[Dan De Quille, The "Old Prospector," Salt Lake Tribune, December 27, 1885]

 

THE "OLD PROSPECTOR."

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BY DAN DE QUILLE.

            The old prospector is no new found friend of mine.  I have known him for years and years, and have met him almost everywhere on the Pacific Coast.  He is always the same, meet him where you will.  I saw him yesterday, slowly marching into town, and knew him the moment I set eyes on him.  He was dressed just as when I first saw him in early days.  He carried upon his back the same roll of well-worn blue blankets, the same old slouched hat sheltered his long straggling locks, now grown very grey, the same no-colored woolen shirt also did duty as coat and vest, and the same greasy old leather belt that served to carry his ancient Colt's six-shooter and to prevent his baggy pantaloons from subsiding wholly into the tops of his huge boots – where about one-fourth of the legs had already found their quarters.

            At the corner of Taylor and C streets he halted and looked about him as though somewhat abashed, and a little if not altogether pleased with the evidences of civilization that met his gaze.  Presently, in looking down Taylor Street, his eyes fell upon the tall spires of two churches.  He brushed his bushy hair back from his brow, turned up the front flap of his old white hat and stared with solemn face from steeple to steeple.

            Thoughts of other days were evidently thronging into his mind.  Resting against a lamp-post, he long continued to gaze upon the two spires, oblivious to the busy throng that rushed past him up and down the street.  At last a bustling broker, with Hale & Norcross on the brain, ran against the end of the old man's rolled blanket, whirling him completely round and bringing his face toward the passing crowd, when he stared at the passersby as though suddenly awakened from a dream.  Drawing his sleeve across his eyes, he turned and looked once more upon the two steeples, then slowly trudged down the street.

            The "old prospector," does not like large towns, and seldom visits them.  A town containing a church he does not see once in five years.  A town, according to his ideas, is of use only as a place in which to obtain supplies. If a place contain one or two saloons, as many provision stores and a blacksmith shop, it is as large as he would have it be.

            After he has found a saloon that suits him, has deposited in one corner his roll of blankets, and taken his "tod" – as he calls it – and seated himself for a "whiff" of his pipe, the "old prospector" may be approached. He may then be drawn out and will even become quite garrulous; but one must be careful in one's advances. He does not like a loud-talking man. He never talks so loudly himself as to attract attention in a mixed company.

            Yesterday, when I had seen the "old prospector" snugly settled, I took a seat beside him and greeted him as an old friend. He did not seem in the least surprised. He is well aware that he is known to thousands on the Pacific coast whose names, faces and places of residence he cannot recall. The old man at once began to talk about Downieville, California, thinking no doubt that he had seen me at that place.  

            "I was back in Downieville four years ago," said he. "I went up there from Tucson to take another look at the old 'Blue Banks.' I have always believed in a back channel there; I think I told you about that.  Downieville was a great place when I first knew it. Lord, sir, the gold they used to take out on Zumalt Flat, Jersey Flat and all about there! Why, right in town was what they called the 'Tin-cup Mine,' because every night the owners used a tin cup, to measure and divide the gold taken out during the day.

            "Well, I only stopped three or four days at Downieville. No chance at the Blue Banks – lot of blasted Chinamen there. I went up the North Fork to the mouth of Sailor Ravine and looked at the place where they took out the 40-pound nugget in the early days; looked about Slug Canyon a bit, then shouldered my blankets and struck out up the South Fork of the Yuba toward Charcoal Flat and Sierra City. Blamed Chinamen all the way along up the river! Then I crossed over by Milton to the Middle Yuba and on down that way – blamed Chinamen everywhere.  Now, after many years, I'm away over here again.

            "Beer? Thank you, sir, a drop wouldn't go bad just now!" said the old man, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and refilling it.  "Well, do you know about two months ago I was again back on the Middle Yuba; then I crossed over to Washington, on the South Yuba.  While I was at Washington, I took it into my head to go up to Phelps' Hill, where I took out the only money I ever made in the country.

            "I crossed the river and I climbed the mountain — awful big and steep it used to be! — and at last reached the site of the old mines. All was silent and deserted; not even the crumbling ruins of a building remained — not a living soul was in sight. I would not have known the place but for some of the big peaks of the surrounding mountains.  Hills and trees had been swept away by the hydraulic, and stone piles overgrown with brush filled their places. I could no longer locate the spot where were my old diggings.  I had expected to find the place deserted, but had not dreamed of seeing such a howling wilderness.

            "I threw my bundle of blankets down at the foot of a spreading live-oak tree and seated myself in the shade. I looked down into the vast crater of the old diggings, over a hundred feet below, and sadness filled my soul; for I thought of what might have been.  As I sat on the bank high above, I counted over once again all the gold I had taken from the place before me. It was thousands, but I then thought it was not enough. 'Not enough! — Not enough!' was then all my cry, but now I can see that what I had was more than I really needed ; and a certain young girl who was then waiting for me in the old 'Buckeye State' would have said it was a large fortune.

            "I think I was just brushing a tear from my eye, when a slight crackling of brush attracted my attention. I raised my head and saw parting the chapparal and coming up the steep toward me an old man with a roll of blankets and some prospecting tools on his back. Iron-gray locks descended to his shoulders and covering his breast was a beard of the most snowy whiteness.  His patched canvas pantaloons were of the color of clay, and the broad brim of an old black hat flapped about his eyes.

            "When I raised my head, the man observed me.  For some moments he held apart the bushes and peered at me like an owl.  Presently — having apparently satisfied himself that I was a human being — the stranger slowly approached.  As he came up he again halted and stared at me.

            "Stranger," he finally said, 'this is a deserted and desolate-looking place.'

            "'It is, indeed,' said I.

            "'Thirty-three years ago this spot was all life and activity.'

            "'Yes, stranger, it was,' said I, 'and I was here.'

            "'I, also,' said the old man, 'and for years I have been thinking I would like to see the old camp once more. Now I wish I had not come; it makes me sick at heart.'

            "'Friend,' said I, 'what may be your name?'

            "'Edward Hamilton,' said the old fellow, 'but the boys always called me Dandy Hamilton.'

            "'Dandy Hamilton!  Why, Dandy!' cried I, jumping up and grasping his hand — 'Dandy, my old pard, is it possible?'

            "Dandy stared at me as though a ghost got up before him. 

            "'And what name was you called by?' he at last stammered, still staring like a wild man. 

            "'Gurnsey Jim,' said I.

            "'My God!' cried he, looking at me from head to foot. 'My God! — Gurnsey Jim — my old partner in these very mines — is it really so? And now so old and gray!'

            "'Ah Dandy, you, too, are gray and old — are no longer the dandy I once knew.'

            "'And here, impelled by the same feeling of curiosity — perhaps the same pinching impecuniosity — here we meet after a separation of thirty years!'

            "'Yes,' said I, 'hither our old legs have brought us and in this dreary spot we meet.'

            "Dandy was gazing down into the melancholy waste of rock heaps, crumbling banks and scattered patches of chapparal.  His chin quivered and brushing a tear from his cheek he said in a voice low and husky: 'Let us go—let us leave this place.'

            "'Yes,' said I, drawing my hat down over my eyes—'yes, let us go.'

            "We camped together that night by the river at the foot of the mountain. In the morning we shook hands and parted, as thirty years before we had shaken hands and parted near the same spot. 'Dandy' headed for Volcano, and I struck out for Shasta.  When my old pard and I meet again it will probably be in a place where we shall walk on gold—in that better place where there will be no more parting."

            "Yes," said the "old prospector," pointing upward, "yes, many, many happy days up there. The gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx-stone!"

Virginia City, Nevada, December 22, 1885.