"All's not Gold that Glitters;" or, The Young Californian

by Alice B. Haven

Poor Sam, the bravest of them all, had never imagined such suffering. His feet seemed like bars of iron as he tried to keep in the sandy road, and his head grew dizzy, while his mind wandered to the old well at home, the ice-cold water brimming and dripping over the bucket, as he raised it to his lips. Then he seemed to hear the plash of the fountains at Rio, mocking him,—the recollection of the scanty allowance, warm and unpalatable as it then seemed, served out to them at sea, was delicious. He thought he must die as travellers in the great deserts had done, and he tried to pray, but his mind wandered again to the old well, to the mill pond, with its shadow of alder bushes, and sweet flags. Could it be possible that he had ever wasted water so—that it had ever been plentiful enough to bathe in, to float about, laving his limbs with its cool ripple. Then he looked around again to try and remember where he was, and saw the dreary plain, the short fringe of grass withered to dust beneath his feet, and the first belt of timber where they could hope for shade, miles beyond, the furnace glow of the plain cutting off all hope of reaching it alive. He would have laid down there, and died, or gone raging mad, as men have done from thirst, had not his father sunk with fatigue and fever, resisting the entreaties of his companions. It roused him for a moment to forgetfulness of his own agony. He urged and prayed, and entreated his father to struggle on a little longer, with no answer but moans of suffering. He could not leave him to die by the road-side. But they must both perish, if he staid there longer; the train, slowly as it moved, was far ahead of them. He lost sight of their guide descending in a dry ravine. Why did they stop there so long? they could not all have despaired; the last straggler hurried forward—he thought he heard a faint shout—a cry of joy! He left his father alone on the hot sand; he ran, he struggled on, as in some horrid dream, feeling that every step must be the last, that he should never, never reach the train. All consciousness of action left him,—but they saw him, they came towards him, some less selfish, less delirious than the rest; and as he staggered and fell, a kind hand held water to his lips, and dashed it on his face. In that first gasp of returning strength, he only thought that his father’s life was saved. What was gold—mines of gold—mountains of gold, to that one precious draught, that most common of all God’s blessings, water!

No one thought of food for hours after. A sleep, almost like lethargy, followed the intense thirst and exhaustion, and then as night came, they woke to drink and sleep again. They scarcely noticed the long unbroken outline of the Sierra rising before them, the first wooded slope of the highlands being almost gained. For once they forgot even their thirst for gold.

The next evening’s travel was delightful, after they had entered the scattered wood at the bottom of the hills, although the path was rough and uneven. The stir of foliage overhead was pleasant, and rocks and falling trees, though they made the way more difficult, were something to rest the eye after the unbroken sameness of the plains. Sam could scarcely realize their late danger, encamped for the night near a small but clear and sparkling lake one of the party had discovered among the hills. The camp fires streamed up, the coffee bubbled and steamed over the glowing coals, they ate and drank and sang, and speculated over the sums they expected to make, with reckless unconcern, though only the day before they would have given all but life for a cup of cold water! Most of them had met with too many perils and hairbreadth escapes, to give one thought to any thing that was fairly over with, however frightful or disagreeable it might be at the time, and they were within one day’s journey of the waters of the Yuba—and boundless wealth. At least it was theirs in anticipation, though many of them were never to have it in reality.

It was almost as thrilling as the first cry of “land!” when Sam reached the summit of the mountain ridge, and looked down upon the camp of the miners on Larkin’s Bar.

Here he was,—the same good-hearted daring boy, that a year ago had considered a ducking in the mill-pond, or climbing Prospect Mountain, an adventure,—in the very heart of a California range, thinking as eagerly of gold hunting, as the party of bearded, travel-worn men around him. His brown sunburnt face, neglected hair, and careless dress, would have drawn a crowd in Yankee-land, but here it was the costume of the country. He stood on the very highest spur of the hill, looking back with a wave of the tin cup in his hand to cheer on less active climbers, and then down into the ravine, through which the shrunken stream brawled and foamed, as if fretted at the many intruders that were tearing up its banks.

Sam had heard them talk of bars, and knew they were going to one, but he had always supposed it was like the bar at the entrance of a river or harbor. To his great wonder, it was only the bed of the river, laid bare by the water subsiding in the dry season, into a narrow, rocky channel. As the particles of gold were washed down from the mountains, they were deposited on these bars, beneath the loose, gravelly soil, or in the fissures of the rocks. The miners’ camp was beneath the high bluff on which he stood. A few small tents, a rough canvas-covered shed, dignified into a store,—some benches and a table, at which meals were served to those who could afford the luxury of having their cooking done for them, and groups of cooking utensils at intervals marking the place where less opulent individuals “did their own work,” and slept in their blankets, was all that made Larkin’s Bar a habitable place.

It was nearly sundown when they reached it, and most of the miners had finished a week’s hard toil, and were collecting or calculating their gains. The only curiosity they showed in receiving the new comers, was for news from the States, and when a mail was expected; but they were very good-natured in giving them all the information they wanted.

Mr. Gilman was not at all pleased with his first discovery. All the bar had been claimed, or bought of the original discoverers, and the privilege of working it was to be paid for, accordingly. The smallest claim, as the water lots were called, could not be had under three hundred dollars. Mr. Gilman was for resisting any such injustice, and Sam did not like the idea of working two or three weeks for other people, when they might as well be helping themselves. It was found the best and only thing they could do in the end, as all the bars in the neighborhood were occupied, and they would lose more time in going on to the Feather River; it might be only to find the same thing there.

There was some comfort in hearing that nearly every one who arrived hired themselves out for a few days, to learn how to handle their tools; but the commencement of Mr. Gilman’s schemes of independence, was to find himself using a spade and pickaxe as a day-laborer.