One of my comrades there—another of those victims of eighteen years
of unrequited toil and blighted hopes—was one of the gentlest
spirits that ever bore its patient cross in a weary exile: grave and
simple Dick Baker, pocket-miner of Dead-House Gulch.—He was
forty-six, gray as a rat, earnest, thoughtful, slenderly educated,
slouchily dressed and clay-soiled, but his heart was finer metal than any
gold his shovel ever brought to light—than any, indeed, that ever
was mined or minted.
Whenever he was out of luck and a little down-hearted, he would fall to
mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used to own (for where women
and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they
must love something). And he always spoke of the strange sagacity of that
cat with the air of a man who believed in his secret heart that there was
something human about it—may be even supernatural.
I heard him talking about this animal once. He said:
“Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of Tom Quartz,
which you’d a took an interest in I reckon—most any body
would. I had him here eight year—and he was the remarkablest cat I
ever see. He was a large gray one of the Tom specie, an’ he had more
hard, natchral sense than any man in this camp—’n’ a power
of dignity—he wouldn’t let the Gov’ner of Californy be
familiar with him. He never ketched a rat in his life—’peared
to be above it. He never cared for nothing but mining. He knowed more
about mining, that cat did, than any man I ever, ever see. You
couldn’t tell him noth’n ’bout placer diggin’s—’n’
as for pocket mining, why he was just born for it.
“He would dig out after me an’ Jim when we went over the hills
prospect’n’, and he would trot along behind us for as much as
five mile, if we went so fur. An’ he had the best judgment about
mining ground—why you never see anything like it. When we went to
work, he’d scatter a glance around, ’n’ if he didn’t
think much of the indications, he would give a look as much as to say,
‘Well, I’ll have to get you to excuse me,’
’n’ without another word he’d hyste his nose into the
air ’n’ shove for home. But if the ground suited him, he would
lay low ’n’ keep dark till the first pan was washed, ’n’
then he would sidle up ’n’ take a look, an’ if there was
about six or seven grains of gold he was satisfied—he didn’t
want no better prospect ’n’ that—’n’ then he
would lay down on our coats and snore like a steamboat till we’d
struck the pocket, an’ then get up ’n’ superintend. He
was nearly lightnin’ on superintending.
“Well, bye an’ bye, up comes this yer quartz excitement. Every
body was into it—every body was pick’n’ ’n’
blast’n’ instead of shovelin’ dirt on the hill side—every
body was put’n’ down a shaft instead of scrapin’ the
surface. Noth’n’ would do Jim, but we must tackle the
ledges, too, ’n’ so we did. We commenced put’n’
down a shaft, ’n’ Tom Quartz he begin to wonder what in the
Dickens it was all about. He hadn’t ever seen any mining like that
before, ’n’ he was all upset, as you may say—he couldn’t
come to a right understanding of it no way—it was too many for him.
He was down on it, too, you bet you—he was down on it powerful—’n’
always appeared to consider it the cussedest foolishness out. But that
cat, you know, was always agin new fangled arrangements—somehow
he never could abide’em. You know how it is with old habits.
But by an’ by Tom Quartz begin to git sort of reconciled a little,
though he never could altogether understand that eternal sinkin’
of a shaft an’ never pannin’ out any thing. At last he got to
comin’ down in the shaft, hisself, to try to cipher it out. An’
when he’d git the blues, ’n’ feel kind o’scruffy,
’n’ aggravated ’n’ disgusted—knowin’
as he did, that the bills was runnin’ up all the time an’ we
warn’t makin’ a cent—he would curl up on a gunny sack in
the corner an’ go to sleep. Well, one day when the shaft was down
about eight foot, the rock got so hard that we had to put in a blast—the
first blast’n’ we’d ever done since Tom Quartz was born.
An’ then we lit the fuse ’n’ clumb out ’n’
got off ’bout fifty yards—’n’ forgot ’n’
left Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny sack.
“In ’bout a minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the
hole, ’n’ then everything let go with an awful crash, ’n’
about four million ton of rocks ’n’ dirt ’n’ smoke
’n; splinters shot up ’bout a mile an’ a half into the
air, an’ by George, right in the dead centre of it was old Tom
Quartz a goin’ end over end, an’ a snortin’ an’ a
sneez’n’, an’ a clawin’ an’ a reachin’
for things like all possessed. But it warn’t no use, you know, it
warn’t no use. An’ that was the last we see of him for
about two minutes ’n’ a half, an’ then all of a sudden
it begin to rain rocks and rubbage, an’ directly he come down
ker-whop about ten foot off f’m where we stood Well, I reckon he was
p’raps the orneriest lookin’ beast you ever see. One ear was
sot back on his neck, ’n’ his tail was stove up, ’n’
his eye-winkers was swinged off, ’n’ he was all blacked up
with powder an’ smoke, an’ all sloppy with mud ’n’
slush f’m one end to the other.
“Well sir, it warn’t no use to try to apologize—we
couldn’t say a word. He took a sort of a disgusted look at hisself,
’n’ then he looked at us—an’ it was just exactly
the same as if he had said—’Gents, may be you think it’s
smart to take advantage of a cat that ’ain’t had no experience
of quartz minin’, but I think different’—an’
then he turned on his heel ’n’ marched off home without ever
saying another word.
“That was jest his style. An’ may be you won’t believe
it, but after that you never see a cat so prejudiced agin quartz mining as
what he was. An’ by an’ bye when he did get to goin’
down in the shaft agin, you’d ’a been astonished at his
sagacity. The minute we’d tetch off a blast ’n’ the fuse’d
begin to sizzle, he’d give a look as much as to say: ’Well, I’ll
have to git you to excuse me,’ an’ it was surpris’n’
the way he’d shin out of that hole ’n’ go f’r a
tree. Sagacity? It ain’t no name for it. ’Twas inspiration!”
I said, “Well, Mr. Baker, his prejudice against quartz-mining was
remarkable, considering how he came by it. Couldn’t you ever cure
him of it?”
“Cure him! No! When Tom Quartz was sot once, he was always
sot—and you might a blowed him up as much as three million times
’n’ you’d never a broken him of his cussed prejudice
agin quartz mining.”
The affection and the pride that lit up Baker’s face when he
delivered this tribute to the firmness of his humble friend of other days,
will always be a vivid memory with me.
At the end of two months we had never “struck” a pocket. We
had panned up and down the hillsides till they looked plowed like a field;
we could have put in a crop of grain, then, but there would have been no
way to get it to market. We got many good “prospects,” but
when the gold gave out in the pan and we dug down, hoping and longing, we
found only emptiness—the pocket that should have been there was as
barren as our own.—At last we shouldered our pans and shovels and
struck out over the hills to try new localities. We prospected around
Angel’s Camp, in Calaveras county, during three weeks, but had no
success. Then we wandered on foot among the mountains, sleeping under the
trees at night, for the weather was mild, but still we remained as
centless as the last rose of summer. That is a poor joke, but it is in
pathetic harmony with the circumstances, since we were so poor ourselves.
In accordance with the custom of the country, our door had always stood
open and our board welcome to tramping miners—they drifted along
nearly every day, dumped their paust shovels by the threshold and took
“pot luck” with us—and now on our own tramp we never
found cold hospitality.
Our wanderings were wide and in many directions; and now I could give the
reader a vivid description of the Big Trees and the marvels of the Yo
Semite—but what has this reader done to me that I should persecute
him? I will deliver him into the hands of less conscientious tourists and
take his blessing. Let me be charitable, though I fail in all virtues
else.
Note: Some of the phrases in the above are mining technicalities,
purely, and may be a little obscure to the general reader. In “placer
diggings” the gold is scattered all through the surface dirt; in
“pocket” diggings it is concentrated in one little spot; in
“quartz” the gold is in a solid, continuous vein of rock,
enclosed between distinct walls of some other kind of stone—and
this is the most laborious and expensive of all the different kinds of
mining. “Prospecting” is hunting for a “placer”;
“indications” are signs of its presence; “panning out”
refers to the washing process by which the grains of gold are separated
from the dirt; a “prospect” is what one finds in the first
panful of dirt—and its value determines whether it is a good or a
bad prospect, and whether it is worth while to tarry there or seek
further.
