Of the pioneer prospectors but few remain; many have fallen asleep, others tiring of the privation and uncertainty incident to a miner's life, are pursuing other vocations, while many have become prosperous ranch and cattle-men and may now be found in almost any western valley. A few, a very few in comparison with the less fortunate majority, acquiring a competence, removed to other localities, and in not a few instances, have become conspicuous figures in the world of business, politics and finance.
In the mountainous districts of the west, you may still occasionally see a veteran prospector of the old school, living the life of a hermit in his log cabin, situated in some picturesque park or gulch, near his, sometimes valuable but more frequently worthless, mining locations. There he lives winter and summer, his only companion a cat or dog; the ambitions of his youth still unrealized, but at three score and ten, hopeful and expectant. His bent form, white hair, and venerable bearing impress you strangely at first, but it is only when you overcome the reticence peculiar to those who have long dwelt in solitude, and engage him in conversation, that his mental status becomes apparent. To your surprise you discover that he can converse entertainingly on any subject, from the Mosaic dispensation, to the latest inventions in the world of mechanism. You may find him to be, not only a Shakspearean scholar, but a deep student of that volume which, whether considered from a sacred or secular point of view, stands preeminently forth as the Book of Books. You may find him able to translate Homer, or Virgil, and that the masterpieces of literature are as familiar to him as his own cabin walls. A glimpse at the interior of his cabin discloses an ample stock of newspapers and magazines, while books are not strangers. There is something pathetic about his loneliness; you leave him with the feeling that society has been the loser by his voluntary banishment, and are reminded of Gray's immortal lines:
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene.
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
You speculate upon the story of his life, for you feel that it has a secret, if not a tragedy, connected with it, into which you may not probe. You ask yourself the question, "Has not his life been wasted?" and if he alone is to be considered, there is none but an affirmative answer. But his life has not been barren of results. He has been a contributory factor in the upbuilding of an empire, for he is one of the class who laid the foundations of western prosperity.
These men came west for various reasons, some actuated by the spirit of adventure, some to acquire fortunes or to retrieve vanished ones, others possibly to outlive the stigma of youthful mistakes. In the lives of many of them are sealed chapters. It is with such that these pages have to do.
Alfred Castner King.
Ouray, Colo., 1907.