Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 35

Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 35

On explaining my situation, he very good-naturedly informed me that

I was in the wrong road entirely; and that I ought to have taken the

right hand turning several miles back, at somebody's ranch. I thanked

him, and promised to follow his directions to the very letter, if ever

I travelled that way again, but what I wanted to know then was the

nearest way to Georgetown. Opening his mouth, and setting his eyes

very hard on vacancy, while he pressed his forefinger on his nether

lip, he appeared to meditate for a moment; and then replied, pointing

with his whip, that the nearest way was over that hill yonder, but if

he was me he should go right on to Greenwood Valley and take a clean

start from there.

 

I very reluctantly followed his advice, and having obtained a drink

of water from a lonely shingle-maker I encountered in the forest,

I hastened on, and came in due time to the prettiest village I had

seen in California. The single broad street with its bright white

houses, of canvass indeed, instead of painted clapboards, reminded me

strongly of New England; but I had just then little relish of beauty

of any sort, and was passing through in very ill humour, when I was

saluted with, "Hullo, stranger! is that you?" and turning round, I

recognised, to my equal pleasure and surprise, one of the company who

had started with us from Mormon Island and afterwards left us, as

already narrated, on their way to Rector's Bar. The judge was there

also, keeping a bowling alley and its usual concomitants; and a little

further down the street two more of the company partners in a store

and boarding house. They confirmed the accounts we had already heard

of Rector's; on their arrival at that place in April, they found the

ground white with snow, provisions enormously dear, and no possibility

of doing any thing for months. They finally broke up their camp, and

came down to Greenwood, where they had been so far successful as to

make them forget their former losses.

 

A tedious walk of eight miles brought me to Georgetown, where I

stopped half an hour to rest, very foolishly as it happened; for

when I prepared to go, I could hardly rise from my seat, and did not

succeed in gaining an erect position till I reached the bottom of the

hill at Cañon Creek. Sitting down on a log that bridged the sluggish

current, I bathed my feet in the muddy water, and, thus refreshed,

made my way down the mountain at Ford's Bar, just as the miners were

returning from their day's work.

 

The next morning, the river having now fallen sufficiently, we made

trial of the spot where we had designed building a wing-dam, but

found that the great depth of water at that place rendered such

an undertaking altogether impracticable. We spent several of the

succeeding days in running up and down the river, in pursuit of some

of those rich pickings we had so confidently expected; but without

success. Lest the reader should think this was entirely our own fault,

I would add, that we did not find them, because they were not there.

The banks, instead of improving as the waters receded, became even

worse and worse--the first miners, naturally, commenced at low-water

mark, and they had done their work so effectually, that nothing was

left for their successors.

 

Before leaving Ford's Bar, we determined, however, to make one more

trial of damming, and selected for that purpose a portion of the river

just above the mouth of Otter Creek. For two whole days I stood up to

my middle in water, painfully scooping out the sand and gravel with

a long-handled shovel; and, in all that time, owing to the peculiar

difficulties of the situation, only succeeded in digging a hole four

feet in depth. As there was very little gold in any of the earth I

had thrown out, we went no further; but another party, undeterred

by our example, at once took possession, and having, after several

weeks, completed their dam, found, to their own chagrin and our

equal complacency, that the place was, as we had concluded, entirely

worthless.

 

We now made up our minds to leave the Middle Fork as soon as possible,

and sent Tertium on in advance to make a rapid and comprehensive

survey of the diggings for a distance of ten or fifteen miles above

Mormon Island.

 

While he was gone, we still continued to mine here and there along

the banks. Returning, one day, from a longer tramp than usual, we

came to a tent occupied by a party we had met several months before,

on their first arrival in the mines. They were then in fine spirits;

not even the clumsy packs, that bent them almost double, could crush

their vigorous hope; and though I tried, with most disinterested

benevolence, to moderate their extravagant expectations, it was easy

to see that they gave no credit to my assertions. One of their number

now lay in his graveclothes before their door; and his companions,

themselves enfeebled by sickness, were waiting till some one should

pass who would assist in carrying the body to the grave.

 

We offered our services, and, each taking a handle of the rude bier

to which the body was lashed, we walked on in silence, our companions

leading the way. After proceeding a quarter of a mile down the river,

over such a path as we have already described, we turned to the left

and began to ascend the mountain at the only place practicable in that

neighbourhood. It was extremely steep and slippery; and it was only

by clinging to the bushes, and sliding the bier along the ground,

that we at length reached the elevated shelf or plateau where the

grave had been dug. A few handfuls of fern were thrown over the body,

wrapt simply in a blanket; two boards laid upon it, in the form of a

roof; the earth thrown in, and all was over. Our companions thanked us

for our assistance, and we returned to the bar, to inform the doctor

that the patient he had seen almost well the day before, was dead and

buried.

 

Sunday, came a letter from Tertium, advising us to return to Mormon

Island, or Natoma, as it was now called; and the next Wednesday we

packed our luggage on two mules, almost extinguishing them beneath the

cumbrous load, and began, for the last time, painfully to ascend the

winding path by which alone we could reach the lofty table-land above.

We were obliged to halt repeatedly to re-adjust some perverse rocker

or impracticable frying-pan; and, once or twice, the whole concern,

mule and all, was only saved from rolling, in an avalanche of legs

and tin kettles, down the mountain, by our catching sudden hold of

the bridle, and, with the other hand, griping fast the bushes. Having

reached the top in safety, we stopped awhile to breathe; then, filing

softly on through the glorious pine forest, demolishing a whole colony

of ant-lions at every step--like some moon-headed giant, striding from

one planet to another, and unwittingly dusting away with his foot

Broadway or St. Paul's--we came in a few hours to Georgetown, where we

stopped till the next day.

 

We took supper at an eating-house kept by an honest Missourian, who

had come across the Plains, and brought with him his whole family. He

had the highest opinion of California, and well he might; one of his

children, an interesting little girl of five, having already received

quite a handsome dowry, a pint cupful of gold, presented to her at

different times by the hard-fisted miners, whom her infantile grace

had so pleasantly reminded of their own distant firesides.

 

We found very comfortable and genteel lodgings under an immense

hay-rick, containing several hundred tons, in one corner of the

village; and the next morning, having found a wagon going down to

Sacramento, engaged the driver for ten dollars, to carry our luggage

as far as Natoma. We rode this last part of the way, and had thus

an opportunity of learning each other's experience. Our driver was

comparatively a novus homo; he had been but a few months in the

country, yet had already made several thousand dollars, and evidently

placed no faith in our assertions, that we had, thus far, met with

nothing but disappointment. He could not understand how a man could

be a whole year in California without acquiring at least a moderate

fortune. He had a store far up on the Middle Fork, where he was doing

a fine business; and was now going down to Sacramento for a fresh

supply of goods. It was not in human nature to feel no touches of

envy, as we listened to his confident anticipations; yet I was really

sorry on hearing, several months after, that he had lost his whole

property by the failure of an extensive damming operation, in which he

was largely interested. This is but a specimen of the ups and downs of

California life.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XVIII.

 

 

Friday, August 10th, we arrived at Natoma, neither richer nor

poorer than when we left that place four months before, but yet

congratulating ourselves that it was no worse. Hundreds, who had

like us illustrated the fable of the Dog and the Shadow, had not

escaped half so easily, having lost not only the whole summer, but all

their previous earnings. Nowhere else is it so true that a rolling

stone gathers no moss; and nowhere else has the said stone the same

temptation to roll as in California.

 

We found Tertium domiciliated with Number Four in a tent which the

latter had erected with such taste and elegance as might in the mines

fairly be termed magnificent. The interior was decorated with bright

blankets of different colours, and festoons of cedar;--the floor

covered with a carpet of snowy canvass; and the cot bedsteads standing

on opposite sides seemed to promise the highest possible amount of

single blessedness. Some Vandal had applied a torch to our former

camp, and nothing now remained but a black unsightly blot. We pitched

our tent hard by, and having concocted a savoury lobster salad, fell

to thinking most vigorously what we should do next. By the time we had

discussed the salad, we had come to the conclusion to make another

attack upon the bank we had deserted in the spring, where we hoped

to find work enough to last till winter, and gold enough to take us

home, and buy a suit of clothes in which to present ourselves to our

admiring friends. We had long before this been compelled to abandon

our original purpose of returning home like princes in disguise,

clothed in rags and tatters, but having a royal ransom hidden beneath

every patch.

 

The spot we now selected for our encampment was in the centre of

the short ravine already described, and a little beyond the part we

proposed to work. Close by the side of the tent the bank rose abruptly

to the height of ten or twelve feet, and leaning over it, on its very

verge, stood a gigantic pine, with long heavy branches,--its roots,

bare and knotted, seeming, like the barky claws of the Arabian roc, to

gripe fast hold of the soil. Between the ravine and the river rose a

small rocky island, or what would have been such ages before, with a

few bushes resembling the horse-chestnut growing on the scanty patches

of earth among bald masses of polished granite. Directly in front of

this island a party of miners called the South Fork Damming Company

were making preparations to drain the river; and among its numbers we

found the same ubiquitous individual so often mentioned as the Judge.

Between this point and Mormon Island several other companies were

occupied in the same manner, and large piles of lumber, to be used in

constructing their various flumes, were already scattered here and

there along the banks.

 

Our old claim still remained as we left it, no one having had the

hardihood to assail its impregnable front now baked into yet greater

hardness by a five months' drought. It was easy to see at a single

glance that there was work enough there for a hundred men; as to the

gold, that remained to be decided. We were in no hurry, however,

to commence the attack; it was necessary first to reconnoitre the

bank; digging with the pick was very laborious, and we might perhaps

devise some easier way; the heat was excessive, and in the mean time

we had enough to do in making our home more comfortable. We built a

bower before the door to serve as a dining-room, and drove a number

of stout stakes into the ground to support the smooth stone slab

that furnished us with a table. At a little distance we built a rude

fireplace of stones. The pine-cones that covered the ground made an

excellent fuel; our frying-pan and coffee-pot set up their wonted song

as cheerfully as ever, and once more our little Lares and Penates came

frisking and capering round our hearthstone. We now made up our minds to remain another winter.