[J. W. Gally, Quartz, from Short Stories by California Authors (1885)]

 

QUARTZ.

(FROM A MINER'S MEMORY.)

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CHAPTER ONE.

STRIKE.

            The men who strike for silver mines in the arid country of the State of Silverado are called "prospectors," They are a curious compound of the laborer, the speculator and the scientist. Your "prospector" is not, usually, when you meet him, what be has been. You accost him, or he you, and it becomes at once evident that the man before you belongs to no class or province, and you cannot guess at his position in life with any certainty. He has upon his person the commonest of "store clothes," generally well worn, coarse woolen shirts, open at the sun-tanned neck; no coat, slouch hat, pants in rough boots. But his dress and address do not go together in harmony; his conversation is just whatever your own may invite, until you strike the subject of mines or silver ores; then he leads into a world of travel, speculation, rise, progress failure, until you find this sun-burnt man has handled coin in his day, and means to do it again.

            He may have been a minister of the gospel, a lawyer, a physician, politician, merchant, etc; but not often do you find him to have been a day-laborer, save on compulsion. Wiry, tough, irrepressible, and far-traveled, patient yet excitable, his experience is large and various, and his love of adventure with hope of great gain is as boundless and

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QUARTZ.       27

often as barren as the region of mountains he loves.

            Poverty and privation he bears like a philosopher; while affluence is to him only "for the fun of it," and he makes short work of spending thousands of dollars on old and new sensations.

            He talks about a home which he has, or wishes to have; but, generally, he has no home, and never will have any, outside of the clothes be happens to be wearing. And where he goes when he must lie down and die I have never discovered. That he does die I take for certain; but, except in a fight or by accident, I have never known of a dead "prospector."

            He is the creator of new states and the driving power of the Stock Boards; yet people endeavor to treat him, unless he is flush of money, as a person of little importance. The merchant, the lawyer, the ranchman, physician—everybody—lives in Silverado, on the results of the prospector's exertions; yet even the camp-followers think themselves more respectable and higher-toned than he, the Moses who leads them about in the wilderness.

            Almost always he has a faithful partner in his joys, journeyings and sorrows, and that partner is a man. This fellowship is imposed by the fact that it takes two to sink a deep hole in the ground or a drill in the rock; and it requires two to accomplish such an experience as shall now be presented.

            It snows heavily as out of the sage-covered wilderness two men, riding, urge a laden mule into a beaten road and turn toward a mining center, shifting in their saddles to give the wet and driving snow a cold shoulder.

            Pushing steadily onward, a farm-house near the roadside rises out upon the horizon. Boy in front of the house rushes in to say: " Mother, two men a-comin'!"

            Woman (outside of house)—"What, in a buggy ?"

            Boy.—No; on horses an' drivin' a mule."

            Woman. "Pshaw ! only prospectors."

            By this time the two rough, ragged fellows, with beards awry, hair uncut and unkempt beneath the slouch hats, ride to the door.

            Prospector (to boy.)—"Well, but ain't this winter?"'

            Boy.—"You bet, it is!"

            Prospector (at the open door.)—"Cold, bad day, madam."

            Woman (inattentively.).--"I reckon it is."

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            Prospector.—"Madam, could you let us have about two loaves of bread ? And, tell you the truth, we haven't a cent in our clothes, but we're likely to be along this way again soon, and we haven't a bite."

            Woman.—"I haven't got none baked, and something's the matter with my yeast. I won't have no bread till most night."

            Prospector (turning away.)—"It would accommodate us very much, but you know best, madam, about your own affairs. Good day."

            Prospector (remounting.)--"Couldn't make it, old boy ! We'll have to ride for it."

            Old Boy—"H-l ! Couldn't you git nuthin' ?"

            Prospector.—"Not a snoot-full. I spoke a lively piece to the old gal, but she wouldn't come out. Go ahead, we may be happy yet."

            Woman (inside.)—"Johnny ! Johnny, do you hear?"

            Boy (outside.) —"yes'm. What yer want ?"

            Woman—"What'd them fellers say?"

            Boy.—"One of 'em called yer an old gal."

            Woman.—"That's cause I wouldn't turn to and bake for 'em; 'zif I hadn't nuthin to do but bake for people who are flat broke ! Them prospectors is allus flat broke. Why don't they stay at home and work, like I do ? Fetch in your wood, Johnny; it's going to be a cold night when it stops a-snowin'."

            Boy.—"Yes'm. Them men's got to make Simmins' ranch afore they git a bite, an' that pack mule's mighty nigh petered out, if you hear me."

            Woman.--"That's none o' yore business; you git yore wood an' come in the house an' dry yore feet."

            Time passes at the ranch, time passes on the road; time passes in the nearest mining town; time passes in the lonely mountains where the rich earth lies about the open shaft; time passes in the great commercial city, where trade and science sigh for silver; and amidst the great city, past the ranch, along the road, through the mining town and to the open cut in the lonely mountains, there moves the love of gain—that subtlest of spirits. So, on a day of bright, white winter sunshine, the boy outside the ranche, gazing up the road beneath his own shading palm, shouts, "Pap ! buggy comin'; high steppers, you bet !"

            Pap (drowsy, frowzy, red-faced and smoke-scented, appearing at

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the door), "Which way, from town? (Looking townward) I say, Symanthy, I'll bet that's them fellers what's found them new mines out yander. They'll want dinner in a hurry."

            Woman—(looking over old Frowzy's shoulder as both stand in the door), "Them's liberty stable stock, and coyote-robes; high-flyers, you bet! Yer sir! Johnny, make a fire in the stove this minit!"

            All in one moment there happens here a multitude of incidents, chief among which "old Frowzy" finds his bat, puts it on, comes to the door again in time to say to the newly arrived party, as the "high-stepping" team drives up, "Fine day, gents."

            Man in carriage—"Yea, tip-top day. How about something to eat for man and beast?"

            Old Frowzy—"Lots of hay and barley; and I reckon the old woman kin give you enough to eat—sech as we've got.

            The man who holds the reins smiles, and without making the least motion to alight or drop them, remarks: "Yes, but boss, we're flat broke—havn't a red."

            Old Frowzy, with eyes on the fine turnout, "Oh, that makes no odds in a new country! we all get that way at odd times."

            Here the man above hands the reins to old Frowzy, and the whole party alight. On moving near the door they are met by madam of the rancho with, "Walk in gentlemen, and take a seat. Did you say you would have dinner?"

            He of the reins—" Yes madam, if you have bread enough baked, we'll all take a bite."

            Woman—"Bread enough? Why certainly, I allus have that."

            Reins—"Well, excuse me, madam, I didn't know. Sometimes people in these out-of-the-way places, get short of convenient grub."

            Woman—"I don't never fail to—oh! I see! You're mebbe the man as come by here about six weeks ago. Well, now, you see, I can't allus tell whose a joshin me and who isn't. Why I thought you was a-a jokin' that day; you prospectors are all the time on the josh!"

            Reins—"That's all right, ma'm; I expect I did look sort o' gay and festive that day, and we had a jolly time after we passed here."

            By this time madam is away in the adjacent room of the cabin, deep in the mysteries of bacon, canned salmon, black coffee, etc., but Reins goes on with the story thuswise:

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"We rode (Sam and me) from here to Simmins'; that's the first ranch this side of town, on horses that we had already pushed hard to reach this place, and we hadn't a bite of anything to eat that day, and d—d little to eat for three days, because we were holding out to the last minute to develop the prospect, and working on short rations. But we left here at late dinner-time, rode all night, and it a-snowing for keeps, and the horses stilted up on snow-balls, till next day about noon we struck Simmins. Lord God! I was never so happy in my life as when old Dan Simmins looked me square in the face and says he: "Well if h-1 ain't a-goin' to pop then I'm no Christian!" (you know how old Dan talks.) "Where in h-1 have you been?" says he. "Why, you look like a sick woman's baby! Take a horn, you'll find it in that there jug in the corner." I don't ever expect to be so happy again as we all were that afternoon! We ate and drank and sung, and told yarns, and had a bully time inside the house, while the snow was attending to its job outside and a-coming down as steady as clock-work. Sam sort o'went out of his mind with the sudden change—mebbe the whisky had a hand in it—and he thought he was back home in the States, telling his mother all about his ramblings for fifteen years; and he thought old Dan was his daddy—so, as he was telling his mother, and crying and laughing and talking it was better than any theayter. And when old Dan would put in to help him out, Sam would say: "Never you mind, daddy; you let me tell it." Then old Dan would laugh till the tears ran down his face, and say, "Go on, my son, go on! Your ma and me will listen to you." We knew the poor fellow was wandering but it was funny for all that—particularly when one comes to consider what a magnif' old dad could be panned out of Dan Simmins." 

            "Gents, dinner is ready—walk out! We haven't got no great variety, but its the best we have. Yer pap (to old Frowzy) cut up and pour out for 'em, and if yer want anything more, holler. I've got to go in the kitchen."

            After Frowzy helps the party to such as there is, he proceeds to ask a few leading questions of a nature just such as his kind are most loth to answer—questions looking to a share of some sort in the county of the new mines.

            "Hey you enny ranche-land or good hay-land out near them new prospects ?"

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            "Yes. There are several spots where a man might find a lay-out for ranching."

            "How is it for wood ?"

            "Plenty of wood."

            "Well, do you reckon to go ahead out there ennyways soon?"

            "We can't just say about that. The Professor here will be able to tell, mebbe, as we come back."

            "When do you 'low to be back again?"

            "Well, if the Professor can see as much in the same place, and in the same time, as we can; we may be back here in three days."

            "What are you pin' to do about hoss feed and grub while yer there ?"

            "Oh, Sam's out there. Didn't he stop here as he went by with a team—four horses, high load, doors and windows at the side and hay bales on top—about two weeks ago?"

            "No; he didn't stop yere. I seed him goin' past, but he never stopped."

            Here Reins smiled over his cup of black coffee, and said: "Sam's a little curious about some things."

            Dinner over, bill paid, the "high-stepping" stock is buckled to, the party are seated. Frowzy passes up the reins, and says: "Well, I hope you've got a good thing out there; I'm half a mind to come out and see you."

            "All right, old man; I'll introduce you to Sam." Then turning toward the door where Madam Frowzy stands, with hands on hips , and arms akimbo: "Bye, bye, madam; keep a sharp lookout for prospectors. Why, hello, sonny; what are you looking up at me so for? I'm not a pinto circus horse."

            Boy (near the wheel)—"You're the fellow 'at went past yer about a month ago, and called ma'am an old gal—that's what you are !"

            "Well, but I'll take it all back, and I wouldn't have said it if I had known you were around."

            Away rolls the light wagon, as back into the house goes Frowzy, to smoke and stew over the fire, while he considers the chance of making something for himself out of the new discovery.

            "I say, Symanthy, I'm a good mind to go over to that new place."

            "Well," snaps Symanthy, "if yer goin', you'd better go airly.

32        QUARTZ.

'Fer if them fellers really hez struck ennything big' over ther', ther' be plenty a-goin' in on the chances mighty soon. I wouldn't wonder ef you'd see some of the sharps a-follerin' them fellows up afore mornin.' "

            "Well, I reckon I'd best strike out in the mornin'. I fergot to ax 'em how far it was, but I kiu foller in their tracks."

            In the morning, early, Frowzy is off with saddle-horse and pack-mules, for, although Frowzy is the very picture of uncombed and smoke-dried indolence, and as a general thing, goes about on foot with the dragging, sprawl of a work-ox, yet when it comes to exertion in the saddle, or endurance in the hope of sudden gain, he is as tough as a lariat.

            The day is bright and warm as only some odd days in Silverado can be, the very essence of beautiful weather and pure air, for the climate in the State is like the human fortune in the State—either lovely and serene, with an "elevated goose," or else detestably bad and flat broke.

            The day is splendid, and though the season is winter, the dust whirls in spiral, electric columns along the highway and rises in a cloud about Bub and his dog as they romp in the road in front of Frowzy's ranche house.

            "Mam !" shouts Bub, "that 'ere buggy's a-comin' again ! and there's 'nuther dust acrost the valley, and I'll bet that's Pap."

            "Well, it's a-most night, and yore wood ain't in yet ! Ef ennybody's a-comin', they'll cum 'thout your starin'."

            Nevertheless, as to the staring, madam comes out into the road to stand with Bub and the dog for a prolonged stare into the valley.

            The light wagon halts this time only long enough to refresh man and horse, and then away toward the town; for the eye of science has seen what the man of science is in haste to lay before the men of money and speculation. Time, time is now the prime object, and horse-flesh is a second consideration; so, drive, driver—send 'em! the love of gain grows into a fever.

            Away goes the vehicle from view, and the dust cloud of its rolling settles down as Frowzy dismounts at his own door, where his sagebrush cherub and his dog vie with each other in jumping around for purposes of undefinable joy.

            Madam begins to feel some thrill of anxiety about the new state

QUARTZ.                   33

of affairs, and so, without waiting, she appears at the door to ask,. "Well, how is it over ther ?"

            Frowzy, big with the throes of a new hope, and the consciousness of new knowledge, answers not, but continues to unpack and strip his animals in silence, save when he says to the dog, "There, that'll do now. Git down!"

            But once the animals are out to graze, and one saddle flung on one side of the door and the other on the other side—things begin, thereby, to be made neat and comfortable—he says, "Well!" some Western people always say "well" to start with, "well, that's a mighty big thing over ther. Thiugs'll be a bilin' yer in a mighty short time, of ye hear my gentle voice. I'm hungry."

            "I'll giv ye yore supper in a minet--it's all ready. Did you see every show fur a ranche ?"

            "You bet I did! I located the purtiest place fur a ranche and station you ever seed—not more'n three miles from where the town's got to be. That Purfesser feller says there ain't no better silver mine in the world."

            "Was they all located?"

            "No. That feller as was a talkin here as they went down, he showed me wher' I could take chances on an extension."

            "Didn't ye take it ?" asked madam, eagerly.

            "Well, he said before he'd show it to me that I must locate, and record it as the Old Gal, or he wouldn't show it to me."

            "Darn his imperdent picter!"

            "So, I located it, and it's the 'Old Gal;' and that Purfesser says it's as good as enny of 'em, when it's opened once."

            "Don't it crop out nowheres along ?"

            "No; but it's right on the line o' them best leads—that's wher' the 'Old Gal' is. I can't make out what that feller wanted me to call it the 'Old Gal' for."

            "I know!" exclaimed Johnny, dumping on armload of fire-wood into a corner of the cabin, "it's 'cause mam wouldn't bake bread fur him when he was flat broke!"

            "You, Johnny! you jist keep yore mouth shet an' speak when yore spoke to, will ye! You don't know what yo're talkin' about."

            " Enny how," says Mr. Frowzy, " the feller seemed mighty tickled about some darned thing or other ! But you can't make him

34        QUARTZ.

out very easy. He's smart—he is. He knows more in a minit about them mines nor what that Purfesser knows in a day; but he pertends to leave it all to the Purfesser. I see him a-winkin' at that Sam, when Old Spectacles and Big Words was a settin' it in steep on the lingo. He knows what he's after !—that feller does."

            With which piece of wisdom Frowzy finished his supper and commenced cutting " plug " to fill his pipe; after filling and lighting which, he proceeded to puff awhile in that odorous smudge of silence which the European man has borrowed from his red brother. But he soon broke forth again with " Symanthy !" That vigorous female being in the kitchen said, " Well ?"

            " I've an idee, I'd better take the tram an' go back ther' and put up a cabin. And you'd better send over to Reese river for yore brother and his wife to help you run the house while I'm gone."

            " Oh, Bub an' me kin run the house ! 'Taint worth while to be bringin' people till ye need 'em. They'd only growl ef ye didn't divide the new lay-out with 'em. You go ahead; I'll run the house."

            By this time it had grown dusk outside, as the shortening winter day dropped behind the dark silhouette of mountains, and the family conversation was broken by a strange voice:

            " Hillo ! Haeow is it about here?" To which Frowzy shouts back, " Aye, aye ! Comin' in a minit !" And he peers about by the firelight for " that everlastin', durned, old hat" that he never can lay his hands on, save when his head is in it, while Mrs. Frowzy ventures to whisper, " That's a Yank—you bet he's a-smellin' after them mines."

            Before Frowzy can find that much-maligned head-gear the new arrival, or one of them, has entered the door, with that terrible impatience and fussy attention to details peculiar to some of those citizens who say the word, " haeow."

            " I waant to staybil teow hawsis with yeow."

            " All right," returns Mr. Frowzy, by this time under " that hat." " Symanthy, gimme the lantern."

            While the horses are being cared for, Enoch rattles around as if he were helping to do the work, though really be knows nothing about it, having been brought up to oxen and a good stick in the State he calls Neow Hawinsheer. But he keeps his tongue and wits at work with numerous questions, such as: " Who were the party

QUARTZ.       35

we met back a piece ?" " Prospectors—ah ! Rich, I- s'posa? "

            " Clus about here ? Ah—no. Never du strike anything near hand, any one. Sing'lar, ain't it ? Quite so."

            Frowzy, busy with the team, answers as clearly as he deems best; but, as be closes the stable door and starts, lantern in hand, for the house, lazily asks, " Which way might you be travelin'—if it's a fair question ? "

            "Wal, we've got a little bizniz acount Nowth. I fergit wich way yaeou sed the neaw mines were."

            "Like as not I didn't say. I'm not clear which way they are -- som'ers out south-east tho,' I think they said. Do you want supper?"

            "Wal, no; we've got foud an' beddin', thank ye. There's my friend strikin' a fire naeow. When we've eatin' a bite we'll cum over an' chat a bit, ef its agreeab'l." '

            "All right," assents Mr. F., as he blows cut his light and enters his domicile, while Mr. Enoch Southchurch repairs to his wagon, his friend and his supper—at which locality he says in a low voice to his companion: "Aeour old naybor sez thet the neaw mines are saeoutheasterly from here."

            "No odds what he says," remarks the other in a gruff voice. "I cain follow that wagon track wherever it may go. If I, cain't, I'll go straight hack and die in Texas."

            "Jes so, Kernil, I depend on yeou for that." What further was said out of doors at the fire, or in the house at the other fire is not important to us, except that Frowzy hurriedly told Syminthy that "them fellers is after the new diggins, hot-foot."

            To which Samantha responded, "I know'd it."

            "Yes," says F., "they've mighty smooth ephs; but they don't pump me; not much."

            Morning dawns once more upon the wide fields of Artemisia, cold, calm and clear; the blue smoke of the camp-fire by the roadside curls up among the early rays of the sun, and everything about the hithertofore drowsy rancho is made awake. The prospector has made his track in the wilderness, and the keen and silent noses of Mammon's blood-hounds are down upon the trail.

            Frowzy is away before the dawn; up to the mountain-slope of the foothills, to secure his team—horses—ere they cease to bask in the

 

36        QUARTZ.      

fringes of the morning sun, warming away the chill of night from their shaggy, winter coats.

            The bacon in the fry-pan at the camp-fire of Enoch Southchurch sputters to the tune of "Haste thee, son of Plymouth Rock! God helps tho'se who helps themselves."

            The "high-stepping team of "liberty-stable stock" has rolled the glittering wheels all night through the glancing moonbeams along the road, toward the mining town, passing "old Dan Simmins" with a slight halt, long enough to shout "how-de-do!" and bring "old Dan" to the door, in uupresentable haste, for a brief chat—and then away again, with his last, "Be good to yourselves! Make my regrets to the Young Men's Christian Associution, on account of my absence last Sunday, and tell Gage to send me two gallons of whisky. I'm about out. S' long, boys!"

            Away, again—and away—till down the mountain road, heralded by the golden glow that tips the topmost peaks with new born morning's flush, into the busy mountain town, along whose plank sidewalks the heavy boots of the earliest risers thump, thump, thump, the light wagon rolls and ceases to roll. The party leap out as the horse's snort that grateful recognition of home wherewith the faithful servant expresses his satisfaction.

            And now, as Frowzy says it, things begin "to bile." The assayer's fire glows a white-fever-heat as it leaps and licks the precious ore in presence of the anxious eyes that watch the boiling-pot. Deftly the assayer handles his tongs, coyly he toys with the blistering glow, and then carefully pours, pounds, batters, rolls and weighs the "button."

            Eureka! millions of earth's treasures loom up before the eye of speculation. The news flies; men gather on street corners, in stores, in saloons, everywhere, to inspect samples of rock and hear the story of the new discovery; while the prospector, his pocket lined with "eagles," slouches with a newly, well-dressed, easy grace along the polished board that bears the glasses in front of the pretty young man whose back hair shines in the big mirror in all the glory of tonsorial act, and slapping his "heavy sorrel"* on the counter, says, "bottle up, boys, come up."

*Twenty dollar gold pieces.

 

CHAPTER TWO.

SPIRITS.

            The discovery and location of new silver-mining centers in the wild semi-desert regions of North America will soon be a matter of the past; but it was once a very exciting business. First there was the desert valley and the wild, rocky, rugged mountains; then across the valley came the earliest "prospector," making his devious way among the "sage-brush;" guided by no previous track in the dry gravelly soil; steered solely by the contour of the surrounding mountains; riding on his mule or wiry, wild broncho and driving before him, or leading behind him, the grunting animal upon whose back are girted and corded the needed bedding, food and implements for preliminary mining purposes. It is a serious and a silent procession under the hot sun of a summer-day, or the cool star-light of night when the shadows of the pointed mountains fall dark and long across the arid waste, or in the wind-driven snows of altitudinous winter. If the search is successful and the winner crowned with reward, then the single track of the prospector becomes a beaten trail, like an ashen-colored thread stretching from civilization toward the unknown; the trail in time gives way to the wagon-road on which the slow-moving ox bends his unwilling, calloused neck to the inspiring needs of speculative industry; soon to be followed by the more aristocratic mule marching in silent, solemn, long-eared processions of dust-covered pageantry; and the mule at length to be followed by the swifter whirling stage-coach team with its cloud of dust and its crowded passengers.

            People—mostly, if not entirely, bearded boisterous adventurers—take to the new road and flock into the new mining camp which is hidden away on the slope of a cañon, or at the water giving head of a ravine. Heavy loads of lumber for house-building underlying an imposed stratum of merchandise unload under the direction of the "gentleman from Judea;" while the manager and dispenser of alcoholic amusements erects his tent and, behind a rough board, begins the grave exercise of polishing a tumbler with a napkin; the board-

38        QUARTZ.

ing house, the lodging house, the needed mechanical houses and all other houses arise in so short a time that the aspect of the scene changes, as if by magic, from all that make the irksomeness of solitude to the moving, shifting, humming, habitable picture of energetic industry. Thus has been initiated, under varying aspects, that great aggregation of representative commonwealths commonly called the United States of North America. Later in the years comes the ready school-master to his appointed task; still later the church building, with its echoing bell in pointed spire with weather-vane a-top to show how blow the winds of Heaven and which way waft the clouds.

            It might be a useful, certainly a curious, study to find out how much alcohol in its various drinkable forms—mostly whisky, however—has had to do with the advancement of civilization and the establishment of good government; for it seems to be a fact, that the drinker of the more fiery potations, however much they may have damaged themselves, have always been the staunchest creators and supporters of good government. The maxim about "the sober second thought" implies that the previous thought was not sober and, therefore, drunk.

            Is the strong-drinker's liking for good and free government the remorseful expression over the ruin of his hearth-store felicity ? Let that pass; it is an open question; but there is no question that in a new silver-mining camp the political and social center is the alcoholic saloon; neither is there any question that in the camp whereof this vivacious history treats one Alexander Crowder kept the "Head Quarters." It has often been remarked, by the uninitiated, that it looks singular to see so many of the largest and most able-bodied of our fellow citizens engaged in the light-handed avocation of filling fluids into bottles and glasses; but such persons should be informed that the saloon-keeper is liable to have heavier—vastly heavier—work upon his strong hands. He may not often need the heft of his heavy shoulders, but when he does need it he needs it very much. Yet there are retail alcoholic dispersers on the Pacific slope—lifelong veterans at the bar—who have never laid a hand harshly on any mortal. These be the few men of high administrative ability -- stranded statesmen wasted by the wayside; probably the lineal descendants of the "publicans and sinners" with whom Christ the

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Saviour used to talk, or, at least so it reads, was accused of it by the righteous Pharisees; and of such was Alexander Crowder, formerly of various other localities, but now a resident of the new and thriving camp yclept Mountain Brow.

            At the Head Quarters was held the first meeting to raise a fund to institute a school and prepare the way toward establishing that institution in a permanent school-house; because, by the school laws passed by the keen legislators of the State of Silverado no public money for school purposes could be obtained by any camp until the "said camp shall institute and support a school, of not less than ten pupils of the proper age (exclusion of Indians not twenty), for a period of time not less than three months," etc. At the Head Quarters were taken the initial steps towards providing the camp—the new town or city in mining parlance is always "the camp"—with a supply of good water and for the creation of a volunteer fire company, of which latter, by the way, Alexander Crowder was unanimously elected foreman.

            At the Head Quarters the Central Committee of both our great political parties met—each committee on a different day in the week, however—to plant the seeds of national dispute and presidential fervor along the advancing highway of "our glorious institutions." Here the night-flying orator was wont to point out the dangerous rocks of national navigation in tones of unmistakable alarm supplemented by the soothing scintillations of patriotic promise and political hope. Whoop la ! The stars and stripes shall wave over a country that must be saved. The little springs of far-off mountain-bored political power shall borrow the white-souled purity of the shining snows, and in the glad dance of the sparkling fluid follow the music of the mountain, stream down and away to where the great river of our political power bears upon its bosom the commerce of a world and the hopes of all mankind. (Cheers, but no note taken of the miner who mutters, " 'cept the dam Chinaman.")

            At the Head Quarters--which gradually come to be known as "Crowders"—was preached the first sermon from any Protestant preacher at Mountainbrow; though the Catholic Padre had been around first—as he usually is in such places—to look after his flock and get the Church's dutiful "divvy" on the young prosperity. The reason the Protestant preferred to preach at Crowder's was

40        QUARTZ.

partly owing to the fact that the Head Quarters was the building in camp best adapted to congregational purposes; but mostly, it was surmised, because Crowder, out of the abundance of his mountain experience, was too wise to permit the smaller games of gambling to be carried on under his roof. He rather contented himself with private poker and faro rooms at the back end, with billiards in all styles, in the bar-room and social cribbage in the corners. So, when Brother Magath dropped into the Head Quarters on a wintry Sunday forenoon, the house was full, the billiard balls clicked their way through the pool-pins, the game-keepers cried the score, the glasses clinked at the bar from time to time as the hearty "here's to us" preceded the usual imbibation; and the string band of three, with the cornet player, behind the piano and the heavy German pianist (male, of course) discoursed musical gems from the composers of all lands. The musicians were present out of regard (financial) to the day of the week. Sunday is a fine large day all over Silverado.

            Upon this scene entered Brother Magath, and modestly waiting for an opportune moment to catch Mr. Crowder's ear approached the highly polished bar-board in front of that worthy fluidical dispenser who instinctively looked the preacher interrogatively in the eye and "set up" a glass tumbler.

            "Ah, no-ah ! Not anything to drink; thank you."

            Crowder put out the cigar-box.

            "Thank-you; but I'm not a smoker. Excuse me; but I merely wished to talk to you in private a moment."

            "Want to strike me for a piece?" and Crowder opened his money drawer. "Broke, I 'spose ! How much ?"

            "No, sir, I want, no money."

            "Well, what do ye want ? Spit it out.""

            "I want permission to preach a sermon in this room this afternoon at 2 o'clock sharp. That's all I want."

            "Want to preach h'yer ?"

            "Yes, sir !"

             Well. That'll depend on what the boys say. I've no objection, myself."

            "Would you be good enough to announce it to them, and let us hear what they say about it ?"

QUARTZ.       41

            "Well, I'm not much on the announce—but I'll try it a whack," —he walked to the outer end of his long bar and in a big voice said—"See yer, boys. I want ye to lissen."

            The games and the noise consequent upon them gradually subsided. Pool-players dropped the butts of their cues to the floor and stood at rest--the music of the band lapsed into silence.

            "This gent wants to preach and pays us the compliment by sayin' its the most respectable place in camps for his business; an' I've told him I'd leave it to you fellers."

            "When d's he want to preach ? Right away, now?" said a tall cue-holder.

            "No; this afternoon at 2 o'clock. What d'ye all say ? Preach or no preach ?"

            "Preach--of course. D'ye 'spose we're dam heathens ?" said one.

            "Preach ! why cert'nly," said another.

            "Of course," assented another.

            Brother Magath whispered to Crowder.

            "But he wants ye all to attend. Will ye do it?"

            "You bet we will," said the tall man turning to take the shot he had omitted, and added, "give him a drink and charge it to me."

            When Brother Magath appeared in the Head Quarters, promptly at 2 o'clock, P. M., he found the billiard tables draped in their white night-clothes, the bar and its bottle-holding shelves clothed in similar attire, the musicians dispersed and the audience silently, though a little uneasily, waiting for him. He took his stand behind the piano using that musical furniture as a sacred desk, and thereon, as a "sport" phrased it, "spread his tricks to buck against the devil''—which "tricks" consisted of a Bible, a hymn-book and a white linen pocket-handkerchief. Then first, as was his custom, he read a hymn, but before, the reading he remarked:

            "Gentlemen, among my misfortunes, one of the greatest is that I have no ear for melody and no talent for singing; I shall therefore, be compelled to call upon any person who can sing to raise the tune for the lines I am about to read.

                        "Am I a soldier of the Cross,

                                    A follower of the Lamb ?

42        QUARTZ.

                        And shall I fear to own his cause,

                                    Or blush to speak his name ?

*  *  *

                        Are there no foes for me to face;

                                    Must I not stem the flood ?

                        Is this vile world a friend to grace

                                    To help me on to God ?

*  *  *

                        Sure I must fight if I would reign;

                                    Increase my courage Lord;

                        I'll bear the toil, endure the pain,

                                    Supported by the word."

            "Part of the seven-hundredth hymn; common metre; please sing."

            There was a deep and depressing silence that followed the spirited reading of these martial lines broken at first by no sound save the low whisper in which one .miner conveyed his idea into the ear of another, thus:

            "I think the parson's dead game—there's a heap o' sand in the hymn."

            "Cannot some one raise the tune ? Surely there are several persons in this room whose early training and musical talent fits them to sing these sacred lines."

            " What is the tune ?"

            "Unfortunately I cannot remember that either, but it is a very common one," and still he stood with his book in his hand open before him as if supplicating some one to come forward and take it away; but the tune did not arise.

            "Where's them doggonned musicians gone to ? They'd ort to be able to h'ist 'er up," said a new voice.

            "What duz a durn Dutch musical cuss know about hymn-singin'?" exclaimed another.

            Here the front door of the saloon was thrown open, wafting into the room a sharp breath of the winter air:

            "Hello ! There comes Wash White an' he's a reg'lar camp-meetin' psalmist. Yer Wash, come in an' h'ist the tune. '

            Wash took a hasty stare about the mom as he closed the door behind him and asked:

QUARTZ.       43

            "What the hell's up ?",

            "H-u-u-s-sh. This's meetin'."

            "Miner's meeting ?"

            "No, prar meetin'. Church. Religion. Ye dam fool, don't ye know nuthin' pious !"

            "I-o-h. Whew !" responded Wash as he eyed the preacher and took in the invitation,

            "Yes, my friend," said Parson Magath still holding the open book in his hand, "we desire to sing a few lines preparatory to a continuance of Divine worship and we are waiting for some one to voice the music.

            "What is the hymn !" asked Wash.

            "Am I a soldier of the cross," began the preacher to read, but was interrupted by Wash continuing—

                        "A follower of the Lamb ?

                                    And shall I fear to own his cause

                        Or blush to speak his name ?

—o' course I can sing them lines like a licensed exhorter. I was brought up on that music. My ole dad used to fold his arms of a Sunday morning an' walk up and down singing them lines till hell howled an' Satan shook in his irons. But if I start the tune I want all hands to chip in an' jine the uproar—an' I don't want no squeakin' nor no half-mouthed mumblin'. Go ahead, parson; line 'er out:"

            Brother Magath once again read the initial stanza Wash, with a voice trained from infancy to "revival" airs, launched boldly our upon the melodious stream, and at first, was assisted in a wavering way; but at length the crowd, seeing and hearing that he was fully equal to the occasion, joined in with a will and boomed the lines, couplet at a time, as Brother Magath, smiling blandly, delivered them. For up and down the hills the echoes sped bearing with them the true spirit of the Soldiers of the Cross. It was an able-bodied noise not devoid of a rude spirit of harmony.

            After the singing Brother Magath nodded his thanks to Mr. White and proceeded with the subsequent spirituality, the general tenor of which was that, whatever might be a man or woman's place in this life it was a duty, and ought to be a pride and a pleasure, for such person to do that duty boldly, cheerfully, respectfully and firmly for

44        QUARTZ.

righteousness sake; "nor God, nor man, nor devil loves the coward or the quitter."

            "Them's my sentiments," said Mr. Crowder, and Brother Magath wound up the exercises with a fervent short prayer.

            "Three cheers for the parson, Hip, hip, Hurray !" and the cheers were given with a will, while Crowder disrobed the bar, the bottles and glasses.

            "Come down," exclaimed a short active man. "Come down handsome in the contribution box," and he went about through the crowd extending his hat to everybody.      "Taint no real genoowine church 'thout a kerleckshun. Parsons kaint live on chin enny more'n other folks. Come down !" and while the hat grew heavy with silver, the imbibations went on all around, and in the midst Brother Magath was receiving hand-shaken congratulations, also refusing numerous invitations to participate.

            "There she is, parson"—said the volunteer collector—"salt 'er down," and he placed his heavy hat on the nearest billiard table.

            "Gentlemen, this is, indeed, very kind of you and I hope God will bless this gift in my hands to his own great uses; and I pray that you may gather again, tenfold, this bread thrown upon the waters," all the while as he talked loading his light pockets with heavy coin. Then at last, he politely returned the hat to its owner, bid his unique congregation an effusive farewell and went out upon his way rejoicing.

            Again the games went forward, the instrumental music resumed its sway and, sorry to say it, Wash White, proud of his opportune assistance, was fast approaching the meandering edge of inebriation. And so ended the first lesson. Were these seeds of salvation, sown by the wayside, lost—all lost ? Who shall say ? Is the vim of good in the evil of Nazareth worked out ? Quien sabe ?

 

 

CHAPTER THREE.

AT CROWDERS.

            I was sitting in the saloon to-day reading the papers when a man about fifty years old—a heavy man, stout, stooped and hard-handed, came in with a kind of weaving, slouchy gait, having his hat in one hand and an empty smoke-pipe in the other. He stopped in the middle of the floor, gave a sort of goggle-eyed gaze around the room, swung his body with the sweep of a weak old willow in the wind, slapped his hat on his head pretty well over his eyes, put the stem end of the empty, short pipe into his mouth and pushing his hands down into his breeches pockets, took a weaving step forward and said:

            "H're ye, Crowder, old b-hoy!"

            Crowder stood behind his bar with a napkin polishing that perpetual tumbler, but made no reply.

            The man took another nearing step forward toward the bar, paused and said:

            "I say, h're ye, Crowder? Can you s—peek—t—feller? Wh'a'r puttin' on dog wi' me for?"

            "How are you, Daniel!" said Crowder. "you look sleepy, you'd better go and take a big sleep."

            "A'r right. I'm go'n to whe'r ge'r ready, no—t b'fore."

            "Better take a spin around the square, then," suggested Crowder, still polishing the tumbler.

            "No z-sir," and proceeding to pull up a chair by my side, be added: "I'm goner talk sense to the old boss here:"

            "That's a man of family, Dan. If you want to talk some one to death, go hunt up a single man. What'll his wife say when she sees his corpse?"

            Dan saw the old joke even through the fumes in his brain, and, looking at me, smiled one of those twisted smiles which are not to be described. Then he sat down on the chair, threw his hat on the floor at his feet, commenced in a fumbling way to fill his pipe, and said: "Crowder's g-ome! Knows been on a bust! A—as all right. Crowder's 'noll friend—use't wore 'gether in 'noll T'wollomme."

46        QUARTZ.

            While Daniel was fishing up from the depths of his vest pocket tobacco fine-cut, pinch by pinch, between his work-calloused thumb and finger, and boozily crowding it down into his pipe-bowl, nothing was said; but Crowder looked at me then at Daniel, as much as to inquire if I was being badly annoyed.  Seeming to see that as yet I was not, he continued to gaze out in the sunny street, as he stood erect with that ever-active tumbler and napkin in hand.

            Daniel; after finally filling his pipe, hunted throughout all his pockets twice over, and then said to me: "Boss, got'r match?" I gave him a lucifer match. "Boss, you're a gem-man! Don't put on dog." Then fixing the match perpendicularly between his thumb and finger, he raised his right thigh at an angle of forty-five degrees, and rapidly drew the match from the hip forward toward the knee over the woolen pantaloons, until it snapped and blazed into a light, as he brought it around with a single motion immediately over the tobacco in the pipe that was in his mouth. Silently puffing away until his dim senses were satisfied with the result, he proceeded to address me upon the subject that was uppermost in his mind. Why he should have desired to tell me what he did, seeing that I was a stranger to him, I know not. Who, indeed, can know the unconscious impulse that intoxication starts in the brain? Disrobed of its inebriate blur here is what be said to me:

            "Yes, Crowder knows Old Dan ! We used to work together and cabin together in California. The last place we were at was in Tuolumne. From there we came over in the Washoe excitement to Virginia City, in Nevada Territory, and that's where Crowder left me and went to selling whisky. Crowder can sell whisky, he can; but I can't. What do you suppose is the reason I can't sell whisky, eh; boss?"

            "Well, really, I can hardly say."

            "Did you ever read Shakespeare, boss?"

            "Yes, in a scattering way."

            "Look here," said he, in a mock dramatic style, pointing first at himself, then at Crowder, "upon this picture and this ! That's the reason I can't sell whisky."

            "I think I see it."

            "All right, boss ! I left Virginia City and went north to Montana; and kept going north until I could nearly see the top of the north

QUARTZ.       47

pole. Then I roamed around again and got away down into Arizona and New Mexico; and from there went to New Granada in South America, where there is more trees and roots and vines and bushes and brambles and snakes and bats and spiders and bugs and things than you ever saw to the acre in any country—and rains; je-e-whillikens ! Why, it rains there down and up and cross-legged.

            "Then from there, I worked away further down into South America and back again, like a walking bag o' bones, into California. But California wasn't like home any more, so I weaved my way back to Washoe to hunt up my old pard. I was flat broke, and wanted to strike him for a stake. Crowder always opens out when I strike him for a piece. Eh, Crowder, ain't that so?"

            "Yes, Daniel, such is the fact so long as I've got a cent."

            "But my old pard was gone. I wasn't able to work a lick; so I rustled around among the ole-time boys, and they came out, and kept a-coming out to me, until I got onto my working pins again; got a job—saved up, paid 'em all back and put out again. And now I've worked round through Colorado, part of Arizona, and all of eastern Nevada, and here I am, flat broke."

            "What was the point in all this traveling ?"

            "Gold, sir, gold. Placer diggings, with gold in 'em. Ah, God ! give me once more the old days of placer diggings ! I don't care if I find it on the middle line of the equator, where the sun will cook eggs on the top of a fellow's hat—or I don't care where it is. That's all I ask—just once more."

            "How does it come that you didn't get a better advantage of it when you had it ?"

            "Boss, that's what my lawyer called a leading question. Ain't it the scripture says 'every soul knoweth its own sorrow ?'"

            "I think it is in the scriptures, or ought to be," said I.

            By this time, he began to speak much more plainly, and to the point. He put his pipe into his pocket, and throwing his legs over the arm of the chair that was next to mine, he asked me:

            "Did you ever look into the face of twelve men for three days inside of a court-house, while a lot of lawyers were pulling and hauling over a case, and your own life was the interesting subject of discussion ?"

            "No; I can't say that I have."

48        QUARTZ.

            "Did you ever marry a girl in the old States, and come to California, and work in the water, underground, and every way, like a wild working machine, to make money for her and one little gal baby; then be tried on a d—m false charge of murder, and get clear by spending half you'd made; and go home with the other half to her, only to find out that she had throwed off on you, and that the law back there wouldn't give you your own child ?"

            There was a fierceness in his expression that drove away entirely the drunken look, as he paused in his link of interrogation.

            "No, my friend, I'm thankful to say that I have never passed through such a trial as that," I replied.

            "Well, you may be thankful. I've gone through all of that. Ain't that so, Crowder ?"

            The saloon-keeper, as business was dull during the sunny summer afternoon, leaning on his white-shirted elbows over the counter, patiently watching Dan in his increasing earnestness, went back to his tumblers, simply saying, "Such are the facts, Daniel."

            "Now, boss, there is nothing underhand about me. I'm up and up, on the square, all the time. I never cheated any man, or woman, or child, or Indian—not even a Chinaman. I never went forward to hunt a fight, nor backward to get out of one; and I don't think that I ever throwed off on a pard, or left a debt behind me in all my travels that I didn't pay. How's those statements, Crowder, are they true ?"

            "The man who says they are not true is no friend of mine, Daniel."

            "There, now, boss! I'm drunk, you see, but he ain't; and he'll tell you if I strike the wrong lead, or go off on a spur. Now, what I want to know, and want you to tell me if you know, is, why it is, when a man wants to do the square thing, and does about do it, that he has such infernal luck ?"

            "Indeed it is hard to say. Perhaps you, being strong yourself, were severe upon others who were weak-spirited, and sternly demanded of them to stand up against all odds when they were not able, and sneered at them for weaklings, when they failed in courage and endurance, thereby raising up against you numerous weak but silent and busy enemies. Such things have been, and such may be your case."

            " No; I think you must out there boss, that's too preachery. I

QUARTZ.       49

never meddled with other people. I went about my own business."

            " Very true, no doubt; and you, perhaps, left all other people, save a very few, to think they might go to hell for all you cared. Whereupon, these small people hunted for the weak place in the strong man's arms, and found it; because there always is a weak place."

            He threw his legs off the arm of the chair and stretched them out to full length, with his boot heels resting on the floor, reached down for his hat, put the hat on his head over his eyes, put his hands deep into his breeches pockets, and plowing his heels along the floor slipped as far down into his chair as its form would permit, and in that posture remained silent for some moments, while Crowder, with one elbow on the end of the bar-board, partly pursued a newspaper, but mostly eyed his friend.

            I was about to resume my reading, when he threw one of his legs over the other, with a heavy thump of his heel on the floor; then, thrusting his hand into his breast coat-pocket, he drew forth a letter, handed it to me without moving his hat off his eyes or further changing position, and said:

            "Read that out loud to Crowder and me."

Baltimore, Md., July 10, 1864.

            MY DEAR PAPA: Oh, my dear papa, mother is dead, and I am living with uncle John. Mother died about a year ago, as I wrote to you about, but never got any answer, and her husband has gone away in the war, and uncle John says he thinks he is dead, too, for he saw it in a newspaper that a man by the same name was killed in Luray Valley. I'm working along with Mrs. Ellicott and her daughter Mary, making soldier clothes at the factory. Uncle John was thrown out of work at Harper's Ferry when the arsenals were burnt down, and he has been working wherever he could get work, mostly in the car factory for the Baltimore and Ohio, but he is going now to Pittsburg to work on government wagons, because the railroad is all torn up by the war, and, oh, dear papa, Uncle John is poor now and I will have to go with him, or else stay here with strangers. Do let me come and live with you. I have got fifty dollars saved up to come to you and, oh! dear good papa, do let me come. It is so lonesome here except for Uncle John, and now he is going away; and we do not know what minute Baltimore may be

50        QUARTZ.

burnt to ashes, and there are so many soldiers here coming and going all the time, and marching and drumming that it is not a bit like the nice, old place you took me to see when you came home here once before the trial, and when mother took me away. Do let me come, papa. I'm a big girl now, and can work and help you if you haven't got much money, and I do want to see my own, dear father, and be with him all the time. I read in the papers all, every single word I can find, about California and Nevada Territory, and sometimes I am so afraid that you will get killed in the mines, and I will never see my dear papa any more. Do let me come to you. Oh, please do. Uncle John says it is not a fit place for me out there, because it is so rough, but I do not care; I can stay wherever my papa can and I will, too, if you will let me.

            I wrote to you a long, long letter all about mother's death, and about how the money you left for me in Alexandria is lost, because Mr. Smith has gone to Richmond with the Confederates. Uncle John says may be it is not lost, because Mr. Smith is an honest man and your best friend; but I hear that everything at Richmond will be lost and I think it must be, because the Federal soldiers are just swarming into Virginia.

            Uncle John says our nice home in Alexandria is a total ruin. Mr. Smith was very good to me and sent me to school and told me to learn everything, because you liked your people to be educated, and I did try to learn as well as I could when I was at school, and Mrs. Ellicott says I am the best needle-woman and know more abut a sewing machine than any girl in the factory.

            Papa, if you will let me come and live with you, I will be the best girl I can, and never give you any trouble if I can help it, because my poor, dear papa has had trouble enough.

            Now, papa, do answer this letter soon, and let your poor, only, lonesome daughter know how you are and if you are well, and if I may come and be with you.

            God bless you, my dear papa! No more at this time, from your affectionate daughter,         

CALIFORNIA CALVERT.

            Without saying a word, I handed the letter back to Dan, who was mopping his eyes under his hat, never having altered his position during the reading; while Crowder, with one foot on the lower round of Dan's chain, had stood listening with a sad face.

QUARTZ.       51

            Dan took back the letter, replaced it in his breast coat pocket, and springing to his feet, dashed out of the saloon, exclaiming in a husky, choking voice:

            "I'm the damnedest old fool in the world!"

            He was gone, and Crowder said, partly to me and partly to himself: "That's what's the matter with him!"

            "Singular character, your friend seems to be," I remarked.

            "Well, no; he's not so singular—only a little odd just now. As a general thing he's one of the levelest-headed men in the mountains; but he's been on his gin for two or three days—an unusually long drunk for him—and I could see something bothering him ever since he came to this camp, now about three months."

            "I should say his home affairs are working on him."

            "Yes, sir," said Crowder, giving his bar-counter an extra flourish in the way of polishing it off. "That daughter—a good girl she is, too, I reckon—has been winding close round his tenderness, and bringing a heap of trouble on the old man's mind. That's just what he never could stand up under. Fight him— buck against him, and he's all iron and steel-pointed, come under, and cotton to him, and you've got him—got him, dead as a fish."

            "Why is it that a letter written so long ago should just now affect him so keenly?"

            "Why he never got the letter, I think, till he came here to me, about three months ago. That same letter, if I ain't mistaken, has been in my trunk since it was sent to my care, while he was away in South America working for Harry Meiggs, and the devil only knows who else."

            "Did he not tell you of it after you had given it to him ?"

            "No, sir; that's not his gait. I gave him a whole lot of letters, when be first come, and he went away, I reckon to read them. Then in about an hour he came back, looking as solemn as an owl, and says,' Alec, have you any money ?' I said I had. 'How much?' says he. 'Well,' says I, 'a few hundred.' Then,' says he, 'for Jesus Christ's sake, lend me two or three hundred dollars, if you can spare it !' I gave him the money in a minute, and he never said a word to me what the matter was with him. But I know now—that letter tells the tale."

            "Queer idea in him to show it to me, was it not ?"

52        QUARTZ.

            "Well, now, do you know, I think he's been trying to get that out of himself, for my information, for two days; and after he sat down there alongside of you it just popped into his boozy old head that he could get the yarn off through you."

            "What is his business—miner ?"

            "Miner ! not much. He's the best general mechanic that ever gripped a hammer. There is nothing in machinery that he don't know or can't do. Did you ever notice his big, square head, and the heavy bumps right over his great wide eyebrows? If I knew as much as there is behind them bumps, I'd shut up this gin-mill so quick people would think there was a funeral on hand. He's a poor talker with his mouth—don't run much to jawbone; but he can make wood and metal say his say, like a poet and a philosopher. Humph ! no wonder his girl can get away with all the points on a sewing machine."

            "He seems to be a man of big feelings and a bitter sense of wrong."

            "Yes, sir. Inside of him he's the biggest-feeling man you ever saw. It cuts him to the raw to have a man deceive him, and it cuts him deeper to have any one suspect him of trying to go back on anything; and when you cut him he don't heal up by licking his wounds with his tongue. He can't talk away his trouble, as some can."

            "I have noticed the same trait in other mechanics, particularly those who have to do with steam-boilers. Steam is an exacting master, who will not be put off with a lick and a promise. Such work must be honestly done, in the smallest details, or the results are disasters which ought to be called crimes."

            "Well, that's Dan! Anything that's not done to a hair—correct—worries him like a ghost; but when he puts his finish on a matter, and says 'that's all right,' then it's off his mind. What's worrying him now is that girl, after he'd fixed for her, being thrown out by the war."

            "Ah! he has found out that when a government gets into trouble, even private affairs will not stay fixed."

            "I suppose so," said Crowder, whose instincts as a publican prompted him to avoid drifting into matters political.

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR.

STRICKEN.

            Daniel Calvert—honest old Dan—is dead. Crowder still dishes up the drinks for the convivial parties who come and go in front of him; but the effort he puts up to wear a smiling face only make us, who know of the shrouded sorrow that lies prostrate across the threshold of his heart, all the more sensitive to his bereavement.

            We are a rude set of fellows—little schooled in the pretty combinations of crape, and rose-wood grief—and we don't know bow to speak glibly the sadly-rounded sentences of symbolic sorrow for our departed brother whom "It has pleased an all-wise God to take from our midst;" but if you think we do not sympathize with Crowder,—for he was Crowder's pard,—you ought to have been present when Dan died, and when, without preacher or prayer-book, we buried him—we, a little squad of men only—on a lonely knoll among the sagebrush at noon-tide, when the sun was painting shadows of the trees upon the crags.

            You see, the way of it was, something got the matter with the patent pump on the big mine of the Silver Cup Company, and they sent for Dan to come there and see if he couldn't find what ailed it and fix it. So Dan went out, and the nest thing we heard was that he was fatally hurt. Crowder got one of the boys to look after the saloon, and taking Dr. Dungleson and myself with him, hurried to Dan's bedside.

            On our arrival in the wild little camp up among the rocks and crags of a steep canyon, we found a few log and rough stone cabins clustering around the boarded-up frame of the hoisting-works and the company boarding-house; and in one of these little log cabins, with a mud roof and a dirt floor, lay old Dan, mashed up but still alive, upon a bunk made of peeled cedar-poles,

            He had his senses; and when he saw Crowder before him, his eyes locked the welcome which his paralyzed hands could not extend, and the tears came big and fast down upon the coarse pillow.

            Strange, strong men were there, going in and out, and the big nails

54        QUARTZ.

in their heavy boots made queer pictures in the dust of the dirt-floor; but there was no noise, no useless fussy moving about—only quiet, patient attention. They had kept constant guard over him for two nights, with that aching suspense that waits, not knowing what better to do, and watches wounded life, and listens for the Doctor's wheels among the echoing aisles of mountain crags.

            As the Doctor went forward and bent over Dan's prostrate body, the men formed unconsciously a new circle behind him—their beads only a few inches from the low roof—and looked and listened, each chest heaving with silent, suppressed breathing, until the Doctor said;

            "There is not enough air in this place."

            Then, instantly and quietly, each man left the little room to stand outside and whisper, or gaze reflectively down the bank upon the willows in the canyon, until the Doctor came out. No one asked any questions, but, as the Doctor looked in the face of each and then shook his head in the face of all, they knew for certain that which they nearly knew before. Crowder did not come out; but I, as in some degrees his backer in this case, went immediately in and found Dan's old pard sitting by his bedside, upon one of those clumsy wooden stools so common in mining camps. We were silent for some moments, when Dan, poor fellow, as stoutly and cheerily as he could, said,

            "Boys, my driving power is a total wreck. I'll never get up steam again."

            Nobody responded. Nobody knew any true word suitable for response, and death will not accept a flattery.

            "Crowder, old pard, you needn't introduce me to this gentleman. I couldn't offer him my hand, but I know him—I saw him once before—and I'm glad to see him again; but if he'll excuse me a little while, I've something to say to you."

            "Certainly, certainly, Mr. Calvert ! I'm glad to see you again—that is, I would be glad if I wasn't so sorry," said I in a confused way, as I left the cabin; while Dan replied: "Thank you, sir. It's a mixed case."

            I don't yet know what took place between Dan and his old pard. Perhaps I never will know. But I left them there, and after standing outside among the boys for awhile, talking about how the staging —or scaffolding—gave way and dropped Dan to the bottom of the

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shaft, I said, through the doorway, to Crowder, that I would be back presently, and went by their invitation up to the mine, to be showed how it all happened, and to be told that no one would have supposed that such a thing could happen—so singularly surprising is often the last summons,—and yet that it did happen.

            After it had all been explained to me, I met the Doctor at the mouth of the mine, and asked, as much for the relief there is in saying something, as for any other purpose. "Doctor, is there the least show for your patient ?"

            "Not the slightest, sir. He may linger till morning. Let me see" —and taking out his watch, he added, "it is now twenty minutes past four—he may linger till morning. The reaction has set in, but there is nothing to react on. His light will soon burn out. But he may linger till morning—linger, linger till morning, sir."

            And the doctor walked away, kicking the broken particles of rock in front of him, as studious men sometimes do when they have run against a disagreeable moral certainty.

            I went down the trail repeating to myself, "linger till morning, sir —linger till morning" and sat down on the rough wash-bench which is found always outside a miner's cabin, beside the door. I could hear the low mutter of indistinguishable words from within, as I sat gazing upon the ragged, gnarled, and cheerless mahogany trees that maintained an arid foothold in the jagged seams of the opposite side of the canon, while the white wandering fleece-clouds came and went across the dry blue opening of the sky, between the mountains, overhead; but there still kept throbbing in my mine the dull, sad chorus of death—"linger till morning, sir, linger till morning."

            At length Crowder came to me where I sat by the door, and said, in a low voice and subdued manner:

            "Go in and stay with him; he won't last long. Beginning to wander in his mind. I must go up to the mine and see the superintendent."

            "Certainly," I replied, and stepped inside the cabin, Dan, being so crushed by his fall that he could move neither hand nor foot, made no demonstration further than to show by his expressive face that he recognized me. I sat beside him on the stool and gave him such attention as his sad case would permit. Presently he said:

            "That time I was tight in the saloon—you remember—you read a

56        QUARTZ.

letter for me. I have not tasted a drop since; I was getting along first rate. I've had two letters from my little girl since. '

            There he paused a long pause and, not having the use of his hands, I had cause to assist him with a handkerchief about his eyes.

            "I had hopes of going to see her this coming winter, but—but—"

            He paused again; I laid my hand upon his forehead, and found it hot and throbbing. Talking more to himself than to me he continued:

            "Poor girl ! poor girl ! no, not little now. That's good—that's good—not little. A woman—my daughter; my daughter—a woman. Good woman, too; writes like a good woman—no humbug—no frills —head level. Give me some water, Cally. Throat dry—and hot—as Death Valley. Yes, yes, Death Valley—but I didn't mean that, Cally. No, no. If I'm going —of course I'm going—I'll not whine. I'm ready, ready, don't cry, Cally—no use. Got to be, you know —got to be."

            Then he remained silent again, but soon resumed in a wilder key:

            "Hot ! Johnson, there'll be an earthquake. Everything is hot and close and still—be an earthquake, sure. Look out ! There she goes ! Didn't I tell you ! We'd better get out of this—this shop will come down. All right, Johnson, old boy; we're a heap better out of that. Here she goes again ! That was a bumper ! Look I look, the Spanish running into that stone cathedral ! Why, d—n 'em, that's no place in an earthquake; it'll come down, sure ! Now she goes again—whoop ! it makes me sweat like a horse. How do you stand it, old boy?"

            Evidently he was away in South America, going again through scenes of terror with that queer compound of courage and curious observation so common to our countrymen. After another pause the scene changed with him.

            "Johnson, there's a storm upon us—a terrible storm. Let's put the blankets over the hut and fasten them down, for it's coming—coming fast. Hark ! don't you hear the thunder over the tree-tops ? It's going to be a hell of a night. If we're alive in the morning we'll bid New Granada good-bye. Now she comes ! Don't you hear that panther howl ? Listen ! yell, old fellow, you'll get a drenching. Whew ! how it pours ! Tie the blanket down, Johnson--let's keep dry if we can--it'll be cold here before morning—getting cold now."

            Thus he continued from scene to scene of his varied life, until

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Crowder came and desired me to go to supper. Leaving Dan still muttering, but weaker and weaker each moment, I went; and when I returned again he was silent—not dead, but collapsed and surely dying.

            The boys of the day shift, being off work, came and went; and, among the rest, Dan's spirit went but came not, for before midnight be was cold and dead.

            The saw and plane and hammer of the carpenter of the mine gnawed, squeaked and rang busily for hours in the night; then all was still as the man who lay roughly clad in the new-made coffin, save the regularly recurrent spells of coughing of the engine, as with a rapid che-ch-ch-ch she raised the car of rock from the depths below.

            A short sleep for all except the watchers by the narrow-box, and morning dawned bright, clear, warm, and dry. Quietly and steadily we arranged for the funeral, without ceremony or officious mannerism. Not a hammer clinked upon the head of any drill—not an explosion of blasting powder to reverberate into a roar amidst the naked, rocky peaks—all silent—or that silence disturbed only by the low, slow throb of the pumping engine of the mine.

            When the sun was up full and round, we brought forth the unpainted, unvarnished, undraped, and unplated, heavy box, and by the aid of a hundred willing and able hands, passed it down the narrow trail over the rocks to the wagon-road, that winds with the feeble stream of willow-fringed water out of the canon, into the dry waste of the valley below.

            Voluntarily, without command, we moved onward and downward; not toward the grave-yard, but toward the grave, wherever that might be, among the sage-brush of the foot-hill, where never before had a grave been made. Six at a time, strong men relieved each other for a distance of two miles, and the regular tread of iron-shod heels crunched, crunched the gravel underfoot—the only music of the march. Then we rested a moment to drink where the road leaves the stream as it winds directly out upon the hills.

            Heretofore this had been a cheerless, sombre funeral; no hit of color brighter than black, brown, and gray; no gaudy female headgear; no glitter of coach-varnish; nothing but the subdued strength of brawny men, clad in the useful colors of respectable labor, march- 

58        QUARTZ.

ing silently between the everlasting rocky walls of the canon, to the echo of their own firm feet and the tinkling treble of the stream. But now, as we took up the load to move forward for another and last mile, the six Cornish miners who carried the corpse were accompanied by a seventh with a book in his hand; this seventh, placing himself in front of the coffin as we started, opened his book as he walked, and read aloud two lines of the burial hymn of his home people. Reading these lines aloft with a clear, ringing voice, he chanted as be marched, and was joined in the chant by as many of his countrymen as were in the procession. Thus reading and singing, we marched our way slowly out of the cañon, leaving the echoes flying and dying behind us.

            Arrived at the grave—the grave alone in the desert—(and many, in many deserts, such there are)—we found the native Indians, drawn by emotionless curiosity, gathered in a picturesque and tattered group of men, women, children, ponies and dogs, at a short distance from the two miners who awaited our coming, leaning on their shovels by the fresh-turned earth.

            Slowly and steadily we lowered the coffin and settled it firmly in its place; and there being no ministers, no ceremony, no near relations to cast the last tearful look into the open earth, the shovels were grasped by skillful hands and in the briefest space the final work would have been over, bad not one of our number, doffing his hat, said "Gentlemen."

            Instantly the shovels stopped in the gravel, and all heads were bared to the sun and sky.

            "Gentlemen:—In the absence of all customary funeral services, it may not be amiss in this case if I say a few words—words not of balm to wounded hearts—words not of religious comfort; but words to indicate that however far we may be from the cradles of civilization, we still bear in our hearts the elements of that civilization which distinguishes our people from the wild man who now holds us under the observation of his untutored eye.

            "There is another land, known to some of us, which, though kindred to this where we now stand and shadowed by the same bright flag, is not, as this is, a waste of wilderness. In that land, where the great forests of many trees and the wide prairies of grass and flowers are nourished by generous and mighty rivers, this our

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dead, now in the open grave was born; and there he learned, at his mother's knee, not only the common prayers, too easily forgotten, but the humanity and kindliness of man to man, which endures through life, and is best represented in sickness, death and burial.

            "It is well for us, in scenes like this, to remember what we have been, to consider what we are, and to see what we must be; and, from these facts, to be advised that life is not all a battle-field where man goes armed against his fellow, but that it is and ought to be, a season of peaceful industry crowned with a degree of mental trustfulness. Here is the place—or one place at least—to call to mind that we are dependant upon each other; that the life of each man is some support to the life of all men. Here is the place to learn that if we are not our 'brother's keeper,' we are at least his pallbearers no less than he is ours. We are responsible each for the final repose of the other.

            "Who, my friends, looking now into the grave and thinking of home—aye, home—to us more dear when distance heaves its mountain-breast to shut the picture out—who, I say, looking into this open grave, thinking of home, of childhood, of mother, can go away to belt upon his hip and nurse in his heart those designs upon human life which are too common—too frequent—in our days and nights ? Let us strive here to take a lesson against anger, ill-will, and violence Let us cultivate peace ! Let us foster contentment ! Let us bear with the hasty spirit of others, to the end that we may ask forbearance !

            "Gentlemen, here we must leave the dead, as, erelong, the living will leave us. Let us now do so, with admiration for his courage and ability as a true soldier in the army of intelligent industry—with a regret and pardon for his errors—a tear for his fate, and a new resolve, born of this tenderness, to stand by each other in all good and peaceful endeavors.

            "Now, to the unknown and undiscoverable designs of the All-keeper of the universe, who has written around us in mountain-lines the evidence of his exaltation above the reach of our most majestic thought, we leave, with the simplicity of childhood, the future of this mystery we call—the dead !"

            At the last word the speaker replaced his hat, and simultaneously all hats were replaced; and then, by those long used to handle earth, the grave was quickly filled. Crowder drove down at the head of

60        QUARTZ.

the new and narrow mound the plain board with its rude black paint markings

DANIEL CALVERT.

BORN

In Alexandria, Virginia,

June, 1826.

Age, 47 years.

            With the shovels, picks and ropes distributed among us, we wended our way in orderly disorder, with the noon-day sun high above us, back to the mine, where the scream of the engine soon summoned the appointed laborers to their task; for the link lost out of the chain of industry is ever replaced by a new one from the shop of busy, effort-fostering nature.

            Crowder and I—the Doctor having returned at once—left the camp and rode far into the night to reach home. On the way, as we rode along, Crowder requested me to ask some friend of mine to assist him and myself to look over Dan's papers, fix up his business and communicate the sad facts to the daughter; because, he said, he was not used to writing long letters, and would not spell just proper, always. Bidding Crowder a mid-night farewell, I went home to bed full of reflections upon the matter of man's wanderings, both bodily and mental. I wondered much what the pious people in the older States would think about on the morrow (Sunday) while they congregated in the soft light, among the easy seats of highly-finished churches, to listen to a sweetly toned and well-rounded rhapsody upon the redemption of the world by preaching the Word. I said to myself," Alas, these very respectable, pious, Sunday people have no notion of the grandeur of their own vast country; no notion that their piety is a mere beautiful rainbow-hued bubble, floating upon the surface of the heaving, earnest active depths of life that bears it up, and make its beauty possible.

            While they listen in their painted play house, to the artificial graces of vocal and instrumental music, dashed with studied, eloquent, displays, the great harp of the west wind playing over thousands of

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lonely and manly graves, sings through the aisles of the many mountains the true, unpainted glory and goodness of the unexplained and unpreachable All-keeper.