The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 8, 1903, Page 5

for and there must be the ok ) walks c plump kind of a man desk neing up and s “How do you open up d me the trouble,” says to give you the strong = He gri t ain’t as bad as ht out a cigar box n's in the condition you was make 1t & point and take out any find useful, t Bo offense the next m watch and the rest of ¥s, always hrough his clothes a stranger might iat there won't be ing. Here's your our valuables, in- eluding the cash—count your money and see If it's rig Well, sir! 1 was one happy man, and I thanked that feller as I thumbed over the Bills, but when I got up to & hundred and seventy I begun to feel queer. Look- #¢ like 1'd made good money on the trip. “What's the m suys he, seeing my face. “Nothing wrong, I hope!" “Why, the w and the gun and the other things is all right,” says 1. “But T'm pow $50 to the good, even figuring that 1 &idn’t spend a cent, which ain’t in the Seast likely, end here's ten-doliar biils suougk to make a bedspread left over.” “Psbhaw!” says he. “Blame it! I've mized your plunder up with the mining sentieman that came in at the same. You end him was bound to fight, and then you both turned to to lick me, and what with kesping you apart and holding you off and taking your valuables away from 7ou all at the same time, and me all alone bere, as it was the night man's day off. Tve made & blunder of it. Just take your change out of the wad and call for & érink on me when you feel like it, wiil your’ 1 sad I would do that, and, moreover, that he wes an officer and a gentleman, and thet I'd stay at his hotel two weeks &t least to show my appreclation, no mat- ter where it was, but to satisfy & natural curiosity I'd ltke to know what part of the country I was at present inhabitin “You're at Bolse, Idaho,” says he, “one of the best little to in the best little Territory in the United Btates of Ameri- ce, including Alaska.” “Well—,” says 1 1l—." for again I was at @ loss for words. I had no idea I'd gone o far from Lome. “I belleve what you say,” says 1. “What do you do eround these parts? “Mining,” says he. “You're just in time ~big etrike in the Bob-cat district. Poor man's mining. Placer, and durned good plecer, ri top of the ‘ground. The mining g 1 1 spoke about is having Lis breakfast now. Suppose you go in snd have a talk with him? Nice man, drunk or sober, although excitable when he's had a little too much or mot quite evough. He might put you onto a good thing. I'm not a mining person myself.” “Thanke,” says 1, and in I went to the cining-room. There was & great, big, fine-looking man eating his ham end eggs the way I like $0 see & man est the next morning. He em bad a black beard that was so strong it wped out from his face. forning,” says I. G “Good morning, sir,” says he. “A day of commingled lucent clarity and vernal scftness, ain't it?” “Well, 1 wouldn’t care to bet on that without going a little deeper into the subject,” says I; “but it smells good at least—so does that ham and eggs. Mary, I'll take the same, with coffee extra strong.” “You have doubtless been attracted to our small but growing city from the re- ports—which are happlly true—of the in- exhaustible mineral wealth of the sur- rounding reglon?” says he. “No—not exactly,” says I; “but I do want to hear something about mines. Mr. Hotel-man out there (who's a gen- tleman of the old school If ever there lived one) told me that you might put me on to & good thing.” “Precisely,” says he. “Now, sir, my name is Jones—Agamemnon G. Jones—and my pardner, Mr. H. 8Bmith, is on & busi- ness trip, selling shares of our mine, which we have called The Treasury from reasons which we can make obvious to any Investor. The shares, Mr.—'" ‘Saunders — Red Saunders — Chantay Seeche Red.” “Mr. Saunders, are 50 cents apiece, which price is really only put upon them to avold the offensive attitude of deal- ing them out as charity, As a matter of fact, this mine of ours contains a store of gold which would upset the commer- clal world were the bare facts of its ex- tent known. There Is neither sense nor amusement in confining such enormous treasure in the hands of two people. Con- sequently my pardner and I are present- ing an Interest to the public, putting the nominal figure of 50 cents a share upon it, to save the feelings of our benefici- arles.” “What the devil do I care?’ says I “I'm looking for a chance to dig. Could you tell a man where to go?” “Oh,” says he, “‘when you come to that, that's different. Btrictly speaking, my pardner Hy hasn't gone off on a busi- ness trip. As a matter of fact, he left town night before last with two-thirds of the money we'd pulled out of & pocket up on Silver Creek {n the company of two balf-breed Injuns, & Chinaman and four mere sons-of-guns not classitea, all in such a state of beastly Intoxication that their purpose, route and destination are matters of the wildest conjecture. I've been laying around town here hating myself to death, thinking perhaps I could sell some shares In a mine that we'll find yet if we have good luck. If you want to go wildcatting over the hills and far away I'm your huckleberry.” “That hits me all right,” says I. “For what I don't know about mining nobody don’t know. When do we start?” “This or any other minute,” says he, getting up from the table. 7ait tiil I finish up these eggs,” says 1. “And there's a matter of one drink coming to me outside. I may as well put that where it won't harm any one else before we start.” “All right,” says he, waving his hand. “You'll find me outside—at your pleasure, sir.” I swallowed the rest of my breakfast whole and hustled out to the bar, where my friend and the hotel man were wait- ing. “Now I'll take that drink that's coming, and rather than be small about and then it, I'll buy one for you, we're off,” says L “You won’t do no such thing, hotel man. t's a horse on me, arffd I'll supply the liquor. Mr. Jones is in the play as much as anybody.” Bo the hotel man set ’em up, and that made one drink. Then Jones said he'd never let a drink suffer from lonesome- ness yet when he had the price, and that made two drinks. I had to uphold the honor of the ranch, and that made three drinks. Hotel man sald it was up sticks now, and he meant to pay his just debts like an honest man, and that made four drinks. Then Jones said—well, by this time ¥ see I needn’t have hurried break- fast so much. More people came in. I woke up the next morning in the same old bedroom. Every breakfast Aggy and me got ready to pull for the mines, and every morning I woke up in the bedroom. I should like to draw a vell over the next two weeks, but it would have to be a pretty strong vell to hold it. I tried to keep level with Aggy, but he'd spend three dollars to my one, and the conse- quence of that was that we went broke within fifteen minutes of each other, ‘Well, sir, we were a mournful pair to too, THE SUNDAY CALL, draw to that day. “Aggy,” says 1 *“we leave here to-morrow mornin “All right.” sayvs Ag. “This sperting life is the very devil. T like out of doors as well as the next man, when [ get there.” So the morrow morning away we went. All we had for kit was the picks, shovels and pans; the rest of our belongings was staying with the hotel man until we made a ralse. Ag sald he'd be cussed if he'd walk. A hundred and fifty miles of a stroll was too many. “But we ain’t got a cent to pay stage fare,” sald I “Borrow it of Uncle Hotel-keep,” the sald h “Not by a town site,”’ says I. “We owe him all we're gOINE to at this very minute ~you'll bave to hoof it, that's all.” “I tell you I won't. T don't like to have anybody walk on my feet, not even my- self. I can stand off that stage driver S0 easy that you'll wonder I don't take it up as a profession. Now, don't raise any more objections—please don’t,” says he. “L can't tell you how nervous you make me, always finding some fault with every- thing I try to do. That's no way for a hired man to act, let alone a pardner.” So, of course, he got the best of me, and we climbed into the stage when she come alopg. Now, you wouldn’t find many men in that country who wouldn't. stake two fellers to a wagon ride wher- ever they wanted to go and be pleasant about it. I'd have sure seen that man got paid, even if Aggy forgot it, but the man that drove us was the surllest brute that ever growled. When you'd speak to him, he'd say, “Ugh”—a style of thing that, didn’t go well in that part of the country. I kept my mouth shut, as knowing that 1 didn't have the come-up-with weighed on my spirits; but Aggy gave him the jolly, He only meant it in fun, and there was plenty of reason for it, too, for you never seen such a game of driving as that feller put up In all your life. The Lord save us! He cut around one corner of a mountain, so that for the longest second I've Ifved through my left foot hung over about a thousand feet of fresh air. I'd have had time to write my will before I touched bottom If we'd gone over. I don’t know as I turned pale, but my hair ain't been of the same rosy complexion since. “Well,” says Aggy In a surprised tone of volce when we got all four wheels on the ground again. ‘“Here we are!” says he. *Who'd have expected it? I thought he was going to take the short cut down to the creek.” The driver turned round with one cor- ner of his lip histed—a dead ringer of a mean man. Says he tc Aggy, “Yer a fun- ny bloke, aln't yer?” “Why!"” says Ag, “that's for you to say—wouldn’t look well coming from me —but if you press me, I'll admit I give birth to a little gem now and then.” Our bold buck puts on a great swagger. “Well, yer needn’t be funnny in this wag- says he. “The pair of yer spongin® a ride! Yer needn't be gay—yer Lear me, don’t cher?” “Why, I hear you as plain as though Henry WaLLace Frisips. you eet right next me,” says Ag. “Now, you listen and see if I'm audible at the same range. You're a blasted chump!” he roars in a tone of volce that could have carried forty miles. “Did you hear that, Red?’ he asks, very Innocent. I was 80 hot at the driver's sass—the cussed low-downness of dolng a feller a favor and then heaving It at him—that you could have lit a match on me anywheres, but do save me I couldn't kelp §aughing —Ag had the comicalest way! At that the driver begins to larrup the horses. 1 ain't the kind to feel faint when a cayuse gets what's coming to him for raising the devil. but to see that lad whale his team because there wasn't nothing else he dared hit got me on my hind legs. I nestled one hand {n his hair and twisted his ugly mug back. “Quit that!" says L “You let me be—I ain’t hurtin’ you.” be hollers. “That alh’t to say I won't be hurting you soon,” says I. “You put the bud on them horses again and I'll boot the spire of your back up through the top of your head till it stands out like a flagstaff. Just one more touch and you get It says L. He didn't open his mouth again till we come to the river. Then he pulled up. “This is about as far as 1 care to carry you two gents for nothin',”” he says. “Of course, you're two to one, and I can’t do nothing if you see fit to bull the thing through. But I'll say this: If efther one or both of you roosters has got the least smell of a gentleman about him, he won't have to be told his company aln't wanted twice.” Now, mind you, Ag and me didn't have the first cussed thing—not grub, nor blank- ets, nor gun, nor nothing; and this fhe feller well knew. “Red,” says Aggy, “what do you say to pulling this thing apart and seeing what makes it act so.” - “No." says I, “don’t touch it: it might be catching. Now, you whelp,” says I to the driver, ou tell us if there's a place wherg we can get anything to eat around here.” We'd expected to go hun- gry until we hit the camp, some forty mlles further on, where we knew there'd be plenty for anybody that wanted it. “Yes,” says he. “There’s a man run- ning a shack two miles up the river.” “All right,” says I. “Drive on. You've ylayed us as dirty a trick as one man can play another. If ever we get a cinch on you, you can expect we'll pull her til) the latigoes snap!” He kept shut till hegot across the river, where he felt safe. “it'’s all right about that cinch!” he Lollers back, grinning. “Only wait tiil you get it, yer suckers! Sponges! Beats! Deadheads! Yah!" 3 Well, a man can't catch a team of horses, and that's all there {s about it; but 1 want to tell you he was on the anxious seat for a quarter of a mile. We tried bard. When we got back to where we started and could breathe again we held a coun- cil of war. ““Now, Aggy,” says I, “we're dumped— what shall we do?" He sat thtre a while looking around him, snapping pebbles with his thumb. “Tell you what it is, Red,” he says at last, “we might as well go mining right here. This Is likely gravel, and there's a river. If that bar in front of you had been further in the mountains it would have been punched full of holes. It's only because it's on the road that nobody's taken the trouble to see what was in it. This read was made by cattle ranchers that didn’t know nothing about mining, and every miner that's gone over the trall had his mouth set to get further along as quick as possible—just like us. Do you see that little: hollow running down to the river? Well, you try your luck there. I give you that place and it's the most probable, and you as a tender- 5 foot In the business will have all the luck. I'll make a stab where T am.” Well, sir, it sounds queer to tell it, and it seems queerer still to think of the do- ing of it, but I hadn't dug two feet be- fore I came to bedrock, and there was some heavy black chunks. “Aggy.” says I, “what's these things?"’ throwing one over to him. He caught it and stared at it “YWhere did you get that?' says he, In almost a whisper. “IWhy, out of the hole, of cours: 1, laughing. “Come, take a look!" Aggy wasn't the kind of a man to g0 off the handle over trifles, but when he looked Into that hole he turned perfectly green. His knees gave out from under him and he sat on the ground like a man in a trance, wiping the sweat off his face with a motion like a machine. “What the devil alls you?” says T, says tonished. I thought maybe I'd done soms- thing I hadn’t ought to do, through ig- norance of the rules and regulations of mining. “Red,” says he, dead solemn, *T've mined for twenty years, and from Old Mexico to Alaska, but I never saw any- thing that was ace-high to that before. Gold laying loose in chunks on top of the bedrock Is too much for me—I wish Hy could see thi “Gold!” says I *What you talking about? What have those black hunks to do with gold?” The only answer he made was to lay the one I had thrown to him on top of a rock and hit her a crack with a pick. Then he handed it to me. Sure enough! There under the black was the yaller. Of course, If I'd known more about the busi- ness I could have told it by the welght, but I'd never seen a plece of gold fresh off the farm before in my life. I hadn't the slightest idea what it looked iike, and I learned afterward it all looks different. Some of it shines up yaller in the start; some of it's red, and some is like ours, coated black with fron rust. So I looked at Ag, and Ag looked at me, neither one of belleving anything at all for awhile. I simply couldn’t get hold of the thing—I ain’t yet, for that matter. 1 expect to wake up and find it & pipe dream, and in some ways I wouldn't mind it it was. I never was so completely two men as I was on that occasion. One of ‘em was hopping around and hollering with Ag yelling “Hooray!"” and the other didn't take much interest in the proceed- ings at all. And it wasn't until I thought, “Now I can pay that cussed coy- ote of a stage driver what I owe him,” that I got any good out of it. That brought brought it home to me. When I spoke to Ag about paying the driver, he says, "“That's s Then he takes a quick look around. “We can pay him in full, too, old horse,’ 'he hollers, and there was a most joyful smile on hi sface. “Red,” says he, “do you know this is the only ford on the river for—I don’t know how many miles—perhaps the whole length of her?” “Well?" says L “Qur little placer clalm,” says Aggy, slowly, rubbing his hands together, “cov- ers that ford; and by a judicious taking up of claims for various uncles and brothers and friends of ours along the creek on the lowlands can fix it so they cafi't even bridge it. “Do you mean they can't cross our claim If we say they can't?” “Sure thing,” says Aggy. “There’s you and me and the law to say, ‘No' to that— I wish I bad a gun.” “You don't need a gun for that skunk of a driver.” “Ot course not; but there'll be passen- gers, and there's no telling how excited them passengers will be when they find they've got to go over the hills ford- “Are you going to send ‘em all around, e “The whole bunch. Anybody coming back from the diggings has gold In his clcthes, so it won't hurt "em non and I propose to give that stage line an adver- tising that won't do It a bit of good. Come along. Red: let's see that lad that has the shack up the river. We nee to eat, and maybe he's got a a decent felller we'll let him in on a claim. Never mi ahout the hole; 1t won't run away, a s nobody to tcuch anything. ¢ So we went up the river. The man's rame was White, and he was a white man by nature, too. He fed us well and was just as hot as us when we toid him abo the stage driver ck. Then we told him abott the find and let him in. “Now says Azg “have you got a g I bave that,” says the dad used to be a duck ter hesapeake Bay. When you say ‘gu show you a gun." He dove * his bunk and fetched out what I & d say was a No 1 bore sh 1, W barrels six foot long “Gentlemen,” says he, holding the gun up and pattng It lovin! + quarter pound of pow in each one of them barrels and a handful of buckshot on top of that you've got an argument that couldn’t be upset by the Supreme Court. I'll guarantee that wh »u point her anywhere within ten feet of a man not over a hundred yards away and let her do her duty all the talent that that man's family could employ couldn't gather enough of him to recognize him by and you won't be In bed mor n long enough to heal a bustea sh “I hope ulder. to pull the the sight of her would bave weight with 1 people. ‘When's the stage due back?" “Day after to-morrow, about noom.” “That gives us lots of time to stake, and »w cause their “1 think we're The next day we worked like the Old Harry. .We had everyth by nightfall, and there was n but dig and walt Curious folks we all are, aln't we? 1 should have sald my own self that if I'd found gold by the bucketful, I'd be more interested In that than I would be In get- ting even with a mut that had done me dirt, but it wasn't so. Perhaps it was be- cause I hadn't pald much attention te money all my life, and I had pald the strictest attention to the way other people used me. Living where there's so few foiks accounts for that, I suppose. Getting even on our esteemed friend the stage driver was right in your Uncle Red- dy's line, and Aggy and our new pard, White, seemed to take kindly to It also. 1f you ever saw three faces filled with fnnocent gles it was when we heard the wheels of that stage coming—why, the night before 1 was woke up by somebody laughing. There was Agsy sound asleep, sitting up hugging himself In the mooun- light. “Oh, my! Oh, m says he. “It's the only ford for four thousand miles!™ We planted a sign in the middle of the road with this wording on it In big let- ters, made with the black end of a stick. NOTICE! ! This and Adjolning Clat ns Are the Prop- RED SAUN- DERS, JOHN HENRY WHITE ET. AL, Trespassing Done at Your Own Risk. Owners Will Not Be Responsible for the Remalns, There was a stretch of about a mile on the level before us. When the stage coma in plain sight Aggy proceeds to load up “0ld Moral Suasion,” as he called her, so that the folks could see there was no at- tempt at deception. They come pretty fairly slow after that At fifty yards Ag hollers, “Halt!” The team sat right down on thelr talls. “Now, Mr. Snick'umfrits,” says Aggy. “you that drives, I mean, come here and read this little sign.” “Suppose I don't?" says the feller, try- ing to be smart before the passengers “It's & horrible supposition,” says AggY, “and the innocent will have to suffer with the gullty.” Then he cocks the gun. *“God sakes! Don't shoot!" yells one of the passengers. “Man, you ought to have more sense than to try and pick him out of & crowd with a shotgun! Get down thers, you fool, and make it quick!™ So the driver walked our way and read. He never sald a word. I reckon he realized it was the only ford for four thousand miles, more or less, just as Aggy had remarked. There he stood, with his mouth and eyes wide open. “I'd like to have you other gentlemen come up and see our first clean up, so you won't think we are running In a windy,” says Aggy. They wanted to see bad, as you can imagine, and when they did see about fifteen pounds of gold In the bottom of my old hat they talked like people that hadn’t a Christian bring- ing up.” “Oh, Lord!” groans one man. “Brigham Young and all the propnets of the Mor- mon religion! This is my tenth trip over this line, and me and Pete Hendricks played & game of seven-up right on the spot where that gent hit her, not over a month ago, when the stage broke down! Somebody just make & guess at the way 1 feel and give me one sriall drink.” And he put his hand to his head. “Say, boys!" he goes on, “you don't want the whole blamed creek, do you? Let us fn.” “How's that, fellers?” says Ag to me and White. We sald we was agreeabla. “All right, in you come!” says Aggy. “There ain't no hog about our firm—but as for you,” says he, walking on his tip- toes up to the driver, “as for you, you cock-eyed whelp, around you go! Around you go!” he bollers, jamming the end of Moral Suasion into the driver's trap. “Oh, and won't you go ‘round, though!” says he. “Listen to me, now. If any one of your ancestors for twenty-four genera- tions back had ever done anything as de- cent as robbing & hencoop it would have conferred a kind of degree of mnoblliity upon him. It wouldn't be possible to find an ornler cuss than you if a man raked all hell with a fine toothed comb. Now, you stare-coated, mangey, bandy-legged misbegotten out-law coyote, fy!-fly whoops Aggy, jumping four foot into the air, “before I squirt enough lead Into your system to make it a paying job to meit you down!™ The stage driver acted according to or- ders. Three wide steps and he was in the wagon, and with one screech like & p'iz- ened bobcat, he fairly lifted the cayuses over the first ridge. Nobody never saw him any more, and nobody wanted to. ———ee———— A recently published report of a French savant shows that the Chaldeans and Babyloniahs were possessed of consider- able metallurgical skill. A Babylonian statuette was found to consist of a cop- per alloy containing 79.5 per cent of cop- per, 1.25 per cent of tin and 08 per cent of fron. A statuette from Chaldea estimated to be 2200 years old was com- posed of nearly pure copper, containing only a slight proportion of iron, whereas another Chaldean statuette, soms 400 years older, consisted malnly of an alloy of four parts of copper with one part of lead and a trace of sulphur.