{"collection":"mor","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/mor/tfd/chap14.htm","path":"mor/tfd/chap14.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/mor/tfd/chap14.htm","text":"\"Riches certainly make themselves wings\"\nProverbs\nTHE prospector is the man that makes mining possible. It is his enterprise, his \neverlasting faith in prospects, his nerve and calm courage, that does the trick. \nHe casts a charm about lone grey hills whose land value is about \"two bits\" per \nsquare mile, the price of a California miner's drink. He rambles in the chaparral, \nsage brush; and is familiar with the owl's hoot, the coyote's howl, and the rattler's \nhiss. But he enjoys his tin can repast, over a stick fire, amid such scenes; since \nhe lives expectant that a stumble of his foot may unearth rich rock, that will give \nrise to a camp to be known by his name as the discoverer. Red Dick was such a man. \nI met him on the slope of the Little Cottonwood Canyon one hot afternoon in July. \nIn midsummer the granite walls of this canyon absorb the sun's rays, and the flinty \nrocks reflect this heat from side to side. The bed of the canyon is at furnace heat \nduring mid-day, only cooling with the evening breeze.\nRed Dick was wiping the sweat from a very rubicund face with an old red kerchief, \nwhich he wore loose about his lean red neck: the red flannel shirt tucked into his \nold pants accentuated his color characteristics, and the afternoon's heat. He was \nspitting and swearing, when I came up to him, on the trail to Alta City. His bottle \nwas broken, for a slip from his hand just as he lifted it, had let it fall on a \nsharp flint at his feet. I saw disappointment on the face of a thirsty and bibulous \nman. It was not water he had lost, but the favorite old rye whiskey in common use, \nand this gave greater volubility to his strong words. Strong waters always beget \nwords under the stress of excitement.\n\"Say, Stranger, this is tough luck! Lost my drink just at the lip!\"\nHe eyed me anxiously, with the evident hope that I had something stimulating hidden \nin my pocket. Well, I had. It was not whiskey for I cannot drink the stuff. I wonder \nthat so many men like its flavour. But I like wine, for my ancestors all drank it \nat meals, and I had been accustomed to its use, in that way, from the days of my \nyouth. I always thought of wine, beer, or ale as a beverage to be used as one uses \nmilk, tea, coffee, or water to quench thirst agreeably.\nIt was not a temperance age or locality, and a strong drink was something everybody \ntook, or expected to take on a suitable occasion. What I had was a flask of wine, \nsome old Port, as a cordial for the body when overtaxed or chilled.\n\"Here is something as good as what you have lost,\" I handed my flask to him, with \na smile. He eyed it and myself, and grinned in a friendly way. Next he tilted it \nto his dry mouth, and shut his eyes while its contents gurgled down his long red \nthroat, his Adam's apple working vigorously. He was a gentleman, he knew when to \nstop. He took a good drink as he knew' I wished him to, but he left me half the \ncontents, wiped the flask with his sleeve, and handed it back.\n\"Good stuff if it is wine! It hit the right spot at this pertickeler time.\"\nI saw that he was a character, and was a promising find for a good story, so I set \nout to interview him, like a reporter.\nAs to outfit, he was evidently down to bedrock. A miner in luck is well, though \nroughly dressed. This man had no coat, a very dirty shirt and hat; while his overalls \nwere held up by one lone suspender. His boots, of course, were well down at the \nheel, and almost open at the toes. Held by a thin rope across his chest, his bundle \nof blankets hung under his arm. They were as well worn as his clothes. He had tobacco \nand a pipe, for these implements of the solitary came into sight straightway after \nthe drink, and he filled up and asked for a match. Soon the smoke was on, and I \nsaw that he was ready for a yarn, and so at it I went.\n\"Yes, I'm down, but I'm not out, pardner! You can see that without my saying it. \nI've been down many a time, but never quite out. Some day I'll finish in luck or \nout of it; for this life is a strange deal to some of us. Say! I've known the day \nwhen I wore good clothes like yours. I got a bit of an education to start with, \nso I knew something about chemicals and assay work. Yes! I'm an old Californian, \nand just missed being a forty-niner. I was on the American River back of Sacramento, \nin the early days, and panned out a heap of gold dirt in those placer diggin's. \nYes! I struck it rich there, but lost most of my pile when I visited Frisco with \na bunch of the boys. But I had a good time, you bet!\n\"No! never thought, in those days, of settling down, or going into business. You \nsee! those times were pretty free, and the dust came easy from the sands and rocks. \nWe thought it would never let up, but just go on that way; so what was the use of \nsaving the dust? Well! once I did buy a place. A poor fellow had made a farm out \nof some flat bottom land on the Yuba River near Marysville. He wanted to go East \nto see his folks, as he was on his last legs, being a one-lunger. I had coin then, \nand he hit me in a soft spot I have at times. So I bought him out. You never saw \na feller so glad as this poor guy, when he had my wad.\n\"Well! I had a ranch on my hands, and a mighty fine vineyard too. I had stock and \ntools; a house and barn. In fact the whole outfit was there. The boys plagued me \nto marry a widow who had five kids of her own. She kept a feeding house in Marysville, \nand the boys said it was a duty I owed society to hitch up with her. Well! I didn't \ndo it. I wasn't a marrying sort in those days. I might have done it once back where \nI came from. I ain't going to say where that was. That's all closed,-final. But \nshe was cattish, and turned me down in a pet. So I felt very sore, and I ain't got \nover it yet.\n\"My ranch was a bother to me, for I didn't know a thing about farming. I like roving, \nand this thing called for settling down. What d'ye think settled it? The Yuba River!\n\"There came a flood such as you don't often see. The whole Sacramento Valley looked \nlike a lake for weeks, and my ranch was washed clean off the earth by the time the \nwater went down. You never saw such rain, about like it was when Noah went into \nthe ark. Of course my ground showed up after the freshit, but there wasn't a thing \non it, but mud and rocks, with some stranded logs and timber. House, vineyard, crops, \nstock all gone. So I let it slide, since the Yuba River had changed its course, \nand ran partly over my land.\n\"I wasn't pertickler sorry for I itched to get at a pick again. So the old life \nwent on. Flush one year and busted the next. Went with the rush to every new diggin's, \ntill I got the rhumaticks bad and had to quit for a time.\n\"Well! I set up a sort of resort at Stockton, which I bought with some coin I had \nleft. I fed the travellers on the road to the mines. I liquored them at a bar, and \nlet them gamble in my back room. You bet I was popular. This sort of thing did for \na while, till a town fire burned out the whole side of the street, and my outfit \nwent up in smoke.\n\"No insurance? Of course not. We weren't that careful in those days. Bedrock again. \nThen I joined a band of rangers to run out the cattle thieves, and greaser bandits, \nwhich were playing hob with the valley folks. In one hot scrimmage I got a ball \nin the thigh that stopped horse riding for good, and brought back my old rhumatiks.\n\"I was in a hospital in Frisco for about five months, with one thing and another. \nThe Doc treated me fine, but shot an awful lot of stuff into my stummick in that \nlength of time.\n\"I came out thin as a lath, but full of go. I went mining again, this time in quartz \nrock, on the Mother Lode, at Sonora town. It was shaft sinking, and I worked for \npay, not for prospects. I kept right poor, for it always took the whole of my wages \nto live. D'ye notice that's the way with a salary man, he can't save a bean, for \nthe life of him?\n\"Think of old age? No, never crossed my mind once 'til one day in a barber shop \nI saw I was gettin' grey and bald. You see I come of a stock that frosts early at \ntop.\n\"Then came the Colorado rush, and it carried me right off my feet so to speak. A \nmining rush always took with me. I joined a party of surveyors, and we put through \nthe desert for Denver. If I was a writer I could fill a book with stuff about that \ntrip. I tell you we saw some awful things; but to go on with this truthful yarn, \npard-ner, I prospected at Fairplay and Cripple Creek. But, Lord! it wasn't like \nthe old diggin's on the Feather and Yuba Rivers above Marysville. No?\nCaliforney's the mining ground for me. It took just four years to get foot-loose, \nand back to the coast; as far as this derned Mormon country. Say! I've just left \nthem Emma Mine fellers, they are sports, all right; but no good at cheating, like \nthem Yankee sharpers that sold them that salted claim at such a Bonanza figure. \nYes! I'm on my way to Frisco, but I'm to try Bingham on this lap. Anything doing \nover there, pardner?\"\nI have put his story in, almost without a break, but I had to question him, at times, \nto keep him going, in my endeavor to get his life story.\nHe was evidently nearing the age of sixty, and I suppose, this old prospector would \ngo on in his way of life, till some day he would go over the \"divide,\" with about \nthe same possessions he had when he came into this strange life.\nLooking at it in a broad spirit, would he not be as well-to-do, as the man of millions, \nwho, in dying, leaves his wealth behind for his sons to squander, or his relatives \nto fight over?\nRolling stones gather no moss was written on his face, and would be the fitting \nepitaph over his worn body, when it occupied the only piece of ground that he would \nown, when-Life's fitful dream was over.\nWe exchanged a few things. He gave me some odd specimens out of his pocket, and \nI gave him a few supplies from my travelling bag; for I was horseback, riding old \nBlueskin, a veteran canyon horse, on my way to Alta City.\nThe last I saw of him was his ragged hat, bobbing above some rocky points, as he \nswung around a bend in the trail, going down hill to the valley below, like a thousand \nmore men of this strange, strident, virile breed of prospectors. He was a fair type \nof a set of men without whom the great Rocky West could not have been opened to \nsettlement, railroads, and commerce.\nIt was a long uphill ride to Alta City, with frowning walls high on either hand. \nTurn after turn was passed, till at last we struck the snow level, a little short \nof nine thousand feet altitude. I stopped awhile at a wayside restaurant, kept by \na dapper little woman and her midget of a husband. She gave me a meal for a dollar,-one \negg, two soda biscuits, a dab of butter, two \"corn pancakes with a little syrup \nin a dirty glass, a cup of coffee-of rather a washy kind-for my outlay. She said \n\"vittles was dear as freight was high.\"\nShe was proud of her husband, dubbed him \"her man,\" and asked me if I did not think \nhim a \"proper sort,\" as he went out the back to hack at some sticks for the fire. \nHe seemed so obedient that the big black cigar in his mouth looked out of place. \nShe said that it was his \"only failing,\" and that a man ought to have some bad habits \nto make him \"real nice.\"\nRefreshed, and my horse fed at about the same cost as for my own food, I left the \nhappy couple of this upper world life to their restaurant and its charms. By nightfall, \nI reached the camp, just as the lights began to sparkle in the windows of the buildings \nalong the one main street.\nI had a letter to an ex-Mormon elder. He was in business, carrying everything in \nhis store that could be wanted in such a place. He slept in a little recess at the \nrear of the store; where he had an equally small kitchen. I know that we two barely \nfound room to sit down at a table, hinged to the wall. He was hospitable and said \nI could sleep on a shelf about three feet wide, under some blankets. He started \nsupper, first wiping out his frying pan with some old copies of the Salt Lake \nTribune. He said that it was sanitary, and beat a dish cloth, since you could \nuse the paper afterward to start a fire. He pounded some tough meat tender, he slushed \nhis knives and forks in some hot but greasy water, and laid them wet by equally \nwet plates which had been washed in the same manner as the knives and forks. He \nput on a whole roll of butter and a lot of sad looking soda biscuits. Meanwhile \nthe meat frizzled and some potatoes boiled. We had coffee out of a big black can, \nthat had stood heat and smoke of many fires, but as it was strong and hot, it went \ndown. He had some condensed milk, then a new thing, and of which he was very proud. \nBrown sugar did the sweetening. Being polite, I ate as he did, and made no comments. \nStill I enjoyed this evening meal more than I did the mid-day dinner at the restaurant \non Main street the next day; for I unfortunately passed through the kitchen at the \nwrong moment, wishing to dry a couple of handkerchiefs at the big stove. Looking \naround I was in time to see the Chinese cook in the pantry making biscuits, and \nspraying the nicely assorted nascent bread with his mouth in Chinese laundry style.\nThat let me out. I never touched biscuit-bread again in that camp, or in any other. \nI had either pancakes or loaf bread. Still John did this in a most innocent, matter-of-fact \nmanner that made me certain that it was the procedure in the preparation of biscuit, \nby all such oriental cooks.\nMy host of the evening was a bright and clever man. He had a fine mind, and so as \nwe got onto the subject of the Mormons and his departure from them, we had a good \ntalk on philosophy. He was an advocate of the old idea of holding your life views \nof religion, or aught else that was metaphysical, in an exoteric manner to suit \nthe multitude, and an esoteric manner to suit yourself. That meant if it were popular \nand profitable, go with the majority externally, but mentally hold your own view \ninternally and subjectively. In fact, be a hypocrite if necessary, but do not give \nyourself away, if you change your opinion.\n\"Well if this is right?\" I said, \"why did you leave the Mormons?\"\n\"Well, I joined them because I had to; it was policy and it was safe. You understand \nthat I left because I could leave them safe, since Uncle Sam was here, and I did \nnot like their views.\"\n\"Oh! You left them because of polygamy, I suppose.\"\n\"No. I could be a polygamist, if it paid to go into that condition; but not if I \nhad to face poverty and feed a lot of mouths. It's not a moral question with me \nat all. Some are born to be polygamous, and it is safer for them and their morals \nto have several wives. No! I saw more money in these mines, and no way of making \nit if I stayed under the great Co-op. I am running a Co-op of my own right here.\"\n\"Well! when you get rich, what then?\"\n\"The world is wide, and I will find a nicer nest than rough camps and these loud-mouthed \nminers. There are Art and Literary centers in Europe where one could live, if one \nhad money.\"\nThis educated freethinker had some willowy principles as the outcome of his hankey-pankey \nplaying with this \"exoteric\" and \"esoteric\" philosophy applied to common every-day \nlife.\nComing down from this mining aerie is no tax on heart, but it is upon the heels, \nI left my old horse, Blueskin for his owner to bring down later, and took the trail \nafoot, since I had to connect with the narrow-gauge railroad at the depot eight \nmiles below. At first over the snow it was easy going. Although it was June there \nwas snow at this altitude, but as soon as I passed below the snow line, I struck \nthe ties of the tram-cars. Mules took the place of the locomotive, as the grade \nwas five hundred feet to the mile, too steep for steam. The mule cars had gone already \nand I soon got into trouble with my heels. I had to hurry, and so it was pound-pound \nsteadily down grade, my heels hitting the ties at every step. I forgot the consequences \nof such foot-work. Eight miles of this at top-speed and I made the train. I also \nmade some \"tender-feet\" too. The next day I was on my back, due to contracted lumbar \nmuscles, from this severe jarring of the heels upon the ties. The boys in camp laughingly \ncalled it a tenderloin spine. It was three days before I could walk erect.\nWhile in Alta City I heard of a miner's easy death. He was a veteran, and was ascending \nto his work at one of the highest mines in the range. The trail was long and winding, \nand the air was thin at that great height. Out of breath, he sat to rest on a jutting \nrock, a short distance below the mine tunnel. From weariness he sighed, and as he \ndid so he expired. His breath came out, but none returned.\n\"His heart but once heaved, and forever grew still.\"\nThis camp has suffered from snowslides. A wholesale tragedy of this kind occurred \nthe winter before my arrival. The food and ammunition for the mines, in the winter \ngo up the trail- on pack mules or freight sleds. This is slow climbing. It is along \na trail constantly covered by heavy snows, and swept by avalanches from higher points. \nThe trail is too narrow to allow a team to turn round, and there are only occasional \nplaces where the width permits teams to pass each other. There is no chance to increase \nspeed beyond an unsteady plod. In March a surface thaw had occurred, due to a wandering \nChinook wind from Oregon. A heavy frost had followed. Then on this slippery surface \na heavy coat of snow had fallen when Old Winter had shouted \"I've not done with \nthat camp yet.\" A heavy deposit resting on such a slippery surface needed only a \njar to start a slide. It was this oft recurring condition that gave to the gulch, \nwhere this tragedy happened, the name of \"Dead Man's Gulch.\" Nineteen freight sleds, \nwith as many men and teams, were slowly passing the mouth of this gulch. The leading \nteamster was watching the crest of the gulch, and saw the first signs of a slide, \n\"the snow-smoke.\" Instantly he yelled, \"A slide! A slide! Whip up, Boys!\" Whips \ncracked and mules struggled forward, the drivers looking up, with no more time than \nfor a look. With an increasing roar, the whole slope seemed to start to life, and \nswept downward. Snow, rocks, trees, mixed in wildest tumult, formed an awful front \nwhich swept on, and over the trail. A moment later nothing was left of the long \nline of freighters but the leading team. The driver was the only living one to see \nthis slide pile up in the bottom of the canyon, the avalanche missing him by a few \nyards. With his heart in his mouth, he pushed on, to Alta City, to report the loss \nof all the others. Buried a hundred feet deep they were hidden until the July sun, \nmelting the snow, exposed the wreck of men, animals, and goods.\nAnother danger beset the traveller in this canyon. Near the entrance, and where \nthe junction of the locomotive railroad and the mule tram-cars\noccurred, was a mass of giant granite blocks fallen from the towering cliffs. Some \nwere as big as a house, others sharp-pointed like a tooth, while more looked like \nhuge pieces of cube sugar, so square were they. These being accessible to the railroad, \nthey were being worked up by the masons for the walls of the Mormon Temple in Salt \nLake City. Asleep on these blocks and about the crevasses were hosts of great rattle \nsnakes, so numerous that in the heat of summer you could detect their peculiar odor \nas you passed by. A notice, with the legend \"Be careful,\" was erected here for the \nsafety of all travellers. A good deal of revolver practice took place here; the \nminers' enjoying the sport of shooting off the heads of these reptiles as they lay \nsunning themselves on the rocks. I have seen the stage driver, with his skill-ful \nwhip, almost cut off the heads of some rattlers near-by as we passed up the grade.","title":"Chapter XIV: The Old Prospector","type":"page"}