutional objections to it. As he tells the story, while crossing
+the plains he made up his mind that, upon reaching California, he would
+declare himself and speedily develop into a fighter. His words, when he
+told me the story, were: 'They knew me back in Missouri, and I was a
+good deal too smart to attempt to practice any such profession there,
+but my idea was that California was filled with Yankees, and in that
+kind of a community I would have an easy going thing. Well, I crossed
+the Sierras and landed at Diamond Springs, outside of Placerville a few
+miles, and when I had been there a short time I changed my mind.'
+
+"Of course at this point some one asks him why he changed his mind,
+whereupon he answers solemnly:
+
+"'The first day I was there a State of Maine man cut the stomach out of
+a Texan.'
+
+"Marcus was with the boys during that first tough winter in Eureka. One
+fearfully cold day a man was telling about the cold he had experienced
+in Idaho. When the story was finished Marcus cast a look of sovereign
+contempt upon the man and said:
+
+"'You know nothing about cold weather, sir; you never saw any. You
+should go to Montana. In Montana I have seen plenty of mornings when
+were a man to have gone out of a warm room, crossed a street sixty feet
+wide and shaken his head, his ears would have snapped off like icicles.'
+
+"The stranger, overawed, retired."
+
+Alex spoke next: "The other day Dan Dennison asked me to go and look at
+a famous trotting horse that he has here. We went to the stable, and
+when the stepper was pointed out I started to go into the stall beside
+him, whereupon Dan caught me by the arm, drew me back, and said:
+
+"'Be careful! Sometimes he deals from the bottom.'
+
+"He stripped the covers from the horse and backed him out where I could
+look at him. The horse was not a beauty by any means and I intimated my
+belief of that fact to Dan.
+
+"'No,' said Dennison. The truth is--' He hesitated a moment and then the
+words came in a volley:
+
+"'He's deformed with speed.'
+
+"There is a lawyer down town, you all know him. He has a head as big as
+the old croppings of the Gould and Curry, but like some other lawyers
+that practice at the Virginia City bar (here he glanced significantly at
+the Colonel), he is not an exceedingly bright or profound man. He was
+passing a downtown office yesterday when a man, who chanced to be
+standing in the office, said to the bookkeeper of the establishment:
+
+"'Look at Judge ----. His head is bigger than Mount Davidson, but I am
+told that where his brains ought to be there is a howling wilderness.'
+
+"The bookkeeper stopped his writing, carefully wiped his pen, laid it
+down, came out from behind his desk, came close up to the man who had
+spoken to him, and said:
+
+"'Howling wilderness? I tell you, sir, that man's head is an unexplored
+mental Death Valley.'"
+
+"Yes," said the Colonel, "his is a queer family. He has a brother who is
+a journalist; he has made a fortune in the business. His great theme is
+sketching the lives and characters of people."
+
+"But has he made a fortune publishing sketches of that description?"
+asked Miller.
+
+"Oh, no," replied the Colonel; "he has made his money by refraining from
+publishing them. People have paid him to suppress them."
+
+"Colonel," asked Strong, "did it never occur to you that other fortunes
+might be made the same way by people just exactly adapted to that style
+of writing?"
+
+"If it had," was the reply. "I should have considered that the field
+here was fully occupied."
+
+"You might write a sketch of your own career," suggested the Professor.
+
+"Don't do it, Colonel," said Alex.
+
+"Why not?" asked Ashley.
+
+"There is a law which sadly interferes with the circulation of a certain
+character of literature," said Alex.
+
+"Alex," said the Colonel, "what a painstaking and delicate task it will
+be, under that law, to write your obituary."
+
+"There will be great risk in writing yours, Colonel," said Alex; "but it
+will be a labor of love, nevertheless; a labor of love, Colonel."
+
+"If you have it to do, Alex, don't forget my strongest characteristic,"
+said the Colonel; "that lofty generosity, blended with a self-contained
+dignity, which made me indifferent always to the slanders of bad men."
+
+It was always a delight to the Club to get these two to bantering each
+other.
+
+Ashley here interposed and said: "You all know Professor ----. One night
+in Elko, last summer, he was conversing with Judge F---- of Elko. Both
+had been indulging a little too much; the Professor was growing
+talkative and the Judge morose.
+
+"The Professor was telling about the battle of Buena Vista, in which he,
+a boy at the time, participated. In the midst of the description the
+Judge interrupted him with some remark which the Professor construed
+into an impeachment of his bravery.
+
+"He leaned back in his chair and sat looking at the Judge for a full
+minute, as if in an astonished study, and then in a tone most dangerous,
+said:
+
+"'I do not know how to classify you, sir. I do not know, sir, whether
+you are a wholly irresponsible idiot, or an unmitigated and infamous
+scoundrel, sir.'
+
+"He was conscientious and methodical even in his wrath. He would not
+pass upon the specimen of natural history before him until certain to
+what species it belonged."
+
+Said Miller: "Did you ever hear how Judge T---- of this city met a man
+who had been saying disrespectful things about him, but who came up to
+the Judge in a crowd and, with a smile, extended his hand? The Judge
+drew back quickly, thrust both hands in his side pockets and said:
+
+"'Excuse me, sir; I have just washed my hands.'"
+
+"I heard something yesterday of a rough man whom you all know, Zince
+Barnes," said the Professor, "which seemed to me as full of bitter humor
+as anything I have heard on this mountain side. You know that politics
+are running pretty high.
+
+"Well, an impecunious man--so the story goes--called upon a certain
+gentleman who is reported to be rich and to have political aspirations,
+and tried to convince him that the expenditure of a certain sum of money
+in a certain way would redound amazingly to the credit, political, of
+the millionaire. The man of dollars could not see the proposition
+through the poor man's magnifying glasses, and the patriot retired
+baffled.
+
+"A few minutes later, and while yet warm in his disappointment, he met
+Zince Barnes, told him of the interview and closed by expressing the
+belief that the millionaire was a tough, hard formation.
+
+"'Hard!' said Zince. 'I should think so. The tears of widows and orphans
+are water on his wheel.'"
+
+At this Corrigan 'roused up and said: "Speakin' of figures of spache, I
+heard some from a countrywoman of mine one bitter cowld mornin' last
+March. It was early; hardly light. John Mackay was comin' down from the
+Curry office on his way to the Con. Virginia office, and whin just
+opposite the Curry works, he met ould mother McGarrigle, who lives down
+by the freight depot. I was in the machane shop of the Curry works; they
+were just outside, and there being only an inch boord and about ten feet
+of space between us, I could hear ivery word plain, or rather I could
+not help but hear. The conversation ran about after this style:
+
+"'Mornin', Meester Mackay, and may the Lord love yees.'
+
+"'Good morning, madam.'
+
+"'How's the beautiful wife and the charmin' childers over the big
+wathers, Mr. Mackay?'
+
+"'They are all right.'
+
+"'God be thanked intirely. Does yees know, Mr. Mackay, that in the hull
+course of me life I niver laid eyes upon childer so beautiful loike
+yees. Often and often I've tould the ould man that same. And they're
+will, are they?'
+
+"'Yes, they are first-rate. I had a cable from them yesterday.'
+
+"'A tilligram, was it? Oh, but is not that wonderful, though! A missige
+under the say and over the land to this barbarous place. It must have
+come like the smile of the Good God to yees.'
+
+"'Oh, I get them every day.'
+
+"'Ivery day! And phat do they cost?'
+
+"'Oh, seven or eight dollars; sometimes more. It depends upon their
+length.'
+
+"'Sivin or eight dollars! Oh, murther! But yees desarve it, Mr. Mackay.
+What would the poor do without yees in this town, Mr. Mackay? Only
+yisterday I was sayin' to the ould man, says I: "Mike, it shows the
+mercy of God whin money is given to a mon like Mr. John Mackay. It's a
+Providence he is to the city. God bless him." I did, indade.'
+
+"By this time Mackay began to grow very ristless.
+
+"'What can I do for you this morning, Mrs. McGarrigle?'
+
+"'It's the ould mon, Lord love yees, Mr. Mackay. It's no work he's had
+for five wakes, and it's mighty little we have aither to ait or to wear.
+It's work I want for him.'
+
+"'I am sorry, but our mines are full. Indeed, we are employing more men
+than we are justified in doing.'
+
+"'But Mr. Mackay, it's so poor we are, and so hard it is getting along
+at all; put him on for a month and may all the saints bless yees.'
+
+"'The city is full of poor people, madam. To determine what to do to
+mitigate the distress here occupies half our time.'
+
+"'Yis, but ours is a particular hard case intirely. I am dilicate
+meself. I know I don't look so, but I am; and yees ought ter interpose
+to help a poor countryman of yees own in trouble.'
+
+"By this time Mackay was half frozen and thoroughly out of patience. In
+his quick, sharp way he said: 'Madam, we cannot give all the men in the
+country employment.'
+
+"The mask of the woman was off in an instant. With a scorn and hate
+unutterable she burst forth in almost a scrame.
+
+"'Oh, yees can't. Oh, no! Yees forgits fen yees was poor your ownsilf,
+ye blackguard. Refusin' a poor man work, and shakin the mountains and
+churnin' the ocean avery day wid your siven and eight dollar missages.
+Yees can't employ all the min in the counthry. Don't yees own the whole
+counthry? And do yees think we'd apply to yees at all if we could find a
+dacant mon in the worreld? May the divil fly away wid yees, and whin he
+does yees may tell him for me if he gives a short bit for yer soul he'll
+chate himself worse nor he's been chated since he bargained with Judas
+Iscariot. Thake that, sur, wid me compliments, yees purse-proud
+parvenu.'
+
+"When the woman began to rave, Mackay walked rapidly away, but she niver
+relaxed the scrame of her tirade until Mackay disappeared from sight.
+Thin she paused for a moment, thin to herself she muttered, 'But I got
+aven wid him oneway.' She thin turned and walked away toward her cabin.
+
+"It was a case where money was no assistance to a man."
+
+"There is a good deal of humor displayed in courts of justice at times,
+is there not, Colonel?" asked Wright.
+
+"Oh, yes," was the reply. "Anyone would think so who ever heard old
+Frank Dunn explain to a court that the reason of his being late was
+because he had no watch, and deploring meanwhile his inability to
+purchase a watch because of the multitude of unaccountable fines which
+His Honor had seen proper, from time to time, to impose upon him."
+
+"In that first winter in Eureka," said Wright, "I strolled into court
+one day when a trial was in progress.
+
+"Judge D---- was managing one side and a volunteer lawyer the other. The
+volunteer lawyer had the best side, and to confuse the court, Judge
+D----, in his argument, misquoted the testimony somewhat. His opponent
+interrupted and repeated exactly what the witness had testified to.
+
+"Turning to his opponent, Judge D----, with a sneer, said:
+
+"'I see, sir, you are very much interested in the result of this case.'
+
+"'Oh, no,' was the response. 'I am doing this for pure love. I do not
+make a cent in this case.'
+
+"Then Judge D----, with still more bitterness, said:
+
+"'That is like you. You try cases for nothing and cheat _good_ lawyers
+out of their fees.'
+
+"With a look of unfeigned astonishment the other lawyer said:
+
+"'Well, what are _you_ angry about? How does that interfere with
+_you_?'"
+
+Here Brewster, who had been reading, laid down his book and said:
+
+"I heard of a case as I came through Salt Lake City some years ago,
+which, if not particularly humorous, revealed wonderful presence of mind
+on the part of the presiding judge. It may be the story is not true, but
+it was told in Salt Lake City as one very liable to be true.
+
+"A miner, who had been working a placer claim in the hills all
+summer--so the story ran--and who had been his own cook, barber,
+chambermaid and tailor, came down to Salt Lake City to see the sights
+and purchase supplies. He had dough in his whiskers, grease upon his
+overalls, pine twigs in his hair, and altogether did not present the
+appearance of a dancing master or a millionaire. Hardly had he reached
+the city when he thought it necessary to take something in order to
+'brace up.' One drink gave him courage to take another, and in forty
+minutes he was dead drunk on the sidewalk.
+
+"The police picked him up and tossed him into a cell in the jail,
+disdaining to search him, so abject seemed his condition.
+
+"Next morning he was brought before the Police Judge and the charge of
+D. D. was preferred against him.
+
+"'You are fined ten dollars, sir,' was the brief sentence of the Court.
+The man unbuttoned two pairs of overalls and from some inner recess of
+his garments produced a roll of greenbacks as big as a man's fist. It
+was a trying moment for the Judge, but his presence of mind did not fail
+him. He raised up from his seat, leaned one elbow on his desk and, as if
+in continuation of what he had already said, thundered out: 'And one
+hundred dollars for contempt of court.'
+
+"The man paid the one hundred and ten dollars and hastily left the court
+and the city."
+
+Miller was the next to speak. Said he: "Once in Idaho I heard a specimen
+of grim humor which entertained me immensely. There was a man up there
+who owned a train of pack mules and made a living by packing in goods to
+the traders and packing out ore to be sent away to the reduction works.
+He was caught in a storm midway between Challis and Powder Flat. It was
+mid-winter; the thermometer at Challis marked thirty-four degrees below
+zero. He was out in the storm and cold two days and one night, and his
+sufferings must have been indescribable. When safely housed and
+ministered to at last a friend said to him: 'George, that was a tough
+experience, was it not?'
+
+"'Oh, regular business should never be called tough,' said he, 'but
+since I began to get warm I have been thinking that, if I make money
+enough, may be in three or four years I will get married, if I can
+deceive some woman into making the arrangement. If I should succeed, and
+if after a reasonable time a boy should be born to us, and if the
+youngster should "stand off" the colic, teething, measles, whooping
+cough, scarlet fever and falling down stairs, and grow to be ten or
+twelve years old, and have some sense, if I ever tell him the story of
+the past two days of my life and he don't cry his eyes out, I will beat
+him to death, sure.'"
+
+The Professor was reminded by the anecdote of something which transpired
+in Belmont, Nevada, the previous winter. Said he: "I went to Belmont to
+examine a property last winter and while there Judge ---- came in from a
+prospecting trip down into the upper edge of Death Valley. I saw him as
+he drove into town, and went to meet him. He was in no very good
+spirits. On the way to his office he said: 'I was persuaded against my
+better judgment to go on that trip. The thief who coaxed me away told a
+wonderful story. He had been there; he had seen the mine, but had been
+driven away by the Shoshones; he knew every spring and camping place. It
+would be just a pleasure trip. So, like an idiot, I went with him. It
+was twice as far as he said, and we got out of food; he could not find
+one particular spring, and we were forty hours without water. We had to
+camp in the snow, and the only pleasure I had in the whole journey was
+in seeing my companion slip and sit down squarely on a Spanish bayonet
+plant. It was a double pleasure, indeed; one pleasure to see him sit
+down and another pleasure to see him get right up again without resting
+at all, and with a look on his face as though a serious mistake had been
+made somewhere.'
+
+"By this time we had reached the Judge's office. On the desk lay a score
+of letters which had been accumulating during his absence. Begging me to
+excuse him for five minutes, he sat down and commenced to run through
+his mail.
+
+"Suddenly he stopped, seized a pen and wrote rapidly for two or three
+minutes. Then he threw down the pen and begged my attention. First he
+read a letter which was dated somewhere in Iowa. The writer stated that
+he had a few thousand dollars, but had determined to leave Iowa and seek
+some new field, and asked the Judge's advice about removing to Nevada. I
+asked the Judge if he knew the man.
+
+"'Of course not,' said he. 'He has found my name in some directory, and
+so has written at random. He has probably written similar letters to
+twenty other men. Possibly he is writing a book descriptive of the Far
+West by an actual observer,' continued the Judge.
+
+"'How are you going to reply?' I asked.
+
+"'That is just the point,' he answered. 'I have written and I want you
+to tell me if I have done about the right thing. Listen.'
+
+"At this he read his letter. It was in these identical words:
+
+     MY DEAR SIR:--Your esteemed favor is at hand and after careful
+     deliberation I have determined to write to you to come to
+     Nevada. I cannot, in the brief space to which a letter must
+     necessarily be confined, enter into details; but I can assure
+     you that if you will come here, settle and invest your means,
+     the final result will be most happy to you. A few brief years
+     of existence here will prepare you to enjoy all the rest and
+     all the beatitudes which the paradise of the blessed can
+     bestow, and if, perchance, your soul should take the other
+     track, hell itself can bring you no surprises. Respectfully,
+     etc.
+
+"He mailed the letter, but at last accounts the gentleman had not come
+West."
+
+"That," said Alex, "reminds me of Charley O----'s mining experience. An
+Eastern company purchased a series of mines at Austin and made Charley
+superintendent of the company at a handsome salary. Charley proceeded to
+his post of duty, built a fine office and drew his salary for a year. He
+did his best, too, to make something of the property, but it is a most
+difficult thing to make a mine yield when there is no ore in it. The
+result was nothing but 'Irish dividends' for the stockholders. It was in
+the old days, before the railway came along.
+
+"One morning, when the overland coach drove into Austin, a gentleman
+dismounted, asked where the office of the Lucknow Gold and Silver
+Consolidated Mining and Milling Company was, and being directed, went to
+the office and without knocking, opened the door and walked in. Charley
+was sitting with his feet on the desk, smoking a cigar and reading the
+morning paper.
+
+"'Is Mr. O---- in?' politely inquired the stranger.
+
+"'I am Mr. O----,' responded Charley. The stranger unbuttoned his coat,
+dived into a side pocket and drawing out a formidable envelope,
+presented it to O----.
+
+"Charley tore open the envelope and found that the letter within was a
+formal notice from the secretary of the company that the bearer had been
+appointed superintendent and resident manager of the L. G. and S. C. M.
+& M. Co., and requesting O----to surrender to him the books and all
+other property of the company. After reading the letter Charley looked
+up and said to the stranger:
+
+"'And so you have come to take my place?'
+
+"'It seems so,' was the reply.
+
+"'On your account I am awfully sorry,' said Charley.
+
+"The stranger did not believe that he was in any particular need of
+sympathy.
+
+"'But you will not live six months here,' said Charley.
+
+"The stranger was disposed to take his chances.
+
+"This happened in August. Charley took the first stage and came in to
+Virginia City. In the following December the morning papers here
+contained a dispatch announcing that Mr. ----, superintendent of the
+Lucknow Gold and Silver Consolidated Mining and Milling Company, was
+dangerously ill of pneumonia. On the succeeding morning there was
+another dispatch from Austin saying that Mr. ----, late superintendent
+of the Lucknow Gold and Silver Consolidated Mining and Milling Company,
+died the previous evening and that the body would be sent overland to
+San Francisco, to be shipped from there to the East. Two days after
+that, about the time the overland coaches were due, Charley was seen
+wading through the mud down to the Overland barn. He went in and saw two
+coaches with fresh mud upon them. The curtains of the first were rolled
+up. The curtains of the second were buckled down close. O---- went to
+the second coach, loosened one of the curtains and threw it back; then
+reaching in and tapping the coffin with his knuckles, said: 'Didn't I
+tell you? Didn't I tell you? You thought you could stop my salary and
+still live. See what a fix it has brought you to!' And then he went
+away. No one would ever have known that he had been there had not an
+'ostler overheard him.
+
+"Speaking of Austin, I think the remark made by Lawyer J. B. Felton of
+Oakland, California, regarding the mines of Austin, was as cute as
+anything I ever heard. When the mines were first discovered Felton was
+induced to invest a good deal of money in them.
+
+"The mines were three hundred and fifty miles from civilization, there
+being no reduction works of any kind, and pure silver would hardly have
+paid. So Felton did not realize readily from his investment. After some
+months had gone by Felton was standing on Montgomery street, San
+Francisco, one day when a long procession, celebrating St. Patrick's
+day, filed past. Of course Erin's flag was 'full high advanced' in the
+procession. Turning to a friend, Felton said: 'Can you tell why that
+flag is like a Reese River mine?'
+
+"The friend could not.
+
+"Said Felton: 'It's composed mostly of sham rock and a blasted lyre!'"
+
+Ashley was next to speak.
+
+"After all," said he, "the funniest things are sometimes those which are
+not meant to be funny at all. Steve Gillis, in a newspaper office down
+town, perpetrated one the other day. An Eastern editor was here, and
+when he found out how some of the men in the office were working he was
+paralyzed, and said to Gillis:
+
+"'There's ----, you will go into his room some day and find him dead. He
+will go like a flash some time. No man can do what he is doing and stand
+it.'
+
+"'Do you think so?' asked Gillis.
+
+"'Indeed I do; I know it,' said the man.
+
+"'Then,' said Gillis, 'you ought to be here. You would see the most
+magnificent funeral ever had in Virginia City.'"
+
+By this time it was very late and the Club dispersed for the night.
+
+Next morning Harding, who was reading the morning paper, came upon this
+item:
+
+                         A LIVELY SCRIMMAGE.
+
+     Last evening, about seven-thirty o'clock, there was a terrific
+     fight on Union Street, near the depot; four men against five.
+     It lasted but a few minutes, but the five men were dreadfully
+     beaten. No one seemed to know the origin of the fight. A boy
+     who was standing across the street says the men met, a few low
+     words passed between them, and then the fight ensued. The four
+     men, who seem to have been the assailants, hardly suffered any
+     damage, but the five others were so badly beaten that two of
+     them had to be carried home, while the other three had fearful
+     mansard roofs put upon them.
+
+     There were no arrests; indeed little sympathy was felt for the
+     injured men, for though at present at work in the mines, they
+     are known as bullies and roughs by trade.
+
+     No one seems to know who the victors were, except that they
+     were miners. One man told our reporter that he knew one of the
+     men by sight; that he was, he thought, a Gold Hill miner. No
+     weapons were drawn on either side, and no loud words were
+     spoken, but it was as fierce an encounter as has been seen here
+     since the old fighting days.
+
+Harding looked up from the paper and said:
+
+"Wright, what was it you said about the drill of the Emmett Guards, last
+night?"
+
+"They are splendid, those Emmetts," was the reply, with an imperturbable
+face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Pay day was on the fifth of the month. On the night of the thirteenth,
+when the Club met at the usual hour for supper, Miller was not present.
+He was never as regular as the others, so the rest did not wait supper
+for him. After supper the Club settled down to their pipes, the
+Professor, the Colonel and Alex came in, and the usual discussion about
+stocks was indulged in for some minutes, the chief matter dwelt upon
+being the steady and unaccountable rise in Sierra Nevada. At length it
+was noticed that Carlin did not join as usual in the conversation, and
+Ashley asked him what he seemed so cast down about.
+
+At this Carlin shook himself together and said: "I will be glad if you
+will all give me your attention for a moment." He took a letter from his
+pocket and read as follows:
+
+     CARLIN: When you receive this I shall be on my way, by
+     horseback (overland), to Eastern Nevada. I am going to Austin,
+     and if I do not obtain employment there, shall continue on to
+     Eureka. You can find me in one place or the other by Sunday.
+
+     The evening of pay day, with the money which the Club had
+     placed in my hands to pay the bills, I went down town to carry
+     out the wishes of the Club, when I met a friend, who is in the
+     close confidence of the "big ring" of operators. He called me
+     aside and told me that he had inside information that within
+     three days Silver Hill would commence to jump, that within a
+     week the present value would be multiplied by five or six and
+     more likely by ten. That there would be an immediate and great
+     advance he assured me was absolutely certain. He told me how he
+     had received his information, and it seemed to me to be
+     conclusive.
+
+     I found a broker, unloaded my pockets, and bade him buy Silver
+     Hill; to buy on a margin all he could afford to. The stock has
+     fallen thirty per cent., and the indications are that it will
+     go still lower. Yesterday I suppose it was sold out, for on the
+     previous day I received a notice from the broker to please call
+     at his office at once. My courage, that never failed me before,
+     broke down. I could not go. The amount of money belonging to
+     the Club which I had was altogether $575.00. Of course it in
+     lost. It is a clear case of breach of trust, if not of
+     embezzlement. You can make me smart for it, if you feel
+     disposed to, or if you can give me the time, I can pay the
+     money in about eight months after I get to work. That is, I can
+     send you about eighty dollars per month. If wanted I will be in
+     Austin or Eureka.
+
+     I might make this letter much longer, but I suspect by the time
+     you will have read this much, you will think it long enough.
+     Believe me none of you can think meaner of me than I do of
+     myself.
+
+     JOE MILLER.
+
+After the reading of the letter, Wright was the first to find his voice.
+Said he: "It is too bad. I knew Miller was reckless, but I believed his
+recklessness never could go beyond his own affairs. I had implicit faith
+in him."
+
+"Had he only told us," said Ashley, "that he wanted to use the money, he
+could have had five times the sum."
+
+"What I hate about it, is the want of courage and the lack of faith in
+the rist of us," said Corrigan. "Why did he not come loike a mon and
+say, 'Boys, I have lost a trifle of your money in the malstroom of
+stocks; be patient and I will work out?'"
+
+"It is a pitiable business," said Carlin. "The money--that is the loss
+of it--does not hurt at all. But it was Miller who proposed the forming
+of this Club, and he is the one who first betrays us, and then lacks the
+sand to tell us about it frankly. But no matter. Jesus Christ failed to
+secure twelve men who were all true. What do you think of it, Brewster?"
+
+"What Miller has done," said Brewster, "is but a natural result when a
+working man goes down into the pit of stock gambling. The hope in that
+business is to obtain money without earning it. It is a kind of lunacy.
+In a few months, men so engaged lose everything like a steady poise to
+their minds. They take on all the attributes which distinguish the
+gambler. Their ideas are either up in the clouds or down in the depths.
+Worst of all, they forget that a dollar means so many blows, so many
+drops of sweat, that a dollar, when we see it, means that sometime,
+somewhere, to produce that dollar, an honest dollar's worth of work was
+performed, that when that dollar is transferred to another, another
+dollar's worth of work in some form must be given in return, or the
+eternal balance of Justice will be disarranged. Miller reached the point
+where he did not prize his own dollars at their true value. It ought not
+to be expected that he would be more careful of ours."
+
+"Colonel, what is your judgment about the business?" Carlin asked.
+
+"It seems to me," was the reply, "that when he went away Miller insulted
+all of you--all of us, for that matter. His conduct assumes that we are
+all pawnbrokers who would go into mourning over a few dollars lost."
+
+"Oh, no, I think not," said Strong. "Miller is a sensitive, high-strung
+man. He has been in all sorts of dangers and difficulties and has never
+faltered. At last he found himself in a place where, for the first time,
+he felt his honor wounded, and his courage failed him. He is not running
+away from us, he is trying to run away from himself."
+
+"What is your judgment, Professor?" asked Carlin.
+
+"As they say out here, Miller got off wrong," said the Professor; "and
+he seems blinded by the mistake so much that he cannot see his best way
+back."
+
+"Harding, why are you so still?" asked Carlin.
+
+"I am sorry for Miller," said Harding. "He is the best-hearted man in
+the world."
+
+"It is a most unpleasant business. What shall we do about it?" asked
+Carlin. "I wish all would express an opinion."
+
+"What ought to be done, Carlin?" asked Wright.
+
+Carlin answered: "The business way would be to formally expel him from
+the Club, and to write him that, without waiving any legal rights, we
+will give him the time he requires in which to settle."
+
+"That would no doubt be just," said Wright.
+
+"There would be no injustice in it, from a business standpoint," said
+Ashley.
+
+"He certainly," said Brewster, "would have no right to complain of such
+treatment."
+
+Said Corrigan: "The verdict of the worreld would be that we had acted
+fairly."
+
+"No one," said the Colonel, "could blame you for firing him out. He has
+not only wronged you directly, but at the same moment has attacked your
+credit in the city where you are owing bills."
+
+"That is true," said the Professor.
+
+"It is only a matter of discretion what to do," said Alex. "All the
+direct equities are against Miller."
+
+"There is no decision so fair as by a secret ballot," said Harding. "Let
+us take a vote on the proposition of Miller's expulsion, and all must
+take part."
+
+This was agreed to. Nine slips of paper were prepared, all of one size
+and length, one was given to each man to write "expulsion, yes," or
+"expulsion, no," as he pleased. A hat was placed on the table for a
+ballot-box; each in turn deposited his ballot and resumed his seat.
+
+The silence was growing painful when Brewster said: "Carlin, Miller
+wrote back to you; you will have to write to him. Suppose you be the
+returning board to count the votes and make up the returns."
+
+Carlin arose and went to the table. There he paused, and his face wore a
+look of extreme trouble; but he shook off the influence, whatever it
+was, stretched out his hand in an absent-minded way, picked up a ballot
+and slowly brought it before his eyes. He looked at it, turned it over
+and looked on the other side, then with a foolish laugh he said: "Why,
+the ballot is blank."
+
+He transferred it to his left hand, picked up another ballot with his
+right hand; looked at it; it, too, was blank.
+
+So in turn he took up one after another. They all were blank.
+
+As he called the last one and started to resume his seat, Harding, in a
+low voice, as to himself, said: "Thank God!"
+
+All looked a little foolish for a moment, and then the Colonel said:
+"Why, Carlin, you are not much of a returning board, after all."
+
+Said Corrigan: "It sames the convintion moved to make it unanimous."
+
+Said Carlin: "I could not vote to expel Miller. He has long been my
+friend. I know how sensitive he is. He wronged us a little, but I just
+could not do it."
+
+Said Brewster: "I could not do it, because that would be the quickest
+way to cause a man, when on the down grade, to keep on. To make him feel
+that those who have been most intimate with him, despise him, may be
+exact justice, but it seldom brings reformation."
+
+Said the Colonel: "I could not do it in his absence. It would have had a
+look of assassination from behind."
+
+"I could not do it," said the Professor. "The news would have got out
+and the Club would have been disgraced."
+
+"It was not much more than an error of judgment, on Miller's part," said
+Wright. "He never intended to wrong us out of a penny. Crime is measured
+only by the intention."
+
+"That is the true inwardness of the whole business, Wright, and that
+thought kept my ballot blank," was Alex's suggestion.
+
+"I could not do it," said Ashley. "His expulsion would have looked as
+though we measured friendship by dollars. If a man ever needs friends,
+it is when he is in trouble."
+
+"I could not do it," chimed in Corrigan. "Suppose all our mistakes shall
+be remimbered against us, how will we iver git admitted to the great
+Club above?"
+
+"I could not do it, because I love him," said Harding.
+
+"I feared," said Brewster, "that things were going wrong with Miller a
+week ago, when I noticed that in lieu of the costly chair which he first
+brought to the Club, he was using that old, second-hand cheap affair."
+
+"I think," said Harding, "that I have a right to tell now what has been
+a secret. You know Miller and myself worked together. We were coming up
+from the mine one evening, ten days ago, when we chanced to pass old man
+Arnold's cabin--Arnold, who was crippled by a fall in the Curry some
+months ago. The old man was sitting outside his cabin and resting his
+crippled limb on a crutch. Miller stopped and asked him how he was
+getting on, and talked pleasantly with him for a few minutes, when an
+express wagon came by. Miller left the old man with a pleasant word,
+asked me if I would not wait there a few minutes, hailed the expressman,
+jumped upon his wagon, said something to the man which I did not
+understand, and the wagon was driven rapidly away.
+
+"In a few minutes it returned; Miller sprang down; the expressman handed
+him the great easy chair; he carried it into the door of the cabin,
+setting it just inside; then lifted the old man in his arms from his
+hard chair, placed him in the soft cushions of the other, moved it
+gently until it was in just the position where the old man could best
+enjoy looking at the descending night; then, picking up the old battered
+chair, he said, cheerily: 'Arnold, I want to trade chairs with you,' and
+walked so rapidly away that the old man could not recover from his
+surprise enough to thank him. This old chair is the one he brought away.
+
+"Coming home he said to me: 'Harding, don't give me away on this
+business, please. We are all liable to be crippled some time, and to
+need comforts which we do not half appreciate now. I would have given
+the old man the chair two weeks ago, but I did not have it quite paid
+for at that time.'
+
+"I tell you the story now because I do not think there is any obligation
+to keep it a secret any longer."
+
+When Harding had finished there was not one man present who was not glad
+that the vote had resulted unanimously against the generous man's
+expulsion.
+
+The next question was as to the form of the letter that should be sent
+Miller. This awakened a good deal of discussion. It was finally decided
+that each should write a letter, and that the one which should strike
+the Club most favorably should be sent, or that from the whole a new
+letter should be prepared. Writing materials were brought out and all
+went to work on their letters. For several minutes nothing but the
+scratching of pens broke the silence.
+
+When the letters were all completed, Carlin was called upon to read
+first. He proceeded as follows:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     Friend Miller:--The Club has talked everything over. All think
+     you made a great mistake in going away, and that it would be
+     better for you to return to your work. Your old place in the
+     Club will be kept open for you.
+
+     Sincerely yours,
+
+     TOM CARLIN.
+
+Wright read next as follows:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     JOE:--I make a poor hand at writing. I have been banging
+     hammers too many years. But what I want to say is, you had
+     better, so soon as your visit is over, come along back. There
+     wasn't a bit of sense in your going away. Your absence breaks
+     up the equilibrium of the Club amazingly. The whole outfit is
+     becoming demoralized, and the members are growing more
+     garrulous than so many magpies. We shall look for you within a
+     week. We all want to see you.
+
+     Your sincere friend,
+
+     ADRIAN WRIGHT.
+
+The Colonel responded next.
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     MILLER:--You made a precious old fool of yourself, rushing off
+     as you did. Are you the first man who has ever been deceived by
+     Comstock "dead points?" If you think you are, try and explain
+     how it is that while some thousands of bright fellows have
+     devotedly pursued the business during the past fifteen years,
+     you can, in five minutes, count on your fingers all that have
+     saved a quarter of a dollar at the business.
+
+     The whole Club join me in saying that you ought to return
+     without delay.
+
+     Yours truly,
+
+     SAVAGE.
+
+The Professor's letter, which was next read, was as follows:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     DEAR MILLER:--We do not like your going away. The act was
+     deficient in candor, and seems to have a look as though you
+     estimated yourself or the Club at too low a figure. Suppose you
+     did get a little off; the true business would have been to have
+     told us all about it. We would have "put up the mud" and
+     carried the thing along until it came your way. But what is
+     done is done. The thing to decide now is what it is best for
+     you to do. Austin is no place for you. The mines there are
+     rich, but the veins are small and the district restricted. In
+     that camp the formation makes impossible the creation of a big
+     body of ore; the fissures are necessarily small. You would die
+     of asphyxia within a month or go blind searching for a place
+     where an ore body "could make." Eureka is open to other
+     objections. It would require six months for you to become
+     acclimated there, and the chances are that within that time you
+     would be tied up in a knot with lead colic. The proper course
+     to pursue is to come back. The Club are all agreed on that
+     proposition.
+
+     Yours truly,
+
+     STONEMAN.
+
+Ashley's letter, in these words, followed:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     DEAR FRIEND JOE:--Your going away has caused us ever so much
+     trouble. It was foolish and cruel of you to imagine--even when
+     you were in trouble--that any of the Club weighed friendship on
+     old-fashioned placer diggings gold scales. We are sorry for
+     your misfortune, but it is on _your_ account that we are sorry.
+     It is not so serious that it cannot be made up in a little
+     while, if you do not persist in remaining in some place where
+     there are no opportunities to do any good for yourself. It may
+     be a long time, among strangers, before you can obtain
+     employment. Because you have made one mistake, do not make
+     another, but without delay come back. This is Tuesday. It will
+     take you until about Saturday next to get to Austin. You will
+     be pretty badly used up and will have to rest a day. But on
+     Sunday evening you ought to start back by stage and rail. That
+     will bring you home a week from to-day. A week from to-night
+     then, we shall expect your account of how big the mosquitoes
+     are at the sink of the Carson, and what your opinion is of
+     Churchill County as a location for a country residence.
+
+     Yours fraternally,
+
+     HERBERT ASHLEY.
+
+Alex's letter was very brief, as follows:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     Come back, Joe. Were your precedent to be strictly followed, we
+     should suddenly lose a majority of our most respected citizens.
+     In the interest of society and of the Club come.
+
+     ALEX.
+
+     TO MR. JOE MILLER, Austin.
+
+Corrigan did not like to read his letter, but the Club insisted, and
+after declaring that the Club would get "a dale the worst of it," he
+proceeded as follows:
+
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, Nevada, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     DEAR AULD JO:--It's murthered yees ought to be for doing
+     onything phat compills me to write you a lether. Whin I
+     commince to write I fale as though all the air pipes were shut
+     off intirely. I would sooner pick up a thousand dollars in the
+     strate, ony day, than to have to hould a pin in me hand and
+     make sinse in my head at the same moment. You know that same,
+     too, and hince phy did yees go away and force all this work
+     upon me? Is it in love wid horseback exercise that ye are? We
+     have been talkin' your case over, quiet loike, in the Club, and
+     we have unanimously rached the irresistible conclusion that it
+     was an unpatriotic thing for yees to do--to propose this Club
+     business and thin dezart it just whin our habits had become
+     fixed, so to spake; and it would become a mather of sarious
+     inconvanience for us to change. In this wurreld a man can shirk
+     onything excipt his duty, and it is a plain proposition that it
+     is your duty immejitely to come back. My poor fingers are
+     cramped to near brakin' by this writin', and it is your falt,
+     the whole of it, ond I pray yees don't let it happen ony more.
+
+     Faithfully,
+
+     B. CORRIGAN.
+
+     P. S.--Should you nade a bit of coin to return comfortably draw
+     on me through W. F. & Co.
+
+     BARNEY.
+
+Harding read next.
+
+     VIRGINIA, August 13th, 1878.
+
+     DEAR FRIEND MILLER:--Enclosed I send certificate of deposit for
+     $100. The Club desire, unanimously, that you return without a
+     moment's unnecessary delay. All agree that this is the best
+     field for you. I will see the foreman in the morning, tell him
+     you have been called away for a week and get him to hold your
+     place for you. It was very wicked of you to go away. You can
+     only get forgiveness by hurrying back.
+
+     Lovingly,
+
+     HARDING.
+
+
+Brewster's was the final letter, and was in these words:
+
+     VIRGINIA CITY, Nevada. }
+
+     8th month, 13th day, A. D. 1878. }
+
+     MR. JOSEPH MILLER:
+
+     DEAR SIR AND FRIEND:--I have this evening, with great pain,
+     learned that you have left this place, and, moreover, have
+     heard explained the reasons which prompted that course on your
+     part. It would be a lack of candor on my part not to inform you
+     that I sincerely deplore the wrong which you have done yourself
+     and us. At the same time I believe that the real date of the
+     wrong was when you permitted yourself first to engage in stock
+     gambling. This world is framed on a foundation of perfect
+     justice. The books of the Infinite always exactly balance. In
+     the beginning it was decreed that man should have nothing
+     except what he earned. It was meant that the world's
+     accumulations of treasures--in money, in brain, in love, or in
+     any other material that man holds dear--should, from day to
+     day, and from year to year, represent simply the honest effort
+     put forth to produce the treasure.
+
+     Men have changed this in form. Some men get what they have not
+     earned; but the rule is inexorable and cannot be changed. The
+     books must balance.
+
+     So when one man gets more than his share, the amount has to be
+     made up by the toil of some other man or men. This last is what
+     you have been called upon to do, and, naturally, you suffer.
+
+     But I acquit you of any sinister intention toward us. So do we
+     all. Your fault was when you first attempted to set aside God's
+     law. You may recall what was said a few nights ago. "The decree
+     which was read at Eden's gate is still in full force, and
+     behind it, just as of old, flashes the flaming sword."
+
+     We have thoughtfully considered your case. The unanimous
+     conclusion is that you should at once return; that here among
+     friends and acquaintances, with the heavy work which is going
+     on, you have a far better opportunity to recover your lost
+     ground than you possibly could among strangers.
+
+     Moreover, you are familiar with this lode and the manner of
+     working these mines. You are likewise accustomed to this
+     climate, hence I conclude that your chances against accident or
+     disease would be from fifteen to twenty per cent. in favor of
+     your returning.
+
+     In conclusion, I beg, without meaning any offense, but on the
+     other hand, with a sincere desire to serve you, to say that I
+     have a few hundred dollars on hand, enough perhaps to cover all
+     your indebtedness here. If you would care to use it, it shall
+     be yours, _in hearty welcome_, until such time as you can
+     conveniently return it.
+
+     I beg, sir, to subscribe myself your friend and servant,
+
+     JAMES BREWSTER.
+
+"God bless you, Brewster," said Harding impetuously.
+
+"That is a boss lether," said Corrigan.
+
+"I could not do better than that myself," was Ashley's comment.
+
+"It is a diamond drill, and strikes a bonanza on the lower level," said
+Carlin.
+
+"The formation is good, the pay chute large, the trend of the lode most
+regular, the grade of the ore splendid," said the Professor.
+
+Wright said: "It is a good letter, sure."
+
+"It reads as I fancy the photographs of the Angels of Mercy and Justice
+look when taken together," suggested Alex.
+
+The Colonel remarked that the letter established the fact that Brewster
+was not so bad a man as he looked to be.
+
+What should be sent to Miller was next discussed again. It was finally
+determined that all the letters should be sent except Harding's; that he
+should rewrite his, and instead of sending the certificate of deposit,
+should, like Corrigan, instruct Miller to draw on him if he needed
+money, and that any such drafts should be shared by the whole Club.
+
+Then the money to pay the bills was raised among the old members of the
+Club, and placed in Carlin's hands to be paid out next day.
+
+When all was finished a sort of heaviness came upon the company. There
+was an impression of sorrow upon them. They had been happy in their
+innocent enjoyment, but suddenly one who was a favorite, who was at
+heart the most generous one of the company, had failed them, and they
+brooded over the change.
+
+At length Harding roused himself and said: "Miller must be sleeping
+somewhere down in the desert to-night. I wish I could call to him by
+telephone and bring him back."
+
+"That reminds me," said Alex, "of something that I heard of yesterday.
+Down at the Sisters' Academy there is a telephone. There is a little
+miss attending that school, and every morning at a certain hour there is
+a ring at a certain house down town. The response goes back, 'Who is
+it?' and then the conversation goes on as follows: 'Is that you, papa?'
+'Yes!' 'Good morning, papa!' 'Good morning, little one.' 'Is mamma
+there?' 'Yes.' 'Say good morning and give my love to mamma.' 'Yes.'
+'Goodbye.' 'Good bye.'
+
+"In the evening the same call is made; the same answer; and then from
+the still convent on noiseless pinions these words go out through the
+night, and pulsate on the father's ear: 'Good night, papa! Good night,
+mamma! a kiss for each of you!' and then the weird instrument
+materializes two kisses for the father's ear.
+
+"He is a rough fellow, but he declares that since he commenced to
+receive those kisses, he knows that an answer to prayer is not
+impossible; that if that child's voice can come to him, stealing past
+the night patrol unheard, stealing in clear and distinct and like a
+benediction, while the winds and the city are roaring outside, there is
+nothing wonderful in believing that on the invisible wire of faith the
+same voice could send its music to the furthest star, and that the Great
+Father would bend His ear to listen."
+
+"It is a pretty story," said Brewster. "The telephone is the most
+poetical of inventions. There is a metallic sound to the click of the
+telegraph, as though its chief use was to further the work and the worry
+of mankind. There is something like a sob to the perfecting press, as
+though saddened by the very thought of the abuses it must reform. There
+is a something about a steam engine which reminds one of the heavy
+respirations of the slave, toiling on his chain, but the telephone has a
+voice for but one ear at a time, and when it is a voice that we love its
+messages come like caresses.
+
+"Not the least of its triumphs is that it has broken the silence of the
+convent.
+
+"At last voices from the outer world thrill through the thick walls, and
+the patient women who are immured there hear the good nights and the
+kisses which by loving lips are sent away to loving homes. How their
+starved hearts must be thrilled by those messages! Sometimes, too, they
+must realize that the course of Nature cannot be changed; that the
+beginning of heaven is in the love which canopies true homes on earth.
+But with that thought there comes another, that from the Infinite, to
+palace, convent and humble homes alike, celestial wires, too fine for
+mortal eyes to discern, stretch down, and all alike are held in one
+sheltering hand. Sometime all these wires will work in accord, and the
+good-nights and the kisses in the souls of men will materialize into
+harmony and fill the world with music."
+
+"That is, Brewster," said Corrigan, "supposin' the wires do not get
+crossed and the girls do not kiss the wrong papas."
+
+"Suppose, Brewster," said the Colonel, "that at the final concert it
+shall be discovered that certain gentlemen have not settled their
+monthly rents for a long time, and their connection has been cut off?"
+
+"There is no music where there are no ears to hear," said Wright. "What
+if some souls are born deaf and dumb?"
+
+"Suppose," said the Professor, "that there are souls which have no ear
+for music?"
+
+"I do not know," said Brewster, "but I fancy that the fairest final
+prizes may not be to the best musicians, but to those who made the
+sorest sacrifices in order to get a ticket to the concert."
+
+With this the good nights were repeated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+At length there came a day when there was real trouble in the Club. The
+foreman of the mine in which Wright was at work ordered Wright and a
+fellow miner to go to the surface to assist in handling some machinery
+which was to be sent down into the mine.
+
+The two men stepped upon the cage and three bells were sounded--the
+signal to the engineer at the surface that men were to be hoisted and
+all care used.
+
+The cage started from the 2,400-foot level. Nothing unusual happened
+until, as they neared the surface, Wright said to his comrade: "By the
+way we are passing the levels, it seems to me they must be in a hurry on
+top."
+
+The other miner answered: "I guess it is all right;" but hardly were the
+words spoken, when they shot up into the light; in an instant the cage
+went crashing into the sheaves and was crushed, the men being thrown
+violently out.
+
+Wright's companion, as he fell, struck partly on the curbing of the
+shaft, rolled in and was of course dashed to pieces.
+
+Wright was thrown outside the shaft, and though not killed outright, two
+or three ribs were broken, one lung was badly injured, besides he was
+otherwise terribly bruised.
+
+People unfamiliar with mining may not understand the above. On the
+Comstock the hoisting engines are set from forty to eighty feet from the
+mouths of the shafts. Directly over the shafts are frames from thirty to
+fifty feet in height, on which pulleys (rimmed iron wheels) are
+fastened. The cages are lowered and raised by flat, plaited, steel wire
+cables, which are generally four or five inches wide and about
+three-eighths of an inch in thickness.
+
+This cable is first coiled on the reel of the engine, then the loose end
+is drawn over the pulley, then down to the cage, to which it is made
+fast. The wheel of a pulley is called a sheave, and by habit it has
+grown to be a common expression to call the block and wheel in hoisting
+works "the sheaves." At intervals of one or two hundred feet on the
+cables they are wound with white cloth, as a guide to the engineer, as
+the cable is uncoiled in lowering or coiled in hoisting. Also, on the
+outer rim of the reel, is a dial with figures or marks at regular
+intervals, and a hand (like the hand of a clock) which perpetually
+indicates to the engineer about where the cage is in all stages of
+lowering or hoisting.
+
+These engineers work eight hour shifts, and sometimes twelve. Of the
+nature of their work an idea can be formed by the statement that during
+the two or three years when the great Bonanza in the California
+and Con. Virginia mines was giving up its treasure, through two
+double-compartment shafts, all the work of those two mines was carried
+on. The main ore body was between the 1,300-foot and 1,700-foot levels.
+Every day from six hundred to eight hundred men were lowered into and
+hoisted out of the mine. One hundred thousand feet (square measure) of
+timbers were lowered daily (three million feet per month); nearly or
+quite one thousand tons of ore was hoisted daily; the picks, drills and
+gads were sent up to be sharpened and returned; the powder used and five
+tons of ice daily were lowered, and besides this work, there was
+machinery to lower and hoist; the waste rock to be handled and visitors
+and officers of the mine to be lowered and hoisted. The cages are about
+four feet six inches in length and three feet in width, and are simply
+iron frames with a wooden floor and iron bonnet over the top and made to
+exactly fit the size of the shaft. Three of these compartments had
+double cages--one above the other, and one had three cages. A
+three-decker carries three tons of ore or twenty-seven men at a time.
+
+Of course when such work is being driven, the eyes of an engineer have
+to be every moment on their work. Men follow the occupation for months
+and years without an accident or mistake, but now and then, through the
+ceaseless strain, their nerves break down; something like an aberration
+of the mind comes over them and they watch, dazed like sleep-walkers, as
+the cage shoots out of the shaft and mounts up into the sheaves and
+cannot command themselves enough to move the lever of the engine which
+is in their hand.
+
+Such an accident as this overtook Wright and his companion. Poor Wright
+was carried home by brother miners. The accident happened only about an
+hour before the time for changing shifts and hardly was Wright laid in
+his bed before the other members of the Club met at their home.
+
+The best surgical talent of the city was called; the members of the Club
+took turns in watching; there was not a moment that one or the other was
+not bending over their friend.
+
+At first, when he rallied from the shock of the injury, Wright told all
+about the accident. He further told his friends that he had no near
+relatives, instructed the Club, in the event of his death, to open his
+trunk, burn the papers and divide the little money there among
+themselves, designated little presents for each one and said: "Miller
+will be grieved if I die, and may think my heart was not altogether warm
+toward him, so give him my watch; it is the most valuable trinket that I
+have."
+
+When the first reaction from the shock came, his friends were encouraged
+to believe he would recover; but it was a vain hope. He soon went into a
+half unconscious, half delirious state, from which it was hard to 'rouse
+him for even a few minutes at a time.
+
+He lay that way for two days and nights and then died.
+
+On the afternoon of the second day it was clear that he was almost
+gone--the spray began to splash upon his brow from the dark river--and
+all the Club grouped around him.
+
+Out of the shadow of death his mind cleared for a moment. In almost his
+old natural tones, but weak, like the voices heard through a telephone,
+he said:
+
+"I have seen another mirage, boys. It was the old home under the Osage
+shadows. It was all plain; the old house, the orchard, the maples were
+red in the autumn sun, and my mother, who died long ago, seemed to be
+there, smiling and holding out her arms to me.
+
+"It was all real, but you don't know how tired I am. Carlin, old friend,
+turn me a little on my side and let me sleep."
+
+Gently as mothers move their helpless babes, the strong miner turned his
+friend upon his pillows.
+
+He breathed shorter and shorter for a few minutes, then one long sigh
+came from his mangled breast, and all was still.
+
+There was perfect silence in the room for perhaps five minutes. Then
+Brewster, with a voice full of tears, said: "God grant that the mirage
+is now to him a delicious reality," and all the rest responded, "Amen."
+
+The undertaker came, the body was dressed for the grave and placed in a
+casket, and the Club took up their watch around it.
+
+Now and then a subdued word was spoken, but they were very few. The
+hearts of the watchers were all full, and conversation seemed out of
+place. Wright was one of the most manly of men, and the hearts of the
+friends were very sore. The evening wore on until ten o'clock came, when
+there fell a gentle knock on the outer door. The door was opened and by
+the moonlight four men could be seen outside. One of them spoke:
+
+"We 'eard as 'ow Hadrian wur gone, and thot to sing a wee bit to he as
+'ow the lad might be glad."
+
+They were the famous quartette of Cornish miners and were at once
+invited in.
+
+They filed softly into the room--the Club rising as they entered--and
+circled around the casket. After a long look upon the face of the
+sleeper they stood up and sang a Cornish lament. Their voices were
+simply glorious. The words, simple but most pathetic, were set to a
+plaintive air, the refrain of each stanza ending in some minor notes,
+which gave the impression that tears of pity, as they were falling, had
+been caught and converted into music.
+
+The effect was profound. The stoicism of the
+
+Club was completely broken down by it. When the lament ceased all were
+weeping, while warm-hearted and impetuous Corrigan was sobbing like a
+grieved child.
+
+The quartette waited a moment and then sang a Cornish farewell, the
+music of which, though mostly very sad, had, here and there, a bar or
+two such as might be sung around the cradle of Hope, leaving a thought
+that there might be a victory even over death, and which made the hymn
+ring half like the _Miserere_ and half like a benediction.
+
+When this was finished and the quartette had waited a moment more, with
+their magnificent voices at full volume, they sang again--a requiem,
+which was almost a triumph song, beginning:
+
+    Whatever burdens may be sent
+        For mortals here to bear,
+    It matters not while faith survives
+        And God still answers prayer.
+    I will not falter, though my path
+        Leads down unto the grave;
+    The brave man will accept his fate,
+        And God accepts the brave.
+
+Then with a gentle "Good noight, lads," they were gone.
+
+It was still in the room again until Corrigan said: "I hope Wright heard
+that singin'; the last song in particular."
+
+"Who knows?" said Ashley. "It was all silence here; those men came and
+filled the place with music. Who knows that it will not, in swelling
+waves, roll on until it breaks upon the upper shore?"
+
+"Who knows," said Harding, "that he did not hear it sung first and have
+it sent this way to comfort us? I thought of that when the music was
+around us, and I fancied that some of the tones were like those that
+fell from Wright's lips, when, in extenuation of Miller's fault, he was
+reminding us that it was the intent that measured the wrong, and that
+Miller never intended any wrong. Music is born above and comes down; its
+native place is not here."
+
+"He does not care for music," said the Colonel. "See how softly he
+sleeps. All the weariness that so oppressed him has passed away. The
+hush of eternity is upon him, and after his hard life that is sweeter
+than all else could be."
+
+"Oh, cease, Colonel," said Brewster. "Out of this darkened chamber how
+can we speak as by authority of what is beyond. As well might the mole
+in his hole attempt to tell of the eagle's flight.
+
+"We only know that God rules. We watched while the great transition came
+to our friend. One moment in the old voice he was conversing with us;
+the next that voice was gone, but we do not believe that it is lost. As
+we were saying of the telephone, when we speak those only a few feet
+away hear nothing. The words die upon the air, and we explain to
+ourselves that they are no more. But thirty miles away, up on the side
+of the Sierras, an ear is listening, and every tone and syllable is
+distinct to that ear. Who knows what connections can be made with those
+other heights where Peace rules with Love?
+
+"Our friend whose dust lies here was not called from nothing simply to
+buffet through some years of toil and then to return to nothing through
+the pitiless gates of Death. To believe such a thing would be to impeach
+the love, the mercy and the wisdom of God. Wright is safe somewhere and
+happier than he was with us. I should not wonder if Harding's theory
+were true, and that it was to comfort us that he impelled those singers
+to come here."
+
+"Brewster," said Alex, "your balance is disturbed to-night. You say
+'from out our darkened chamber we cannot see the light,' and then go on
+to assert that Wright is happier than when here. You do not know; you
+hope so, that is all. So do I, and by the calm that has pressed its
+signet on his lips, I am willing to believe that all that was of him is
+as much at rest as is his throbless heart, and that the mystery which so
+perplexes us--this something which one moment greets us with smiles and
+loving words, but which a moment later is frozen into everlasting
+silence--is all clear to him now. I hope so, else the worlds were made
+in vain, and the sun in heaven, and all the stars whose white fires fill
+the night, are worthy of as little reverence as a sage brush flame; and
+it was but a cruel plan which permitted men to have life, to kindle in
+their brains glorious longings and in their hearts to awaken affections
+more dear than life itself."
+
+Then Harding, as if to himself repeated: "It matters not while Faith
+survives, and God still answers prayer."
+
+Half an hour more passed, then the Colonel arose, looked long on the
+face in the casket and said:
+
+"How peaceful is his sleep. The mystery of the unseen brings no look of
+surprise to his face. Around him is the calm of the dreamless bivouac:
+the brooding wings of eternal rest have spread their hush above him.
+To-morrow the merciful earth will open her robes of serge to receive
+him; in her ample bosom will fold his weary limbs, and while he sleeps
+will shade his eyes from the light. In a brief time, save to the few of
+us who love him, he will be forgotten among men. Days will dawn and set;
+the seasons will advance and recede; the years will ebb and flow; the
+tempest and the sunshine will alternately beat upon his lonely couch,
+until ere long it will be leveled with the surrounding earth; his body
+will dissolve into its original elements and it will be as though he had
+never lived. The great ocean of life will heave and swell, and there
+will be no one to remember this drop that fell upon the earth in spray
+and was lost.
+
+"This is as it seems to us, straining our dull eyes out upon the
+profound beyond our petty horizon. But who knows? We can trace the
+thread of this life as it was until it passed beyond the range of our
+visions, but who of us knows whether it was all unwound or whether in
+the 'beyond' it became a golden chain so strong that even Death can not
+break it, and thrilled with harmonies which could never vibrate on this
+frail thread that broke to-day?"
+
+Then the Colonel sat down and the Professor stood up, and with his left
+hand resting on the casket, said:
+
+"Three days ago this piece of crumbling dust was a brave soldier of
+peace. I mean the words in their fullest sense. Just now our brothers in
+the East are fearful lest so much silver will be produced that it will
+become, because of its plentifulness, unfit to be a measure of values.
+They do not realize what it costs or they would change their minds. They
+do not know how the gnomes guard their treasures, or what defense Nature
+uprears around her jewels. They revile the stamp which the Government
+has placed upon the white dollar. Could they see deeper they would
+perceive other stamps still. There would be blood blotches and seams
+made by the trickling of the tears of widows and orphans, for before the
+dollar issues bright from the mint, it has to be sought for through
+perils which make unconscious heroes of those who prosecute the search.
+For nearly twenty years now, on this lode, tragedies like this have been
+going on. We hear it said: 'A man was killed to-day in the Ophir,' or 'a
+man was dashed to pieces last night in the Justice,' and we listen to it
+as merely the rehearsal of not unexpected news. Could a list of the men
+who have been killed in this lode be published, it would be an appalling
+showing. It would outnumber the slain of some great battle.
+
+"Besides the deaths by violence, hundreds more, worn out by the heat and
+by the sudden changes of temperature between the deep mines and the
+outer air, have drooped and died.
+
+"The effect is apparent upon our miners. Their bearing perplexes
+strangers who come here. They do not know that in the conquests of labor
+there are fields to be fought over which turn volunteers into veteran
+soldiers quite as rapidly as real battle fields. They know nothing about
+storming the depths; of breaking down the defences of the deep hills.
+They can not comprehend that the quiet men whom they meet here on the
+streets are in the habit of shaking hands with Death daily until they
+have learned to follow without emotion the path of duty, let it lead
+where it may, and to accept whatever may come as a matter of course.
+
+"Such an one was this our friend, who fell at his post; fell in the
+strength of his manhood, and when his great heart was throbbing only in
+kindness to all the world.
+
+"One moment he exulted in his splendid life, the next he was mangled and
+crushed beyond recovery.
+
+"Still there was no repining, no spoken regrets. For years the
+possibility of such a fate as this had been before his eyes steadily; it
+brought much anguish to him, but no surprise.
+
+"He had lived a blameless life. As it drew near its close the vision of
+his mother was mercifully sent to him, and so in his second birth the
+same arms received him that cradled him when before he was as helpless
+as he is now.
+
+"By the peace that is upon him, I believe those arms are around his soul
+to-night; I believe he would not be back among us if he could.
+
+"We have a right on our own account to grieve that he is gone, but not
+on his. He filled on earth the full measure of an honest, honorable,
+brave and true life. That record went before him to Summer Land. I
+believe it is enough and that he needs neither tears nor regrets."
+
+The Professor sat down and Corrigan then arose and went and looked long
+and fondly upon the upturned face. At last in a low voice he said:
+
+"Auld frind, if yees can, give me a sign some time that something was
+saved from this mighty wrick. I will listen for the call in the dape
+night. I will listen by the timbers in the dape drifts; come back if
+yees can and give us a hope that there will be hand clasps and wilcomes
+for us whin the last shift shall be worked out."
+
+So one after the other talked until the night stole away before the
+smile of the dawn. Harding pulled aside the curtains, and at that moment
+the sun, panoplied in glory, shed rosy tints all over the desert to the
+eastward.
+
+"See," said Harding. "It was on such a morning as this that on the
+desert was painted the mirage which troubled poor Wright so much, until
+the clearer light drove it away. Let us hope that there are no
+refractions of the rays to bring fear to him where he is."
+
+There was the usual inquest, and on the second day after his death,
+Wright was buried. After the funeral his effects were looked over; the
+bills were paid, a simple stone was ordered to be placed over his grave,
+and his money, some few hundred dollars, was divided among the hospitals
+of the city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+A few days more went by, but the old joy of the Club was no more.
+
+Wright was gone, and all that had been heard from Miller was a brief
+note thanking the Club for their kindness, but giving no intimation that
+he contemplated returning.
+
+One morning about the twenty-fifth of the month the five miners who were
+left went away to their work as usual, but all were unusually depressed,
+as though a sense of sorrow or of approaching sorrow was upon them.
+
+As said before, Brewster was working in the Bullion. Toward noon of this
+day word was passed down into the other mines that an accident was
+reported in the Bullion; some said it was a cave and some that it was a
+fire, but it was not certainly known.
+
+Each underground foreman and boss was instructed to see that the
+bulkheads, which, when closed, shut off the underground connections
+between the several mines, were made ready to be closed at a moment's
+notice, in case the accident proved to be a fire. The whisper of "fire
+in the mine" is a terrible one on the Comstock, for in the deeps there
+are dried timbers sufficient to build a great city, and once on fire
+they would make a roaring hell.
+
+When the news of an accident in the Bullion was circulated in the other
+mines, but one thought took form in the minds of the other four members
+of the Club. Brewster was working in the Bullion, and it might be that
+he was in peril.
+
+Within half an hour, and almost at the same moment, Carlin, Corrigan,
+Ashley and Harding appeared at the Bullion hoisting works.
+
+The superintendent stood at the shaft, and though perfectly
+self-contained, he was very pale and it needed but a glance at his face
+to know that he was either suffering physically or was greatly troubled.
+By this time, too, the wives of the miners at work in the Bullion had
+commenced to gather around the works.
+
+Mingled with the condensing vapors at the mouth of the shaft, there was
+the ominous odor of burning timbers.
+
+Just as the Club miners entered the Bullion works, the bell struck and
+the cage came rapidly to the surface. There was nothing on the cage, but
+tied to one of the iron braces was a slip of paper. This the
+superintendent seized and eagerly scanned.
+
+Turning to a miner who stood near, he said: "Sandy, go outside and tell
+those women to go home. Say to them that the accident involves only one
+man, and he has no family here. His name is Brewster, and we hope to
+save him yet."
+
+At this the four members of the Club sprang to the shaft and demanded to
+be let down.
+
+They were sternly ordered back by the superintendent.
+
+"But," said Carlin, fiercely, "this man whom you have named is like a
+brother to us; if he is in danger we must go to his rescue."
+
+The rest were quite as eager in their demands. Seeing how earnest they
+were, the superintendent said: "You are strangers to the mine. The whole
+working force from all the levels has been sent to the point of the
+accident. You would only be in the way."
+
+But they still insisted, vehemently. Said Ashley: "Your men are working
+for money, and will take no risks; it is different with us."
+
+"You do not know what you are doing in refusing us," said Harding; "that
+man's life is worth a thousand ordinary lives."
+
+"Suppose your brother were in danger and some man stood in the way
+forbidding you to go to him, what would you think?" asked Carlin.
+
+"Yees are superintindint and rule this mine," said Corrigan, "but you
+have no rule over min's lives, and this is a matter of the grandest life
+upon the lode, and yees have no right to refuse us."
+
+"Very well," said the superintendent; "if you men can be of any possible
+use you shall be sent down."
+
+On a bit of paper he wrote a brief note, tied it to the frame of the
+cage and sent it down. When the cage disappeared in the shaft, he turned
+to the men and explained that he had been upon the surface but a few
+minutes; that long before a drift had been run off from the main gallery
+at the twenty-one hundred-foot level some fifty feet through ground so
+hard that it had never required timbering. At the farther end soft
+ground had been encountered and a stringer of ore. Following this
+stringer a lateral drift had been run some fifty feet each way. This
+lateral drift was timbered when it was run. No ore of any value having
+been uncovered the work was abandoned, and since then the drift had been
+used as a storage place for powder and candles. That morning the foreman
+had gone into this drift with a surveyor to establish some point which
+the engineer required. To assist the surveyor the foreman had stuck his
+candlestick into a timber and had gone with the surveyor to one end of
+this lateral drift.
+
+Looking back they saw that the candle had fallen against the timber,
+which was dry as tinder.
+
+It had caught on fire and the flame had already run up and was in the
+logging.
+
+They rushed back, and though not seriously injured, were pretty badly
+scorched. All the miners in the mine were called to that point, and the
+work of putting out the fire, or of keeping it from connecting with the
+main drift, was begun. The superintendent was at the time on the
+twenty-four hundred-foot level. He had hastened to the spot at the first
+alarm. A donkey pump was at the twenty-one hundred-foot station, with
+plenty of hose. This was running within fifteen minutes. The fire, after
+burning a little way in each direction along the lateral drift,
+exhausting the oxygen in the air, ceased to flame and just burrowed its
+way through the timbers. This produced a dense and sifting smoke.
+
+A heavy stream of water was turned into this drift, the superintendent
+directing the work until, under the heat and smoke, he had fainted and
+been brought to the surface.
+
+Holding up the note which had come up on the cage, he said the man
+Brewster who was holding the nozzle of the hose had gone too far into
+the drift, under where the logging had burned away and had been caught
+in a cave, but the rest were working to release him.
+
+The bell sounded again and in three minutes the cage shot out of the
+shaft. The paper which it brought had only these few words: "If you can
+send two (2) first-class miners, all right, but not more. Any others
+would only be in the way. It is a very dangerous place, don't send any
+but thorough men." This was signed by the foreman.
+
+When the superintendent read the note the four men rushed forward, and
+for a moment their clamors were indescribable.
+
+"It is my place to go," said Ashley. "I have as little to live for as
+any of you. Do not hold me back."
+
+"Stand back," said Harding. "I would rather never go home than not to go
+with Brewster."
+
+Seizing Harding by the arm, Carlin hurled him back, exclaiming: "Art
+crazy, boy? Your bark is but just launched; this is work for old hulks
+that are used to rocks and storms."
+
+Over all the voice of Corrigan rang out: "Hould, men! This is me place.
+Me life has been but a failure. I will make what amind I can," and he
+sprang upon the cage, and, seizing a brace with either hand, turned his
+glittering eyes upon his friends.
+
+At length over the Babel the voice of the superintendent was heard
+commanding "Silence!"
+
+"You all alike seem determined," he said, "but only two can go. You will
+have to draw lots to decide." This proposition was with many murmurs
+agreed to. The superintendent prepared four bits of paper, two long and
+two short ones. He placed the slips in his hat, and, holding it above
+the level of the men's eyes, said: "You will each draw a slip of paper;
+the two who draw the long slips will go, the others will remain. Go on
+with the drawing!"
+
+The long slips were drawn by Corrigan and Carlin. With smiles of triumph
+these two shook hands with the others, who were weeping. Said Corrigan:
+
+"Whativer may happen, do not grave, boys. I will see yees again before
+night, or--I will see me mither."
+
+The two men stepped upon the cage. In his old careless way, Carlin said:
+"Don't worry about me, boys! I will come back by and by and bring
+Brewster, or I will know as much as Wright does before night."
+
+With these words the two devoted men disappeared with the cage into the
+dreadful depths.
+
+With bitter self-reproaches the two remaining men sat down and waited. A
+half hour went by, when the bell struck and the engine began to hoist.
+The cage again bore only a slip of paper. This the superintendent read
+as follows:
+
+"We have had another cave; another man is hurt; all the miners are much
+exhausted. Send a couple more men if possible."
+
+The two men sprang upon the cage, the superintendent joined them, and
+they were rapidly lowered into the depths. Reaching the fatal level,
+they learned that Corrigan and Carlin, on going down, had insisted on
+taking the lead; that they had partly uncovered Brewster when another
+cave had come. It had caught and buried Corrigan, but Carlin, though
+stunned and bruised somewhat, had escaped. By this time the smoke had
+partially cleared, but the drift was intensely hot.
+
+The superintendent again took charge. Timbers and heavy plank were
+brought. The drift was rapidly shored up, and within an hour Harding and
+Ashley recovered the body of Corrigan.
+
+There was very little rock over him, but he was quite dead. He had been
+struck and crushed by a boulder from the roof of the drift. He was
+bending down at the time, the boulder struck him fairly in the back of
+the neck and he must have died instantly.
+
+Very soon Brewster's body, too, was uncovered. He also was dead. He had
+been buried by decomposed rock, and had died from asphyxia.
+
+The bodies were carried to the shaft; each was wrapped in a blanket, and
+that of Corrigan was placed upon the cage. The superintendent, with
+Carlin and two other miners, stepped on the cage and it was hoisted to
+the surface. It returned in a few minutes, and this time Brewster's body
+was placed upon it, and Harding and Ashley, with two other miners,
+accompanied it to the surface.
+
+In the daylight the faces of the dead were both peaceful, as though in
+sleep. The bodies were sent away to an undertaker, and as Brewster had
+been heard to say, at Wright's funeral, that if he should die in the
+West, he would want his body sent East to be buried beside that of his
+wife, word was sent to the undertaker to try and get the coroner's
+permission and then to embalm the body of Brewster.
+
+The three remaining members of the Club were carried to their dreary
+home. Besides their sorrow, they were terribly exhausted. Harding had
+fainted once in the drift; Carlin was, besides being worn out, badly
+bruised, and Ashley was so exhausted that upon reaching the surface he
+was seized with chills and vomiting. The Professor, the Colonel and Alex
+were at the hoisting works when they were hoisted to the surface. They
+accompanied them home and remained, ministering to them until late in
+the night, when at last all were sleeping peacefully.
+
+With the morning the desolateness of their situation seemed more
+oppressive than ever. Yap Sing had prepared a dainty breakfast, but when
+they entered the dining room and saw only three plates where a few days
+before there had been seven, it was impossible for them to eat a
+mouthful. Each drank a cup of black coffee, but neither tasted food.
+
+Returned to the sitting room, it was determined to examine the effects
+of their dead friends. There was little in Corrigan's bundles except
+clothing and a memorandum book. This book had $150 in greenbacks, and a
+great many memorandums of stocks purchased, extending over a period of
+three years. These, a few words at the bottom of the pages showed, had
+almost all been sold either on too short margins or for assessments.
+Corrigan's humor ran all through the book in penciled remarks. The
+following are samples:
+
+"I had a sure thing; was the only mon in the sacret. I was but one and I
+caught it."
+
+"I bate Mr. Broker mon. He bought for me on a fifty per cint margin, and
+it broke that fast he could not get out from below it."
+
+"This was a certain sure point. Bedad, I found it that same."
+
+"I took the Scorpion to my bosom and, the blackguard, he stung me."
+
+"I stuck to Jacket until I had not a ghoust of a jacket to me back."
+
+"I made love to Julia. She was more ungrateful than Maggie Murphy."
+
+But between these same pages was found the letter Corrigan had received
+announcing his mother's death, and this was almost illegible because of
+the tear stains upon it.
+
+In Brewster's trunk everything was found in the perfect order which had
+marked all his ways.
+
+A book showed every dollar that he had received since coming to the
+Comstock; his monthly expenses, the sums he had sent his sister for his
+children, and his bank book showed exactly how much was to his credit.
+
+Another paper was found giving directions that if anything fatal should
+happen to him, his body should be returned to Taunton, Massachusetts,
+and if anything should be left above the necessary expenses of
+forwarding his body, the amount should be sent to his sister, Mrs.
+Martha Wolcott, of Taunton, for his children. The paper also contained
+an order on his banker for whatever money might be to his credit, and a
+statement that he owed no debts. There were also sealed letters directed
+to each of his children. Another large package was tied up carefully and
+endorsed, "My children's letters. Please return them to Taunton without
+breaking the package."
+
+The bank book showed that there was eleven hundred and sixty-three
+dollars to his credit.
+
+Brewster was a man that even death could not surprise. He was always
+ready.
+
+When the examination was completed, Carlin suggested to Ashley that he
+take the book, call at the bank, see if the amount was correct and if
+the bank would pay it on the order found in the book.
+
+Ashley hesitated. "There is something else, Carlin, that should be done,
+but I do not know how to go about it. That sister should be advised of
+her brother's death, that she may communicate the news to Brewster's
+children."
+
+"I have been thinking of that ever since yesterday," said Carlin, "but I
+can not do it."
+
+"I have been thinking of it, too," said Harding, "but by evening we can
+determine when the body will be sent and can include everything in one
+dispatch."
+
+Ashley went away, leaving Carlin and Harding together.
+
+"I am not sure," said Harding, "but I begin to believe that the man who
+invented dealing in stocks was an enemy to his race. Look at the result
+of Corrigan's life; think what poor Wright had to show for all his years
+of toil. They could not have fared much worse had they dealt in poker or
+faro straight."
+
+"And they are only two," responded Carlin. "There are three thousand
+more miners like them here and a hundred times three thousand other
+people scattered up and down this coast, trying to get rich in the same
+way, while here and in San Francisco a dozen men sit behind their
+counters and draw in the earnings of the coast. It is worse than folly,
+Harding. It is a kind of lunacy, a sort of an every day financial
+hari-kari."
+
+By this time it was past eleven o'clock in the forenoon. Suddenly,
+without a preliminary knock, the door opened and Miller stood before the
+two men. They sprang to their feet and welcomed him, the tears starting
+to all their eyes as they shook hands.
+
+"Oh, Miller!" said Harding, "why did you go away? We have had only
+trouble and sorrow since."
+
+"It was not fair of you, Miller," said Carlin, "You held our friendship
+at a miserably low price."
+
+"You are awfully good," said Miller; "but you are looking from your
+standpoint. I looked from mine, and I could not do differently. But tell
+me about this dreadful business. I saw about Wright, and read the
+account of this fearful accident of yesterday as I was coming up in the
+train, but still, there must have been some blundering somewhere."
+
+Everything was explained, and also what had been discovered of the
+effects of the dead miners.
+
+"Poor grand souls," said Miller. "It was a tough ending. Never before
+did three such royal hearts stop beating in a single fortnight on the
+Comstock."
+
+Ashley returned, and, with words full of affectionate reproach, greeted
+Miller.
+
+Ashley had found everything at the bank as the book indicated, and the
+undertaker had promised that Brewster's remains should be ready for
+shipment on the evening of the next day.
+
+Then the question of the dispatch to the family came up again.
+
+"Before deciding upon that," said Miller, "let me tell you something:
+
+"When I took the money to pay the bills, I had, with a little of my own,
+something over seven hundred dollars. I bought on a margin of only
+twenty-five per cent.--the broker was my friend--all the Silver Hill
+that the money would purchase. I thought I had a sure thing. My
+informant was a Silver Hill miner. I believed I could multiply the money
+by three within as many days. In five days it fell thirty per cent. What
+could I do? A note from the broker asking me to call, received the
+evening before I went away, decided me. I went away, but when I saw by
+dispatches that Wright had been killed, and I could get nothing to do, I
+determined to come back.
+
+"Well, I met my broker this morning. He asked me to call at his place.
+There he informed me that the day he purchased Silver Hill he met the
+superintendent and learned from him that there was not yet a
+development; that the stock was more liable to fall than to rise for two
+or three weeks to come, the rage being just then for north end stocks.
+He could not find me, and accordingly, on his own responsibility, he
+sold the stock, losing nothing but commissions and cost of dispatches.
+
+"There was a little lull in Sierra Nevada that day, and, believing it
+was good, he bought with my money and on my account. As it shot up he
+kept buying. At last, a week ago, he had two thousand shares and sold
+five hundred, and by the sale paid himself all up except $21,000.
+
+"Hearing day before yesterday that I had left the city, he sold the
+other fifteen hundred shares at $157. This morning he handed me a
+certificate of deposit in my favor for $213,000, and here it is."
+
+Most heartily did the others congratulate Miller on his good fortune.
+
+But Miller said: "Congratulate yourselves! I used the money of the Club.
+The profit I always intended should be the Club's. Wright and Corrigan
+and Brewster are gone, but you are left and Brewster's children are
+left. If I am correct, $213,000 divided by five, makes exactly $42,600.
+That is, you each have $42,600 on deposit in the bank, and a like sum is
+there for two fatherless and motherless children in Massachusetts."
+
+It was useless to try to reason the matter with Miller. He merely said:
+"It shall be my way. It was a square deal. I meant it so from the first;
+only," he added, sadly, "I wish Wright and Corrigan and Brewster could
+have lived to know it." Then turning quickly to Harding, he said:
+"Harding, how much is that indebtedness which has worried you so long?"
+
+Harding replied that the mortgage was $8,000, while the personal debts
+amounted to $3,000 more.
+
+"Then," said Miller, "you can pay the debts and have nearly $30,000 more
+with which to build your house and barns, to stock and fix your place
+for a home."
+
+The tears came to Harding's eyes, but he could not answer.
+
+"Never mind, old boy," said Miller; "did I not tell you I would make
+things all right for you?"
+
+Then Carlin got up, went into the adjoining room, brought out the watch
+which had been Wright's and told Miller how Wright, under the shadow of
+death, had bequeathed the watch to him.
+
+For the first time Miller broke down and burst into tears.
+
+When he recovered somewhat the command of himself, he said:
+
+"Now, I have a proposition to make. Let us all give up this mining. It
+is a hard life, and generally ends either in poverty or in a fatal
+accident. I am going to San Francisco. The place to make money is where
+there is money, and I am going to try my skill at the other end of the
+line."
+
+"You are right," said Carlin. "I am never going down into the Comstock
+again. I made up my mind to that yesterday. I am going back to
+Illinois."
+
+"And I am going to Pennsylvania," said Ashley.
+
+"I gave up mining yesterday, also," said Harding; "at least on the
+Comstock. I do not mind the labor or the danger, but it is not a life
+that fits a man for a contented old age."
+
+Suddenly Miller said: "Harding, were you ever in the Eastern States?"
+
+"No," said Harding; "the present boundary of my life is limited to
+California and Nevada."
+
+"Well," said Miller, "if we all give ourselves credit for all the good
+we ever dreamed of doing, still neither of us, indeed, all of us
+together, are not worthy to be named on the same day with James
+Brewster. His body must go East, and on its arrival there only an aged
+woman and two little orphan children await to receive it. I think it
+would be shabby to send the dust of the great-hearted and great-souled
+man there unattended. What say you, Ashley and Harding, will you not
+escort the body to its old home?"
+
+Both at once assented. A dispatch was prepared announcing Brewster's
+death, and adding that his body would be shipped the next evening
+escorted by two brother miners, Herbert Ashley and Samuel Harding. This
+was signed by the superintendent of the Bullion company.
+
+The superintendent also made a written statement that he had examined
+the effects of Brewster and found that, less the expenses of embalming,
+transportation, etc., together with $80 due Brewster from the Bullion
+company, there was left the sum of $840.25. With this statement a bill
+of exchange on Boston for the $840.25 was enclosed, and Ashley took
+charge of it.
+
+The bills were all paid. The money due Brewster's orphans, according to
+Miller's calculation, was also converted into a bill of exchange payable
+to Mabel and Mildred Brewster. Ashley and Harding took charge of the
+first and left the second of exchange to be forwarded by Colonel Savage,
+and before night all preparations for leaving the next day were made.
+
+The next morning Corrigan's funeral took place with all the ostentatious
+parade which Virginia City was famous for in the flush times when some
+one who had been a favorite had passed away. At the hall of the Miners'
+Union Colonel Savage delivered a eulogy which was infinitely more
+beautiful than some of the orations which have been treasured among the
+gems of the century.
+
+He was followed by Strong in a eulogy that touched every heart. Here is
+a sample:
+
+"Gentle and unpretentious was Barney Corrigan. There was no disguise in
+his nature. Could his heart have been worn outside his breast, and could
+it, every moment, have thrown off pictures of the emotions that warmed
+it, to those who knew him well, those pictures would have thrown no new
+light on his nature.
+
+"Generous and true was he; true as a man, a friend a citizen. His walk
+through life was an humble one, but it was, nevertheless, grand. So
+brave was he that he performed heroic acts as a matter of course, and
+all unconscious that he was a hero.
+
+"So he toiled on, his path lighted by his own genial eyes, and strewn
+behind him with generous deeds.
+
+"When death came to him the blessed anaesthetic which made him
+indifferent to his sufferings was the thought that in a little while he
+would rescue a friend in peril, or feel the grasp of the spirit hand of
+his mother.
+
+"Noble was his life; consecrated will be the ground that receives his
+mortal part. The world was better that he lived; it is sadder that he
+has died.
+
+"With tears we part with him; our souls send tender 'all hails and
+farewells' out to his soul that has fled, and we pray that his sleep may
+be sweet."
+
+The Colonel, Professor and Alex, with Miller, Carlin, Ashley and
+Harding, rode in the mourning carriages. These were followed by a long
+line of carriages and quite one thousand miners on foot. At the grave
+the services were simply a prayer and a hymn sung by the Cornish
+quartette. They made his grave close beside that of Wright's; they
+ordered a duplicate stone to be placed above it, and left him to his
+long sleep.
+
+Yap Sing was paid off and a handsome present made him, the furniture and
+food in the Club house was distributed among poor families in the
+neighborhood, and on the evening train the four living men, with the
+body of their dead friend, moved out of Virginia City.
+
+A great crowd was at the depot to see them off, and the last hands wrung
+were those of the Professor, the Colonel and Alex.
+
+On the way to Reno, Carlin said to Miller: "One thing I cannot
+understand, Miller; whatever possessed that broker to turn over that
+money to you when he was not compelled to?"
+
+"I have no idea in the world," said Miller, "except that we are old
+friends."
+
+"But did you never do him any great favor, Miller--any particularly
+great favor?" asked Carlin.
+
+"No," said Miller, "I cannot think of any." But after a moment's silence
+he added: "By the way, come to think of it, I did do him a little favor
+once. I saved his life."
+
+"How was it?" asked Carlin. "Why," answered Miller, "he and myself had a
+running fight with a band of renegade Indians. There were seven or eight
+of them at first, and we got them reduced to four, when one of them
+killed the broker's horse. It was a very close game then. It required
+the promptest kind of work. When the horse fell the broker was thrown
+violently on his shoulder and the side of his head and was too stunned
+to gather his wits together for a few minutes. I had a gentle horse, so
+sprang down from him and let him go. I got behind a low rock and
+succeeded in stopping two of the Indians, when the others concluded it
+was no even thing and took the back track. But the broker was "powerful"
+nervous when I got up to him. The worst of all was, I had to ride and
+tie with him for seventeen miles, and he was so badly demoralized that I
+had to do all the walking."
+
+At Reno Miller bade the others good-bye and took the west-bound train.
+Carlin sent a dispatch to an Illinois town. Late in the night the
+east-bound Overland express came in; the body of Brewster was put on
+board, the three friends entered a sleeper and the long ride began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Following a long established habit our three travelers were up next
+morning shortly after dawn.
+
+The train was then thundering over the desert northeast of Wadsworth.
+Carlin noticed the country and said:
+
+"This must be almost on the spot where poor Wright saw his wonderful
+mirage."
+
+As he spoke the bending rays of the rising sun swept along the sterile
+earth, and a shimmer in the air close to the ground revealed how swiftly
+the heat waves were advancing.
+
+"It is as Wright said; the desert grows warm at once, so soon as the
+morning sun strikes it," said Harding. "Heavens, how awful a desolation.
+It is as though the face-cloth had been lifted from a dead world."
+
+"Do you remember what Wright told us, about the appalling stillness of
+this region?" asked Ashley. "One can realize a little of it by looking
+out. Were the train not here what would there be for sound to act upon?"
+
+"Is it not pitiful," said Harding, "to think of a grand life like
+Wright's being worn out as his was? He met the terrors here when but a
+boy. From that time on there was but blow after blow of this merciless
+world's buffetings until the struggle closed in a violent and untimely
+death."
+
+"You forget," said Ashley, "that a self-contained soul and royal heart
+like his, are their own comforters. He had joys that the selfish men of
+this world never know."
+
+All that day the conversation was only awakened at intervals and then
+was not long continued. Not only the sorrow in their hearts was claiming
+their thoughts and imposing the silence which real sorrow covets; but
+the swift changes wrought in the week just passed, had really resulted
+in an entire revolution in all their thoughts and plans.
+
+It was to them an epoch. The breakfast station came, later the dinner,
+later the supper station. All the day the train swept on up the Humboldt
+valley. Along the river bottom were meadows, but about the only change
+in the monotonous scenery, was from desert plains to desert mountains
+and back again to the plains.
+
+Night came down in Eastern Nevada. When they awoke next morning the
+train was skirting the northwest shore of Great Salt Lake and the rising
+sun was painting the splendors that, with lavish extravagance, the dawn
+always pictures there on clear days, and no spot has more clear days
+during the year.
+
+Ogden was reached at nine o'clock in the morning, the transfer to the
+Union Pacific train was made; breakfast eaten, and toward noon, the
+beauties of Echo Canyon began to unfold. Green River was crossed in the
+gloaming; in the morning Laramie was passed, at noon Cheyenne, and the
+train was now on a down grade toward the East. With the next morning men
+were seen gathering their crops; the desert had been left behind and the
+travelers were now entering the granary of the Republic.
+
+Late that night the train entered Omaha. The usual delay was made; the
+transfers effected and early next morning the journey across Iowa, so
+wonderful to one who has been long in the desert, began. Ashley darted
+from side to side of the coach that he might not lose one bit of the
+view; but Harding sat still, by the window, hardly moving, but straining
+his eyes over the low waves of green, which, in the stillness of the
+summer day, seemed like a sea transfixed.
+
+Carlin was strangely restless. He did not seem to heed the scenery
+around him. He studied his guidebook and every quarter of an hour looked
+at his watch. When spoken to, he answered in an absent-minded way; it
+was plain that he was absorbed by some overmastering thought.
+
+Noon came at length, then one o'clock, then two; the train gave a long
+whistle, slackened speed, and in a moment was brought to a standstill in
+front of a station.
+
+With the first signal Carlin had sprang from his seat and walked rapidly
+toward the end of the car.
+
+"What can the matter be with Carlin?" asked Harding. "He has been half
+wild all day and altogether different from his usual self."
+
+"He will be home sometime to-night," replied Ashley. "He has been absent
+a long time, and I do not wonder at his unrest. I expect to have my
+attack next week when the southern hills of Pennsylvania lift up their
+crests, and the old familiar haunts begin to take form."
+
+"Look! Look!" said Harding. "Carlin's unrest is taking a delicious form,
+truly."
+
+Two ladies were standing on the platform. Carlin had leaped from the
+train while yet it was moving quite rapidly. He bent and kissed the
+first lady, but the second one he caught in his arms, held her in a long
+embrace and kissed her over and over again.
+
+"He has struck a bonanza," said Ashley.
+
+"And the formation is kindly," said Harding.
+
+"The indications are splendid," said Ashley. "Mark the trend of the
+vein; it is exquisite."
+
+"It does not seem to be rebellious or obstinate ore to manipulate
+either. Carlin's process seems to work like a fire assay," said Harding.
+
+"Just by the surface showing the claim is worth a thousand dollars a
+share," said Ashley. "I wonder if Carlin has secured a patent yet?"
+
+"And I wonder," said Harding, "if we are not a pair of blackguards to be
+talking this way. Let us go and meet them."
+
+The friends arose and started for the platform, but were met half way by
+Carlin and the ladies. There were formal introductions to Mrs. and Miss
+Richards. Under the blushes of the young lady could be traced the
+lineaments of the "Susie Dick" that Carlin had shown to the Club in the
+photograph.
+
+Crimson, but still smiling, the young lady said: "Gentlemen, did you see
+Mr. Carlin at the station, before a whole depot of giggling ninnies,
+too? Was ever anything half so ridiculous?" Then glancing up at Carlin
+with a forgiving look, but still in a delicious scolding tone, she
+added: "I really had hoped that the West had partly civilized him."
+
+Harding and Ashley glanced at each other with a look which said plainly
+enough, "Carlin has proved up without any contest; even if the patent is
+not already issued, his title is secure."
+
+The friends had the drawing room and a section outside. With a quick
+instinct Ashley seated the elder lady in the section, bade Harding
+entertain her, then swinging back the drawing room door, said: "Miss
+Richards, I know that you want to scold Carlin for the next hour, and he
+deserves it. Right in here is the best place on the car for the purpose.
+Please walk in." Saying which he stepped back and seated himself beside
+Harding.
+
+The elder lady was a charming traveling companion. She wanted to know
+all about the West. She knew all about the region they were passing
+through, and the whole afternoon ride was a delight.
+
+During the journey Harding and Ashley had been begging Carlin to
+accompany them to Massachusetts, and he had finally promised to give
+them a positive answer that day. After a while he emerged from the
+drawing room and said: "I am sorry, but I cannot go East with you. These
+ladies have been good enough to come out and meet me. We will all go on
+as far as Chicago and see you off, but we cannot very well extend the
+journey further. Indeed, Miss Susie intimates that I am too awkward a
+man to be safe east of Chicago."
+
+The others saw how it was and did not further importune him. Next day
+they separated, Carlin's last words being, "If you ever come within five
+hundred miles of Peoria stop and stay a month."
+
+The grand city was passed. The train swung around the end of Lake
+Michigan, leaving the magical city in its wake. Through the beautiful
+region of Southern Michigan it hurried on. Detroit was reached and
+passed; the arm of the Dominion was crossed, and finally, when in the
+early morning the train stopped, the boom of Niagara filled the air, and
+the enchantment of the picture which the river and the sunlight suspend
+there before mortals, was in full view. Next the valley of the Genesee
+was unfolded, and with each increasing mile more and more distinct grew
+the clamors of toiling millions, jubilant with life and measureless in
+energy. Swifter and more frequent was the rush of the chariots on which
+modern commerce is borne, and all the time to the eyes of the men of the
+desert the lovely homes which fill that region flitted by like the
+castles of dreamland.
+
+Later in the day the panorama of the Mohawk Valley began to unroll and
+was drawn out in picture after picture of rare loveliness.
+
+Ashley and Harding were enchanted. It was as though they had emerged
+into a new world.
+
+"Think of it, Ashley," said Harding. "It is but eight days--at this very
+hour--since we were having that wrestle with death in the depths of the
+Bullion mine. Think of that and then look around upon these serene homes
+and the lavish loveliness of this scenery."
+
+"I know now how Moses felt, when from the crest of Pisgah he looked down
+to where the Promised Land was outstretched before him," was the reply.
+"I feel as I fancy a soul must feel, when at last it realizes there is a
+second birth."
+
+Said Harding: "I dread more and more to meet these people where we are
+going. How uncouth we will seem to them and to ourselves."
+
+"Our errand will plead our excuses," said Ashley; "besides they will be
+too much absorbed with something else to pay much attention to us.
+Moreover they will know that our lives of late have been passed mostly
+under ground, and they will not expect us to reflect much light."
+
+"What are your plans, Ashley, for the near future, after this business
+which we have in hand shall be over?" asked Harding.
+
+"A home in old Pennsylvania is to be purchased," said Ashley, "and then
+a trial with my fellow men for a fortune and for such honors as may be
+fairly won. And you Harding, what have you marked out?"
+
+Said Harding: "My father's estate is to be redeemed; after that,
+whatever a strong right arm backing an honest purpose, can win. But one
+thing we must not forget. We must be the semi-guardians of those
+children of Brewster, until they shall pass beyond our care."
+
+"You are very right, my boy," said Ashley. "Brewster was altogether
+grand and his children must ever be our concernment."
+
+In the early night the Hudson was crossed and the train plunged on
+through the hills beyond. At Walpole early next morning the train was
+boarded by three gentlemen who searched out Harding and Ashley and
+introduced themselves as old friends of Brewster and his family. They
+had come out to escort the body of Brewster to Taunton, now only a few
+miles off. The names of these men were respectively Hartwell, Hill and
+Burroughs.
+
+Hartwell explained that the remains would be taken to an undertaker, and
+examined to see if it would be possible for the children and Mrs.
+Wolcott, the sister of Brewster, to look upon their father's and
+brother's face. He also said the funeral would be on the succeeding day.
+Then the particulars of the accident were asked.
+
+A full and graphic account of the whole affair had been published in the
+Virginia City papers.
+
+Copies of these were produced and handed over as giving a full idea of
+the calamity.
+
+The statement made by the superintendent of the Bullion including the
+smaller certificate of deposit, also the other effects of Brewster, all
+but the money obtained from Miller, were transferred to Mr. Hartwell.
+
+On reaching Taunton a great number of sympathizing friends were in
+waiting, for Brewster had lived there all his life until he went West
+three years before, and he was much esteemed. The manner of his death
+added to the general sympathy.
+
+A hearse in waiting, at once took the body away. The young men were
+taken to his home by Mr. Hartwell. They begged to be permitted to go to
+a hotel, but the request would not be listened to.
+
+On examination it was found that the work of the embalmer had been most
+thorough. The face of Brewster was quite natural and placid, as though
+in sleep.
+
+Breakfast was in waiting for the young men, and when it was disposed of
+they were shown again to the parlors and introduced to a score of people
+who had gathered in to hear the story of Brewster's death from the lips
+of the men who had taken his body from the deep pit and brought it home
+for burial.
+
+In the conversation which followed two or three hours were consumed.
+
+When the callers had gone, Hartwell said:
+
+"Gentlemen, I advise you to go to your rooms and try and get some rest.
+In two or three hours I shall want you to go and make a call with me, if
+the poor family of my friend can bear it."
+
+Late that afternoon Hartwell knocked on the door of the sitting room,
+which, with sleeping apartments on either side, had been given Harding
+and Ashley, and when the door was opened, he said:
+
+"Gentlemen, please come with me, the children of James Brewster desire
+to see you!"
+
+The young men arose and followed their host. Brewster had always
+referred to his daughters as his "little girls;" the man who had the
+young men to go and meet them, spoke of them as "the children of James
+Brewster." Both Harding and Ashley, as they followed Hartwell, were
+mentally framing words of comfort to speak to school misses just
+entering their teens, who were in sorrow.
+
+When then, they were ushered into the presence of two thoroughly
+accomplished young women, and when these ladies, with tears streaming
+down their faces, came forward, shook their hands, and, in broken words
+of warmest gratitude, thanked them for all they had done and were doing,
+and for all they had been to their father in life and in death, the men
+from the desert were lost in surprise and astonishment.
+
+As Harding said later: "I felt as though I was in a drift on the
+2,800-foot level, into which no air pipe had been carried."
+
+This apparition was all the more startling to them, because during the
+two or three years that they had been at work on the Comstock, the very
+nature of their occupation forbade their mingling in the society of
+refined women to any but a most limited extent.
+
+From the papers given the family by Hartwell that day, matters were
+fully understood by the sister of Brewster and the young ladies, so no
+explanations were asked. At first the conversation was little more than
+warm thanks on the part of the young ladies and modest and half
+incoherent replies.
+
+The ladies were in the humble home of their father's widowed sister,
+Mrs. Wolcott. That they were all poor was apparent from all the
+surroundings. This fact at length forced its way through the bewildered
+brain of Harding and furnished him a happy expedient to say something
+without advertising himself the idiot that he, in that hour, would have
+been willing to make an affidavit that he was. Said he:
+
+"Ladies, amid all the sorrows that we bring to you, we have, what but
+for your grief would be good news. Tell them, Ashley!"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Ashley, "we have something which is yours, and which,
+while no balm for sorrow like yours, will, we sincerely hope, be the
+means of driving some cares from your lives."
+
+Taking a memorandum from his pocket, he continued:
+
+"Your father left more property than he himself knew of. How it was
+Harding and myself will explain at some other time, if you desire. At
+present it is only necessary to say that the amount is forty-two
+thousand and six hundred dollars, for which we have brought you a bill
+of exchange." With that he extended the paper to Miss Brewster. Then
+these brave girls began to tremble and quake indeed. "It can not be,"
+said Mabel. "There must be some mistake," said Mildred.
+
+"Indeed, there is no mistake," said Harding. "See, it is a banker's
+order on a Boston bank, and is payable to your joint order. No one can
+draw it until you have both endorsed it, for it is yours."
+
+Then these girls fell into each others arms and sobbed afresh.
+
+As soon as they could the miners retired.
+
+Mabel Brewster was tall, of slender form and severely classic face. She
+had blue eyes, inherited from her mother, and that shade of hair which
+is dusky in a faint light, but which turns to gold in sunlight. Her
+complexion was very fair, her hands and arms were exquisite and her
+manners most winsome.
+
+Mildred, her sister, was of quite another type. A year and a half
+younger than Mabel, she looked older than her sister. She had her
+father's black eyes, and like him, a prominent nose and resolute mouth.
+She was lower of statue and fuller of form than her sister. She had also
+a larger hand and stronger arm. Over all was poised a superb head,
+crowned with masses of tawny hair.
+
+Standing in their simple mourning robes, with the afternoon sun shining
+around them, they looked as Helen and Cassandra might have looked, while
+yet the innocence and splendor of early womanhood were upon them.
+
+Mabel was such a woman as men dream of and struggle to possess; Mildred
+was such an one as men die for when necessary, and do not count it a
+sacrifice.
+
+[Illustration: MABEL AND MILDRED.]
+
+From the house the young men walked rapidly away, and so busy were they
+with their own thoughts that neither spoke until they entered a wooded
+park or common, and finding a rustic bench sat down.
+
+Harding was the first to speak. "After all his mighty toil; after his
+self-sacrificing life; after all his struggles, Brewster died and was
+not permitted to see his children. It is most pitiable."
+
+"May be he sees them now," said Ashley, softly. "It can not be far from
+here to Heaven."
+
+"I wish I had never seen her," said Harding, impetuously. And then all
+his reserve breaking down he arose, stretched out his arms and cried:
+
+"I wish I had died in Brewster's stead."
+
+"Is she not divine?" said Ashley. "A very Iris, goddess of the rainbow,
+bringing divine commands to man, his guide and his adviser."
+
+"Say not so," said Harding. "Rather she is Ceres, in her original purity
+returned to earth; flowers bloom under the soft light of her divine
+eyes, and all bountifulness rests in the heaven of her white arms. I
+tell you, Ashley, the man who could have that woman's eyes to smile up
+approvingly upon him, would have to move on from conquest to conquest so
+long as life lasted."
+
+An anxious look came over the face of Ashley. "Which lady do you mean?"
+he asked.
+
+"Mean!" echoed Harding. "I mean she of the royal brow and starry eyes,
+Mildred Brewster."
+
+"Thank God," said Ashley with a great sigh of relief.
+
+"And why do you thank God?" asked Harding.
+
+"Because," said Ashley, "to me Mabel is the dainty, the divine one. She
+comes upon the eye as a perfect soprano voice smites on a musical ear."
+
+"You are growing musical, are you?" said Harding. "Well then, the other
+is a celestial contralto, deep-toned and full and sweet, materialized."
+
+After this both were silent for a moment and then Ashley began to laugh
+low to himself.
+
+"What is your hilarity occasioned by?" asked Harding.
+
+"I was thinking what fools we have been making of ourselves," said
+Ashley.
+
+"And how did you reach that estimate, pray?" asked Harding.
+
+"Why, Harding," was the answer, "an hour ago we met two ladies. They
+were not what we expected to find, and they brought a sort of
+enchantment to us. We saw them first an hour ago; we will to-morrow see
+them once more, and that will be all; and still we have been raving like
+two lunatics for the past half hour about them."
+
+"You are right," was the sad reply. "See yonder on the street corner."
+
+Just then a dainty carriage and a set of heavy trucks met on the corner
+and passed each other, the carriage turning to the east, the trucks to
+the west.
+
+"Typical, is it not?" said Ashley. "The trucks go west--at least they
+will to-morrow night."
+
+"Most true," said Harding, "and still I think I would like to kiss the
+carpet that has been sanctified by the footfalls of Mildred Brewster."
+
+Ashley reached out, seized Harding's wrist and felt his pulse.
+
+"You have got it bad, Harding," said he, "and I don't feel very well
+myself. If poor Corrigan were alive again and here we would get him to
+tell us about Maggie Murphy."
+
+"We have had a mirage, Ashley. Let us pray that it will soon pass by,"
+said Harding.
+
+And then without another word being spoken, they returned to the
+hospitable house of Hartwell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+The following is the copy of a letter written by Mrs. Wolcott to the
+widow of her deceased husband's brother, Mrs. Abby Roberts, of Eastport,
+Maine:
+
+     TAUNTON, Sept. 20th, 1878.
+
+     MY DEAR SISTER:--I wrote you briefly of the dispatch announcing
+     the death of my brother James, in a Nevada mine, and that his
+     embalmed body was being brought home by two miners. Since then
+     events have crowded upon me so swiftly that I have not had
+     composure enough to think of writing.
+
+     The remains of my brother reached here on the 29th ultimo. Mr.
+     Hartwell, Mr. Hill and Mr. Burroughs went out as far as Walpole
+     on the railroad to meet the train on which the body was being
+     brought.
+
+     The miners were taken home by Mr. Hartwell. On examination my
+     poor brother's face was found to look quite natural, and it
+     wore an expression so restful that I could not help but feel as
+     though it was an indictation that after his hard physical toil
+     and fierce mental troubles, he was at peace at last.
+
+     Mabel, you know, has been with me since she graduated in June.
+     On receiving the dispatch we telegraphed to Mildred at Mt.
+     Holyoke to come home at once, so both girls were with me when
+     the remains arrived.
+
+     From the two miners who came with the body Mr. Hartwell
+     received the Nevada papers giving an account of the accident in
+     which James was killed; also a letter from the superintendent
+     of the mine, stating that after all expenses were paid my poor
+     brother left eight hundred and forty dollars to his children.
+     This we all thought was most wonderful, considering the amount
+     regularly sent the children. It shows that poor James lived a
+     most economical life in the West and that the wages paid there
+     are generous.
+
+     The letter of the superintendent stated that the two miners who
+     were to accompany the remains home had risked their lives in
+     trying to rescue James, and the published account showed that
+     one of them had fainted in the dreadful chamber of the mine
+     while the exhaustion of the other was so extreme that he was
+     entirely prostrated and seized with chills and vomiting upon
+     being brought out into the open air.
+
+     Of course myself and the girls were anxious to meet and thank
+     these men, but I confess that at the same time we all dreaded
+     the interview awfully. Good land! You know what we have been
+     reading about Western miners for the last twenty-five years,
+     and we could not help but feel that if they should prove to be
+     quiet men it would only at best be a case of wild beast with a
+     collar and chain on. And what to do with them at the funeral
+     was something which had been troubling us ever since the
+     receipt of the dispatch. It was to be in church and on Sunday
+     and it was certain that there would be a church full of people.
+     How to be polite, and at the same time how to get those men in
+     and out of a church without their doing something dreadful was
+     a question which I confess had worried me and I could see that
+     it was worrying Mabel, too. Mildred did not seem to think much
+     about it.
+
+     Mr. Hartwell called upon us and told us he was going to bring
+     them over at once and we sat down in fear and trembling to wait
+     their arrival.
+
+     You can never imagine our surprise when Mr. Hartwell showed
+     them into our parlor and we saw them for the first time. Both
+     were young men, one not more than thirty, and the other not
+     more than twenty-four years of age; both were dressed with
+     perfect taste, in dark business suits of fashionable clothes,
+     and though slightly confused--I guess startled is a better
+     word--both, with considerate gentleness, and with a grave
+     courtesy, in low voices, addressed me first and then the
+     children.
+
+     They expected to find school children, they met young ladies--I
+     may say beautiful young ladies if I am their aunt--and I think
+     the surprise for a moment threw them off their guard.
+
+     But they certainly were not more astonished than were we. Mabel
+     well nigh broke down, but Mildred, with her more matter-of-fact
+     nature, bore the ordeal nobly.
+
+     While the girls were talking I stole the opportunity to look
+     more closely at the men. My surprise increased every moment.
+     Instead of a pair of bronzed bruisers, they stood there with
+     faces that were as free from tan as the face of a
+     closely-housed woman. They were each of about medium height,
+     but with broad shoulders, tremendous chests and powerful arms.
+     The younger one had a firm foot and large hand and the frankest
+     open face you ever looked into. The other had smaller hands,
+     feet and features, but their heads were both superb, and the
+     first words they spoke revealed that both were fairly educated.
+     The younger one was light with auburn hair. He wore a heavy
+     mustache; the rest of his face was clean shaven. The other was
+     darker with gray eyes, brown hair, with full beard, but neatly
+     trimmed, and the hair of both was of fashionable cut. I tell
+     you, sister, as they stood there they would have borne
+     inspection even in Boston.
+
+     After the first greetings were over and we had all gained a
+     little composure, the men explained to us that James was
+     possessed of more property than he himself was aware of, and
+     one of them handed to Mabel a paper which he called "a bill of
+     exchange" on a Boston bank for forty two thousand six hundred
+     dollars. Since then they have explained that the money was made
+     by a friend of my brother, and that it was accomplished by
+     buying stocks when they were low and selling them when they
+     were high, which seems to me to be a most profitable business.
+     You see it makes the girls rich when they thought they were so
+     poor, and were counting only on lives of hard work.
+
+     The visit of the young men was only a very brief one, not five
+     minutes in duration it seemed to me, but they were moments of
+     great excitement to our little household as you may well
+     believe. When they were gone Mabel said: "Are they not
+     perfectly splendid?" and I said: "Indeed, they are," but
+     Mildred merely said: "They seem to be real gentlemen." That
+     Mildred is the strangest girl.
+
+     The funeral was to be the next day, and in anticipation of it
+     we had bought cheap mourning hats and plain bombazine mourning
+     habits, such as I thought would be becoming to people in our
+     circumstances. But when I learned that the girls were no longer
+     poor, I thought it would be only proper that they should have
+     more expensive dresses. So as soon as the young men had gone, I
+     sent a message to Mrs. Buffets, the dressmaker, and Mrs.
+     Tibbetts, the milliner, asking them to do me the favor to call
+     upon me at once, if possible. They both called within a few
+     minutes. Before they came, however, I explained to the girls
+     what I had done, at which Mabel was very glad, but Mildred
+     seemed perfectly indifferent. She hardly spoke after the young
+     men went away for several minutes. I think their coming had
+     turned her thoughts back more intently upon her father. Mrs.
+     Tibbetts came first and from her Mabel ordered three expensive
+     hats. I expostulated against her buying a hat for me but she
+     would have it so. When we explained what was wanted to Mrs.
+     Buffets, she declared at first that it was impossible without
+     working after twelve o'clock on Saturday night which she did
+     not like to do as she was a member in good standing in the
+     First Baptist church, but she finally agreed that she would
+     try, provided we would pay what would be extra for her sewing
+     girls. This she estimated would amount on three dresses to at
+     least seven dollars and a half. I have no idea that the girls
+     got more than half a dollar apiece extra and there were but
+     seven of them, and that the rest was clear gain to Mrs.
+     Buffets, but that is the advantage which is always taken of
+     people when there is a funeral.
+
+     We had a hard time with Mildred. She insisted that two dresses
+     and hats were all that were required, one for Mabel and one for
+     aunty; that as yet she was a school girl and the cheap raiment
+     was good enough for her. I think she would have refused to
+     yield had I not told her that unless she did I would not accept
+     either hat or habit; then she consented.
+
+     Of course, it may seem like vanity to speak of such a thing in
+     so sad a connection, but the dresses were most lovely. The
+     girls' were of rich and soft cashmere, mine was of Henrietta
+     cloth. I must say that in the new clothes the girls did look
+     beautiful at the funeral, and I was as proud of them as I could
+     be on so sad an occasion.
+
+     That Saturday evening after we talked the matter over, the
+     girls sent an invitation over to Mr. Hartwell's house to the
+     miners to attend the funeral with us. The invitation was
+     answered by the younger miner, Harding. He accepted the
+     invitation for himself and his friend, stating that Ashley (the
+     other one) was temporarily absent in the city. The note was
+     beautifully written and every word was spelled correctly.
+
+     Next morning, a few minutes before it was time to proceed to
+     the church, the young men came in.
+
+     They were scrupulously dressed in black and their attire even
+     to their hats and gloves was in perfect taste.
+
+     Mildred betrayed more agitation than on the first meeting. She
+     is a strange girl and the loss of her father almost crushed
+     her. Mabel, however, received them with a grace which was
+     queenly and in her new robes she looked like a queen indeed.
+
+     When it came time to go to the church, I supposed, of course,
+     the young men would offer to escort the girls. Besides Mildred,
+     Mabel and myself, Aunt Abigail, James' wife's grandmother had
+     come down to the funeral. You know she is old now--past 73; she
+     never was very pretty and coming down from the country her
+     dress and bonnet--good land, she was a sight.
+
+     Mabel could not conceal her mortification, and I must say I
+     should have been glad if she had not come.
+
+     As we stood up to go, the younger miner said gently: "Ashley,
+     will you not see to Mrs. Wolcott?" and then he went up to Aunt
+     Abigail and with as much kindly politeness as I ever saw
+     displayed, asked her to lean upon him in the walk to the
+     church. The other one gave me his arm, at the same time saying:
+     "The young ladies are the nearer relatives, they should walk in
+     front." His face was fair, but the arm I took was as hard as
+     iron.
+
+     I said: "No matter, Mildred take the other arm of Mr. Ashley
+     and Mabel take that of Mr. Harding!" This was done except that
+     somehow in the confusion Mildred took the arm of Harding and
+     Mabel sought the disengaged arm of Ashley.
+
+     At the church we were seated in the front pew, of course. You
+     never saw such a crowd at a funeral. I noticed as we worked our
+     way up the aisle, men there that had not been in a church
+     before for years.
+
+     There were, besides, the Brown, the Smith and the Jones
+     families who were never before known to attend an ordinary
+     funeral.
+
+     I mention this merely to show how much James was respected.
+
+     The services were most impressive. The organ was played as we
+     entered the church. When we were seated there was a short
+     prayer, then a chant with organ accompaniment was rendered.
+     Professor Van Dyke, the music teacher at the seminary, presided
+     at the organ and Jane Emerson led the sopranos. She sang her
+     best and people do tell me that they have paid money to hear
+     women sing in concerts that could not sing as well as Jane
+     Emerson. If Jane was only a little better looking and knew how
+     to dress in better style and if her father only belonged to a
+     better family, there would not be a young woman in Taunton with
+     brighter prospects than hers.
+
+     Mr. Ashman's main prayer was a most touching one and it moved
+     many in the congregation to tears. He preached from John, the
+     fourteenth chapter and eighteenth verse.
+
+         "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you."
+
+     It was generally conceded that the sermon was one of the
+     minister's best efforts since be preached in Taunton. Miss Hume
+     who was present says she never heard a finer discourse in
+     Boston.
+
+     The burden of the sermon was that the promise to send a
+     comforter to the disciples was a promise made for all time, to
+     those in sorrow, that if they would but ask, the comforter
+     would come to them. When the sermon was over and the choir had
+     sung again; the minister said, as many persons present would
+     like to know the particulars of James' death he would read the
+     account from the _Territorial Enterprise_, a paper published in
+     Virginia City only a few miles from the Nevada mines. He said
+     further that the report was written by a Mr. De Quille, who he
+     presumed was a descendant of the distinguished family of France
+     of that name, that the account showed that he was a very
+     learned man and graphic writer, and such a man could only be
+     retained by the receipt of an enormous salary.
+
+     He further explained that where the word shaft was used it
+     meant a hole like a well which men sunk in order to get the
+     rock out from underground that had silver in it, that drifts
+     were places in the mines where the rock that had the silver in
+     it lay in ridges like snow drifts; that stations were where men
+     kept lunch stands for the miners, that tunnels were holes made
+     in the shape of a funnel to get air down in the mine, that a
+     winze was a corruption for windlass, and cages were simply
+     elevators, like those in use in hotels, but made like cages so
+     that men could not fall out, that run up and down in the well.
+
+     You never at a revival saw a congregation so excited as that
+     one was during the reading of that account. They tell me that
+     men were as pale as death all over the house while the sobbing
+     of women could be heard above the reading.
+
+     But our two miners never showed a bit of emotion and never
+     seemed conscious that every eye in the church was on them. The
+     only things I noticed were that during the singing the older
+     one was softly beating time on his hymn book, and both moved a
+     little uneasily in their seats when the minister was explaining
+     the mining terms.
+
+     After the children had looked for the last time on their
+     father's face, the young men who had been standing at the foot
+     of the coffin, walked up to the head, one on each side. After a
+     long gaze at James' face they turned facing each other and
+     stretching out their hands, clasped hands a moment over the
+     coffin. I suppose that is a custom among miners in the west.
+
+     Brother's body was buried beside that of his wife.
+
+     The young men remained in Taunton two weeks after the funeral.
+     We all went on a little excursion to Buzzards Bay and to Cape
+     Cod. I never saw better behaved men, even those that come down
+     from Boston, than those two miners. They received a great many
+     attentions, too, here in Taunton and every day were obliged to
+     decline invitations to dinner.
+
+     There is a story going around, but I do not believe it is true,
+     that one morning early they went to a livery stable and asked
+     for two wild horses, regular furies, that had thrown their
+     riders the previous day, that they mounted them and the horses
+     reared and plunged awfully but they rode rapidly out of town;
+     that they were gone an hour and a half and when they returned
+     the horses were covered with foam and seemed perfectly gentle.
+
+     Just before going away they came over one day to my house and
+     telling the girls that they had received so many kindnesses
+     from so many people that they wanted to make a little picnic
+     festival in Mr. Hartwell's grounds, asked them to help suggest
+     names for the invitations. The festival was to be the next
+     afternoon. What do you think? That morning carpenters came and
+     fixed benches and tables on the grounds, the three o'clock
+     train brought the ---- Cornet Band from Boston, and at five
+     o'clock in the afternoon the waiters in the ---- Hotel
+     appeared, set the tables and waited on the guests. They had
+     sent up to Boston for the dinner and I never saw anything like
+     it in my life.
+
+     Mr. Hartwell says the expense must have been at least two
+     hundred and twenty-five dollars. Those Western men are awfully
+     extravagant.
+
+     Next morning they went away. The older one to Pennsylvania,
+     where he will live hereafter, and the other one to California,
+     where he has property. We have been real lonesome ever since
+     they went away.
+
+     Mildred left us yesterday to return to school, and will
+     graduate next June, she says on the day she is eighteen. Mabel,
+     you know, was eighteen and a half when she graduated last June,
+     but Mildred always was a little the most forward scholar of her
+     age. Since the funeral the girls have purchased some beautiful
+     clothing, and it would do your heart good to see them. My
+     letter is pretty long but I could tell you as much more if I
+     had time.
+
+     Your loving sister,
+
+     MARTHA WOLCOTT.
+
+     P. S.--I want to tell you a secret. I think that Ashley, the
+     older miner, and Mabel have a liking for each other, though I
+     don't know, except that I saw Ashley kiss Mabel as he was going
+     away. All I can say is that if they should make a match, there
+     would not be a handsomer couple in Massachusetts. It is only a
+     surmise on my part that they are fond of each other. After the
+     young men had been gone for several hours I asked Mabel if
+     there were any serious relations between her and Ashley, and
+     she answered: "Not the least serious auntie, our relations are
+     altogether pleasant."
+
+     M. W.
+
+The next letter from Mrs. Wolcott to Mrs. Roberts read like this:
+
+     TAUNTON, Sept. 13th, 1879.
+
+     MY DEAR SISTER:--It is now almost a year since I wrote you the
+     letter telling you of brother James' funeral and that I half
+     suspected a fondness had sprung up between one of the men who
+     came with the remains of James and Mabel. Well, I was correct
+     in my suspicion for last Thursday they were married and left by
+     the evening train for their future home in Pennsylvania. He has
+     an iron mine in the mountains and reduction works at Pittsburg
+     and is making money very fast. Their home is in Pittsburg.
+
+     I thought at first that I was mistaken because no letters came
+     to Mabel, but it seems Mabel made a confident of her cousin
+     George who is a conductor on a train which runs between here
+     and Providence, he hired a box in the postoffice there, Mabel's
+     letters were sent to that postoffice and George brought them to
+     her. This was done to thwart the curiosity of the wife of the
+     postmaster here. The postmaster himself is a good meaning man,
+     but his wife is a real gossip and had frequent letters come
+     from one place to Mabel the whole town would have known it in
+     no time. When it was known that the girls had received a large
+     amount of money the Browns, the Smiths and the Proctors, who
+     had never called before, all came and begged Mabel, now that
+     she had graduated, (look at the hypocrisy) to come out more in
+     the world. Young Henry Proctor called several times and in less
+     than a fortnight asked Mabel if he might not sit up with her on
+     Saturday nights. He is a very proud young man and it is said he
+     will have twelve thousand dollars when he goes out for himself
+     next year, but Mabel declined any particular attentions from
+     him. She did the same thing with half a dozen more young men of
+     the best families. I was perplexed. Of course I was in no hurry
+     for Mabel to marry, but good opportunities for girls are none
+     too plenty, so many young men go West, and when I saw her throw
+     away chance after chance, and some of them so eligible, I was
+     afraid she would be sorry sometime, for careless as girls are,
+     they all expect sometime to be married. It went on so until six
+     weeks ago when suddenly one evening Mabel said: "Auntie come go
+     with me to Boston to-morrow." "What are you going to Boston
+     for?" I asked. "There is a young man coming here to carry me
+     away in a few weeks, Aunty, and I need a few things," said she.
+     "And who is the young man, Mabel?" I asked. "Herbert Ashley,"
+     was the answer, and then she fell on her knees and burying her
+     face in my lap sobbed for joy. I cried a little, too, it was so
+     sudden. "But when were you engaged?" I asked after she grew a
+     little composed. "We have had a perfect understanding since the
+     week after father's funeral," said she, and then added: "My
+     heart followed him out of the house on that first day when I
+     had only looked once in his eyes. Is he not grand, Auntie?"
+     "But why have you never told me?" I asked. Then she put her
+     arms around me and said: "Because, dear Aunty, you know you
+     could not have kept my secret." I was hurt at this, because
+     every body knows how close mouthed I am. But I went to Boston
+     and, what do you think? that girl spent over seven hundred
+     dollars just for clothes. I remonstrated, but she cut me short,
+     saying, "I am going with my king, and I must not disgrace his
+     court." Did you ever hear such talk? When I was married I had
+     just two merino dresses, one brown and one blue, four muslin
+     dresses and some plain underclothing. But I had a beautiful
+     feather bed that I had made myself, four comforters, two
+     quilted bed spreads in small patterns, and a full set of dishes
+     that cost six dollars and a half in Portland. Things are
+     greatly changed since I was a girl. Well, Mr. Ashley came; he
+     is a splendid man. Mabel slipped away with her cousin and went
+     down to Providence to meet him. He brought Mabel jewelry that
+     the best judges here think cost as much as a thousand dollars.
+     It is shameful, the extravagance of those Western men. Why, he
+     gave the minister that married them fifty dollars, which you
+     know yourself was a clear waste of forty-five dollars. Five
+     dollars is certainly enough for five minutes work of a
+     minister, especially if he and his wife are also given a fine
+     supper. Mr. Ashley also gave Mildred some beautiful jewelry. It
+     must have cost two hundred and fifty dollars, and he was most
+     generous to me, too. On his wedding day he got five dispatches
+     from the West; one from Illinois, two from Virginia City,
+     Nevada, and two from California, congratulating him, and they
+     must have cost the senders as much as fifty dollars. Thank
+     goodness, they all came marked "paid." The wedding was in the
+     church in the evening. It had been whispered around and the
+     church was full. Land sakes, but they were a lovely couple.
+     Mabel's dress was white satin with princesse train of brocaded
+     satin. The front of the skirt was trimmed with lace flounces,
+     headed with garlands of lilies of the valley and orange
+     blossoms. She wore also a long tulle veil, with orange blossoms
+     in the hair. Her dress cost one hundred and fifty-three dollars
+     and thirty-seven cents. I did not think the train was necessary
+     and there was no need of a veil, leastwise not so long a one,
+     but it was Mabel's wish to have them, so I did not object. Mrs.
+     White said she never saw a handsomer bride in Boston nor a more
+     manly looking groom. I confess I was proud of them both. We had
+     a quiet little party at my house and a supper, and at ten
+     o'clock they went away by special train to Providence. Think of
+     the foolishness of hiring a special train, when the regular
+     train would have come by next morning. Mr. Ashley wanted to
+     have what he called a "boss wedding;" wanted to ask half the
+     town and, as he said, "shake up Taunton for once," but Mabel
+     coaxed him out of the idea. He wanted me to sell or rent my
+     place and with Mildred go and make his home mine, but I don't
+     think that is the best way. Young married folks want to be let
+     alone mostly, while they are getting acquainted with each
+     other. Mildred has been home since she graduated in June. I
+     think she has discouraged more men since she came home than
+     ever Mabel did. She has improved greatly in her personal
+     appearance and is a girl of most decided character. When she
+     first came home we used to tease her about her beaux, but we do
+     not any more. When the young men were here last year, after we
+     got pretty well acquainted, one day when they had called
+     Mildred took a sheet of paper and pen and going to Mr. Harding,
+     said: "Mr. Harding, please write an inscription to put upon
+     Father's monument." He took the pen and wrote: "The truest,
+     best of men." Well, one day about a month ago Mildred had gone
+     down town for something when Mabel wanting scissors, or thimble
+     or something which she had mislaid, went to Mildred's work
+     basket to get hers. There under some soft wools that Mildred
+     had been working upon Mabel saw the end of a ribbon and picking
+     it up drew out a locket which was attached to it. She could not
+     control her curiosity but brought it to me. I gave Mabel
+     liberty to open it though my sense of perfect justice was a
+     good deal shocked. To tell the truth I was dying to see what
+     was in it. Mabel opened it and inside there was nothing but
+     that bit of paper with the words in Harding's hand-writing:
+     "The truest, best of men." There were some stains on the paper
+     but whether they were made by kisses or tears we could not make
+     out though I put on my gold-rimmed spectacles, which are
+     powerful magnifiers, and looked my best. Mabel put the locket
+     back, but to this day there has not been a word said to give me
+     any idea whether there is anything like an engagement or not.
+     Mildred is so quiet and self-contained that if her heart was
+     breaking I do not believe she would say a word. I should be
+     glad to think they were engaged, for privately, I liked Mr.
+     Harding a little the best, but if they had been it seems to me
+     he would have been here to the wedding. I don't know when I
+     have been so worked up about anything. If I was fifteen years
+     younger, and I thought the majority of men in the West were
+     like the two that I have seen, I would sell my place and go
+     West, too.
+
+     Your affectionate sister,
+
+     MARTHA WOLCOTT.
+
+     P. S.--When Mr. Ashley was here he took the girls out to James'
+     grave. We had put up a plain stone but Mr. Ashley did not like
+     it. When he came in he ordered the finest monument in the
+     marble works. Those that have seen it say it is real Italian
+     marble, and that it is handsomer than the one that the banker
+     Sherman erected over his wife and that cost over five hundred
+     and fifty dollars.
+
+     M. W.
+
+This letter explains itself:
+
+     LOS ANGELES, Cal., March 20, 1880.
+
+     MY DARLING SISTER:--We reached our home here last night. While
+     I write the perfume of almonds and orange blossoms, of climbing
+     vines, and roses shedding their incense in lavish fragrance
+     steals in through the open window. A mocking bird is mimicking
+     an oriole's warblings, and I fancy I feel at this moment as do
+     ransomed souls when amid the mansions of the redeemed they open
+     their eyes and know that for them joy is to be eternal. You
+     have always called me "Old Matter-of-Fact." Well, then, just
+     imagine me sitting here half blinded by the tears of happiness
+     that I can not restrain.
+
+     But let me tell you of my journey. You remember that though the
+     sky was bright overhead--as bright as it can be in
+     Pittsburg--on the morning that we were married, when we took
+     the train in the evening it was snowing hard. Before morning
+     the train was delayed by the snow. We worried along, however,
+     and the next evening arrived at Peoria, Illinois. Here an old
+     friend of my husband (is not that word husband lovely?) your
+     husband and father's, with his wife met us at the depot and we
+     had to go home with them and stay two days. The man's name is
+     Carlin and he is "a splendid fellow," as they say out this way.
+     He was one of the Club to which our husbands belonged. He has a
+     mill, store and farm a few miles from Peoria and seems to be
+     the first man in that region. He has, too, a charming wife whom
+     he calls "Susie Dick," and a six months' old baby which he
+     calls "Brewster Miller Carlin." They are as hearty people in
+     their friendship as I ever met. They asked all about your
+     husband, and yourself, and I had to get out your photograph to
+     convince them that you were far more beautiful than myself.
+     When we arrived Mr. Carlin sent out and got in some twenty
+     couples, and to use his own expression, "we made a night of
+     it," and "painted the town red," that is until midnight. They
+     made me sing and play, and one old gentleman present made me
+     proud, by telling me "you beat ord'nary primer donners." After
+     the company retired Mr. Carlin asked me how I liked the old
+     gentleman's pronunciation, and then husband said the old
+     gentleman knew as much about music as our minister in Taunton
+     did about mining. Then he told Mr. Carlin what Mr. Ashman said
+     about tunnels, drifts, stations, etc., and the man laughed
+     until the tears ran down his cheeks. Well, at length, with
+     blessings, presents, and packed lunch baskets, we got away. All
+     through Illinois and Iowa the world was hid by the snow, we
+     passed Omaha, crossed Nebraska, climbed the Rocky Mountains and
+     came down on this side, and swept across the desert of Nevada
+     to Reno. Here we stopped and next day went to Virginia City. I
+     wanted to visit the place where our father died. In Virginia
+     City--which is a city on a desert mountain side--you cannot
+     conceive of such a place--the wind was blowing a hurricane;
+     blowing as at the old home, it comes in sometimes from the
+     ocean in a southeaster. Husband took me to the fatal Bullion
+     shaft. The men were just then changing shift as they call it;
+     the men who had worked eight hours were coming out of the mine,
+     those who were to work the next eight hours were going down.
+     The shaft is half a mile deep and the cage loaded with nine men
+     shoots up out of the dreadful gloom or drops back into it as
+     though it were nothing. Many of the miners greeted husband
+     warmly, and were hearty in their welcomes to me, though they
+     were not encumbered by any great amount of clothing. I turned
+     away from the shaft almost in a panic, I could not bear to took
+     at it. But Virginia City is a wonderful place, I would tell you
+     more of it, if you had not some one near you who can tell it
+     much better than I can. We met a great many pleasant people
+     there, especially a lawyer named Col. Savage, a journalist, a
+     Mr. Strong and a Professor Stoneman. They met us like brothers
+     and spoke of your Herbert as another brother. We left that same
+     evening and returning to Reno started up the Sierras. I confess
+     that a feeling of something like desolation took possession of
+     me. The region was so dreary, it seemed to me that only my
+     husband was between me and chaos. After leaving Reno a couple
+     of hours, we entered the snow sheds and I went to sleep with a
+     thought that I was under a mountain of snow. I wakened next
+     morning in Sacramento and when I looked out the birds were
+     singing and flowers were blooming around me. Before noon we
+     reached San Francisco and drove to the Palace. There we were
+     met by a gentleman named Miller, the one that made for father
+     our money. He is very rich. He told husband that he had been
+     "coppering" the market ever since he came to the city and had
+     "taken every trick." Later I asked husband what "coppering"
+     meant and he smiled and said: "betting that it will not win." I
+     do not quite understand it yet, but I know it is right for
+     husband says so. This Mr. Miller told husband that he was going
+     to make me a present and that he must not say a word at which
+     Sammy said "go ahead." Then he handed me a little package but
+     said I must not open it until I reached home. What do you
+     think? It is a diamond cluster which the cost of must have been
+     fifteen hundred dollars. In San Francisco I found the most
+     delicious flowers I ever saw. Tell aunty, too, that there are
+     no such hotels, as one or two in San Francisco, "not even in
+     Boston." There are splendid churches and theatres. The Bay is
+     beautiful, the park is going to be grand, the ladies dress most
+     richly. We sailed over to Saucelito and San Rafael, looked out
+     through the Golden Gate--in short, ran around for a week. Then
+     we came directly home, reaching this place last night.
+
+     A charming supper was in waiting, and, all smiles, the Chinaman
+     who prepared it was in attendance. His name is Yap Sing, and he
+     has been with husband ever since his first return from the
+     East. He was the cook for the Club which you have heard our
+     husbands talk about, and of course knew father. He fairly ran
+     over with joy at our coming, and such a cook as he is. I would
+     like to hear what Aunt Martha would say to one of his dinners.
+     But husband pays him forty dollars a month. Is not that a
+     dreadful price for a cook?
+
+     We have received good news since coming home. Husband's mine in
+     Arizona is yielding him for his one-half interest twelve
+     hundred and fifty dollars per month.
+
+     My house is a beautiful cottage, with broad halls and verandas,
+     and is furnished elegantly all through.
+
+     My heart runs over with gratitude. My soul is on its knees in
+     thankfulness all the time. I believe I am the happiest woman in
+     the world. "The truest and best of men" sits across the room
+     writing letter after letter, clearing up a delayed
+     correspondence. He is handsomer than on that day when I first
+     looked in his eyes, and knew in an instant that he was my fate,
+     that I should worship him forever, whether he knew it or not;
+     that if he did not ask me to be his wife, I should never be a
+     wife, but by myself should walk through life bearing my burdens
+     as humbly and bravely as I could, and keeping my heart warm by
+     the flame in the vestal lamp which his smile had kindled within
+     it.
+
+     Now heaven has opened to me, and so jubilant is my heart that I
+     can feel it throbbing as I write, and with a thankfulness
+     unspeakable I worship at my hero's feet.
+
+     With warmest love to you, dear sister, and to your husband and
+     Auntie, in which my other self joins heartily, I am
+
+     Your loving sister,
+
+     MILDRED BREWSTER HARDING.
+
+     P. S.--Sister: This morning as we sat here I asked my lord why
+     he and your husband clasped hands over our father's coffin.
+     Waiting a moment, he answered that on the journey East with
+     father's body, your husband and himself made a covenant
+     together that henceforth, whatever might happen, they would
+     watch over us as a sacred trust received from our father, and
+     that the hand-clasp was but an involuntary pledge of the
+     sincerity of that compact.
+
+     Can we ever be good enough wives to these men who do not half
+     realize how grand they are?
+
+     Love and kisses,
+
+     MILDRED.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Comstock Club, by Charles Carroll Goodwin
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