"ZINC" BARNES.

 

            BELIEVE his initials were S. C, but they soon degenerated into "Zinc," and that is the only name that thousands ever knew him by. I have before now written of a good many gentlemen of character. Zinc's character was in the main fine, but there were holes in it. He was a royal friend, so true that I fear had a real friend needed something, Zinc would have got it for him ; and had his own finances been in borasco, he, by the enchantment of his reasoning, would have drawn it from the opulence of others.

            His initial venture in Nevada in one of those first two or three hard winters was on a ranch above Carson City, where there was some timber and a little grass.

            It may be said that Zinc did not obtain the ranch for the purpose of improving it and making a homestead of it, but held it to wait for the boom which in those days always came in the spring, when sometimes it was easier to work a "sucker" than a ranch.

            The former owner had built a dugout to live in ; that is, he had "cut out a station" on the side hill, put up some logs on the sides and covered it with poles. On these was piled brush, and some earth which he had packed down with his shovel.

            When in Carson someone asked him if he had a house on his ranch. He answered : 'Why certainly." 'Tell us about it. Zinc!" was next demanded. 'Why," replied Zinc, "it has rustic sides, for that is my taste, a beam roof, for I always admired beam roofs, even if costly, but I have no door, rather I have hung before it a piece of rare old tapestry to remind me as I go in or come out of my mother, for she had a passion for rare tapestry." The questioner walked away, whereupon Zinc turned to Joe Farren and asked him if he had a large dollar which he could loan on unquestioned security. I was told that the tapestry which made the door was manufactured

308 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

out of two gunny sacks, which is certainly as plausible as was Zinc's tapestry story.

            When the country around the Comstock was pretty well located, a young man one day pointed out to some companions, that the range in which the Comstock was located was cut in twain by the Truckee river and the mountains north of the Truckee had never been explored for mineral indications, and proposed to organize a prospecting party and prospect up and down that range. The proposition was at once approved and a party of fifteen or twenty young men started out from about where Reno now is. All were riding small mustangs except Barnes, who was mounted on a very tall and long mule and a mule with a wide reputation for its indisposition to indulge in violent exercise.

            As they were riding along the first day the question of food was sprung, whereupon Zinc explained that many things which were really good food were ignored through a foolish prejudice. : "For instance," he continued, "there are few dishes more dainty and wholesome than a broiled rattlesnake." He was laughed to scorn, but insisted.

            They descended from a low hill into a small grassy valley with a clear stream running through it, where they determined to camp for the night. Their coming started up a score of fat rabbits and the boys shot a dozen of them. One of the boys ran upon a big rattler in coil and shot his head off. This was skinned and cooked in a separate frying pan and laid in a coil before the tin plate of Barnes. But amid the railing of the crowd Zinc insisted on eating rabbit. When he had finished he lighted his pipe and when all was still suddenly broke out with :

            "I still insist that when a man needs an appetizer there is nothing finer than a cooked rattler, but after riding all day a man does not need an appetizer, and so can choose what to eat, and under such circumstances the man who does not choose rabbit is off his base."

            When the country began to have a mineral look, they all dismounted, one man led the animals and the others spread out on the hillsides prospecting. In that way they continued to

"ZINC" BARNES. 309

wander further and further north, when one day they ran upon a band of renegade Piutes or Modocs in their war paint. The boys ran to their animals, sprang upon them and beat a retreat. But Zinc could get no speed out of his mule and he called to the others. "'Hold on, boys ! Hold on ! There is only a little band of them. We can lick them easily."

            But his cries were unheeded. Suddenly an arrow aimed at Zinc fell a little short and struck the mule just beside the mule's tail. This aroused the mule, and seeing or scenting the savages, he laid his ears back and started at a pace which soon overtook the mustangs.

            As Zinc swept by his companions he cried to them : "Come on ! Come on ! You sons of guns. If there is one Indian after you there's a million."

            He held ever after, that the point of view was everything sometimes.

            After awhile Zinc bought out the title of a man whose claim lapped over on Bonanza ground, and his was the oldest title.

            Zinc demanded possession of the ground and an accounting, and being refused, began suit.

            He enlisted the services of a brilliant lawyer, and no case was ever better prepared or presented.

            It was tried in the federal court. Judge Sawyer of San Francisco presiding.

            "When the hearing was over and it came time to charge the jury, the judge descended from the bench, went and stood in front of the jury and for half an hour expounded the law in a way which was an astonishment to all that heard it.

            Zinc listened until the close, then turning to his lawyer, said : "Sawyer is a perfectly unbiased, unprejudiced judge, is he not?" "Why do you ask?' : was the reply. "O, nothing much," said Zinc. : "I was only thinking that if that is an unbiased opinion, what a splendid attorney he would make if he were really interested on one side of a case.''

            Zinc finally drifted across the country from Bodie to Pioche.

            When Zinc reached Pioche his services were needed. The

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great trial was on between the Raymond and Ely and the Meadow valley mining companies, and some people thought that Zinc had a sort of hypnotic power over a jury.

            `It was there that he gave voice to his idea of an honest man -- "a son of a gun who will stay bought."

            The air of Nevada is still filled with the echoes of his quaint and terse sayings.

            He had the exact estimate of every man he came in contact with and could write a full biography of many of them in an epigram. He was an all around genius, but had no terminal points ; no fixedness of purpose, no apparent care for what happened the day before or what would happen the day following.

            Thousands of men with less ability have made for themselves fortunes and high names, but he seemed to care for neither. He looked upon life as a game, and that to lose was no sign of want of ability, but a want of luck.

            He looked upon life as a game, and that to lose was no sign of want of ability, but a want of luck.

            He died a painful death in Idaho, but those who were with him said despite his great sufferings, his quaint remarks lingered to the last, and he died just as he had lived, looking upon death as merely a gateway beyond which there was an- other land to explore, but from which the point of view would be everything.