Gold Seekers of '49 Part 39

Charley anxiously peered. In the rounded angle of bottom and side, a narrow gleam of yellow! Could it be possible? Yes; there it was, the gold; actually, real gold, and he had washed it--or at least, he had washed most of it.

"Shall I try some more?" he asked, excitedly.

"Sure. Go ahead. We always wash several pans, before we clean up.

Now do it all yourself. You know how."

This time Charley succeeded in getting rid of everything but a very little of the sand; and behold, the yellow seam was deeper. After the third pan he could wait no longer; he out with his buckskin sack, and with the point of his knife scooped his gold in. A little sand went along with it, but who cared?

"We'd better quit for the night, I guess," remarked his new friend, who appeared as delighted as he. "I expect you've made as much as half a dollar. Now it's time for tenderfeet to go to bed."

Through the dusk Charley trudged back to the fire, with his pan and his gold, feeling much indeed like a regular Forty-niner.

His father and Mr. Grigsby were sitting by the fire, talking, when in he burst upon them.

"I got some! I got some!" panted Charley.

"Did you? All right. Show up."

"It's in my sack. See?" And Charley "showed." "I didn't stay to pan much. But I learned how."

"A trace of gold, and considerable sand," p.r.o.nounced Mr. Grigsby. "But that's enough, for a starter--only you want to dry that stuff out, lad, and blow the sand away. Understand?"

"We've decided to push right along, Charley," said his father, just as if he and Mr. Grigsby considered Charley as much of a partner as they were, "up the trail to Marshall's place; then we can turn north for the north branch of the American, or for the Yuba and the Feather beyond.

They're all mining districts. Do you agree?"

"I agree," a.s.sented Charley. "And whenever we camp we can wash out gold, can't we?"

His father laughed.

"Certainly. By the time the mine is reached, may you'll have filled your sack."

Charley yawned mightily. The future seemed golden bright--yet he felt as though he couldn't keep awake long enough to discuss it. His father yawned; so did Mr. Grigsby; already the majority of the campers were stretched out in their blankets, some of them snoring; and to bed went the Adams party, also.

Charley removed his boots and trousers and flannel shirt; and rolling himself in his army blanket used them as a pillow--the fashionable scheme, he noticed. He was asleep so soon, and slept so "fast," that he was perfectly astonished to wake into daylight and breakfast time.

The camp of Woodchuck's Delight was breaking apart, for a number of its tender-footed inhabitants had started on, up or down the trail. As his father and Mr. Grigsby were packing the burro, the red-whiskered giant of the evening before pa.s.sed by, and waved an "Adios."

"It's almost time that we met some of the overland crowd, isn't it?"

remarked Mr. Adams, as they took up the march, in the same order as before.

"Not quite," answered Mr. Grigsby. "That's a four months' trip, and I don't reckon any of 'em got away much before the middle of April.

It'll be two or three weeks or more, yet, when the first of them cross the range."

"Will they all come this way?" appealed Charley. Thirty thousand there were, so people said; and what a procession they would make!

"No. There's that southern trail, around by the Gila, and to San Diego or up through Los Angeles. And the northern trail, to Oregon and then down. But the Eastern papers advised taking the Oregon trail up the Platte and across South Pa.s.s beyond Fort Laramie, to Fort Hall; then south to the Mary's River that Fremont named the Humboldt, down the Humboldt to the Sinks, over to the Truckee and across the Sierra to the head of the north fork of the American--the way we came in with Fremont in Forty-five. And there's that other way, about our trail of Forty-four: by the Carson River, which is south of the Truckee, over Carson's Pa.s.s of the Sierra, to the South Fork of the American--which would strike down this trail, like as not, to Sacramento. But in my opinion the trail up the Truckee to the North Fork is the best, and the bulk of the people will come that way."

So saying, Mr. Grigsby shouldered his long rifle, and strode out, to lead. Charley occupied the middle, with the burro. His father limped in the rear.

XIX

A GREAT DISCOVERY

Coloma, near to the celebrated Sutter's saw-mill, was about thirty miles on east, up the trail. The trail did not always keep to the American, but diverged from it. However, streams flowing into the American were crossed, and ever the trail waxed more interesting.

Several new towns were pa.s.sed--one, called the Mormon Diggings, was inhabited largely by Mormons from Salt Lake. Here mining was in full blast, with many improved methods, as by "cradles," which were boxes set upon rockers and rocked like a cradle so that the water and sand were flowed out as from a pan; and by long boxes called "Long Toms,"

set on an incline so that when the water and dirt were flowed down them, their cleats, nailed across the bottom on the inside, caught and held the heavy sand and gold. Then the cleats were cleaned and the gold separated. As further into the foothills the trail led, the more numerous were the miners; and when the first of the mountains were entered, every gulch and ravine held its busy population.

Now the mountains, high and thickly timbered, cl.u.s.tered before and on either side, when, on the afternoon of the second day (for Mr. Adams traveled slowly on account of his lame leg), Mr. Grigsby, ahead, pointed and said:

"There's the saw-mill."

So it was--a large frame building, apparently not all completed, amidst a clearing of stumps, on the edge of a ravine near the foot of a slope.

Several log cabins and a number of tents stood near it; and shacks and tents dotted the gullies around. But, as Captain Sutter had said, the mill was not running; and as the red-whiskered man had alleged, the locality was not bustling.

"I expect the place has been all worked out, by the first rush,"

commented Mr. Grigsby, as he led on, up the well-marked trail.

"This is where the gold was discovered in Forty-eight, is it?" queried Charley's father, as on the edge of the clearing they paused, to take breath, and gaze about them.

"Yes, sir; and unless I'm much mistaken, there's Jim Marshall himself, in front of that cabin."

So saying, followed by his party the Fremonter crossed the clearing, as if making for one of the cabins before whose open door a man was sitting, on a stool. The man appeared scarcely to notice their approach, and barely turned his head when, halting, Mr. Grigsby addressed him.

"How are you, Jim? I met you down at Sutter's, after the war. My name's Grigsby."

"Yes, I remember your being 'round there," responded Mr. Marshall, in a soft, slow drawl, rising to shake hands. "The country wasn't so full, then."

He was a rather tall, well-built man, with long brown beard and slouch hat. He had wide brown eyes, with a sombre gaze in them. In fact, his whole countenance was sober and a bit sullen.

"So you're still at the mill."

"I have been, but I'm going out. There's no place for me here. The man who discovered this gold ain't given an ounce of it," and Mr.

Marshall's voice was bitter. "What did I get for all I did when I opened that mill-race? Nothing; not even grat.i.tude. It's Government land, they say, and so the people flock in and take it, and my only chance is to rustle like everybody else. Do you think that's fair?

No, sir! If I had my percentage of all the gold being mined around here I'd be a rich man. Instead, they give me a hundred feet, and expect me to dig like the rest. Bah! I'll starve, first."

Although Mr. Marshall was trying to make this a tale of woe, Charley, for one, could not quite see the reasonableness in it.

"Well, Jim," hastily soothed Mr. Grigsby, "this is a country of hustle, and most of us have to look out for ourselves. You were here first, and I suppose people figured on your making the most of opportunity.

Anyway, I wish you'd take us over to the mill-race and show these two partners of mine just where you discovered the gold. We aren't going to stay, but we'd like to see that much."

"Yes, I can do that," a.s.sented Mr. Marshall. "Leave your animal here, if you want to. There aren't many white people about" (and he spoke bitterly, again) "to steal it."

Charley tied the burro to the cabin. Mr. Marshall led the way over to the mill, which was abandoned and idle, and paused on the brink of a wide ravine that extended back to the mill wheel.

The ravine was ragged and torn, its bottom bare to the rocks and its sides gashed by countless holes. A number of Chinamen and Indians were working in it, sc.r.a.ping about and filling pans and wicker baskets with loose dirt, which they washed in the stream trickling through. But there were no white men.