Virginia City, August 13th, 1878.
Dear Miller:—We do not like your going away. The act was deficient in candor, and seems to have a look as though you estimated yourself or the Club at too low a figure. Suppose you did get a little off; the true business would have been to have told us all about it. We would have "put up the mud" and carried the thing along until it came your way. But what is done is done. The thing to decide now is what it is best for you to do. Austin is no place for you. The mines there are rich, but the veins are small and the district restricted. In that camp the formation makes impossible the creation of a big body of ore; the fissures are necessarily small. You would die of asphyxia within a month or go blind searching for a place where an ore body "could make." Eureka is open to other objections. It would require six months for you to become acclimated there, and the chances are that within that time you would be tied up in a knot with lead colic. The proper course to pursue is to come back. The Club are all agreed on that proposition.
Yours truly,
Stoneman.
Ashley's letter, in these words, followed:
Virginia City, August 13th, 1878.
Dear Friend Joe:—Your going away has caused us ever so much trouble. It was foolish and cruel of you to imagine—even when you were in trouble—that any of the Club weighed friendship on old-fashioned placer diggings gold scales. We are sorry for your misfortune, but it is on your account that we are sorry. It is not so serious that it cannot be made up in a little while, if you do not persist in remaining in some place where there are no opportunities to do any good for yourself. It may be a long time, among strangers, before you can obtain employment. Because you have made one mistake, do not make another, but without delay come back. This is Tuesday. It will take you until about Saturday next to get to Austin. You will be pretty badly used up and will have to rest a day. But on Sunday evening you ought to start back by stage and rail. That will bring you home a week from to-day. A week from to-night then, we shall expect your account of how big the mosquitoes are at the sink of the Carson, and what your opinion is of Churchill County as a location for a country residence.
Yours fraternally,
Herbert Ashley.
Alex's letter was very brief, as follows:
Virginia City, August 13th, 1878.
Come back, Joe. Were your precedent to be strictly followed, we should suddenly lose a majority of our most respected citizens. In the interest of society and of the Club come.
Alex.
To Mr. Joe Miller, Austin.
Corrigan did not like to read his letter, but the Club insisted, and after declaring that the Club would get "a dale the worst of it," he proceeded as follows:
Virginia City, Nevada, August 13th, 1878.
Dear Auld Jo:—It's murthered yees ought to be for doing onything phat compills me to write you a lether. Whin I commince to write I fale as though all the air pipes were shut off intirely. I would sooner pick up a thousand dollars in the strate, ony day, than to have to hould a pin in me hand and make sinse in my head at the same moment. You know that same, too, and hince phy did yees go away and force all this work upon me? Is it in love wid horseback exercise that ye are? We have been talkin' your case over, quiet loike, in the Club, and we have unanimously rached the irresistible conclusion that it was an unpatriotic thing for yees to do—to propose this Club business and thin dezart it just whin our habits had become fixed, so to spake; and it would become a mather of sarious inconvanience for us to change. In this wurreld a man can shirk onything excipt his duty, and it is a plain proposition that it is your duty immejitely to come back. My poor fingers are cramped to near brakin' by this writin', and it is your falt, the whole of it, ond I pray yees don't let it happen ony more.
Faithfully,
B. Corrigan.
P. S.—Should you nade a bit of coin to return comfortably draw on me through W. F. & Co.
Barney.
Harding read next.
Virginia, August 13th, 1878.
Dear Friend Miller:—Enclosed I send certificate of deposit for $100. The Club desire, unanimously, that you return without a moment's unnecessary delay. All agree that this is the best field for you. I will see the foreman in the morning, tell him you have been called away for a week and get him to hold your place for you. It was very wicked of you to go away. You can only get forgiveness by hurrying back.
Lovingly,
Harding.
Brewster's was the final letter, and was in these words: