“You may rely on it he's dead,” said the first, “for I know it; he died on the Sacramento, and in this wise. We had had a two months' run of luck at the Crestones of Bacuachez,—such fortune as I only hope we may soon see again; none of your filthy wash and sieve work, nor any splintering of a steel barreta on a flint-rock, but light digging along the stream, and turning up such masses of the real shining metal as would make your heart leap to look at,—lumps of thirty,—thirty-five,—ay, forty pounds.”
“There, there, Harispe!” said an old fellow, with a long pipe of sugar-cane, “if we are to swallow what's a-comin', don't choke us just now.”
“What does an old trapper know of the diggin's?” said Harispe, contemptuously. “'T is a bee-huntin' and a birds'-nestin' you ought to be. Smash my ribs! if he ever saw goold, except on the breast of a gooldfinch.” Having silenced his adversary, he resumed:—
“We were all rich by the time we reached Aranchez. But what use is metal? One can't eat it, nor drink it, nor even sleep on't; and the fellows up there had got as much as we had ourselves. Everything cost twenty—no, but two hundred and twenty times its value! I used to cut a goold button off my coat every morning for a day's grub, so that we had to make ourselves a kind of log-hut outside the village, and try to vittal ourselves as best we could. There war n't much savin' in that plan neither, for we drank brandy all day long, and it cost half an ounce of goold every bottle of it! Then we stayed up all night and played brag, and it was that finished Narvasque. He was a-betting with Shem Avery, and Shem, who felt he was in for a run of luck, layed it on a bit heavy like; and the end o' it was, he won all Narvasque's two months' diggin's, all to a twenty-eight 'ouncer' that he would n't bet for anybody,—no, nor let any one see where he hid it. Shem had his heart on that lump, and said, 'I 'll go fifty ounces against your lump, Narvasque;' and the other did n't take it at first, but up he gets and leaves the hut. 'Honor bright,' said he, 'no man follows me.' They all gave their words, and he went out a short distance into the wood, where he had a sheep's heart hanging near a rock, in the centre of which he had concealed his treasure. He was n't three yards from the spot, when a great spotted snake darts through the long grass, and, making a spring at the piece of meat, bolts it and away! Narvasque followed into the deep jungle, unarmed as he was; there a deadly combat must have ensued, for when his cries aroused us, as we sat within the hut, we found him bitten on every part of the body, and so near death that he had only time to tell how it happened, when he expired.”
“And the snake?” cried several, in a breath.
“He got clear away; we gave chase for four days after him in vain. But a fellow with as much spare cash about him must have come to bad ere now.”
“The Injians has ripped him open afore this, depend on't,” said another. “There 's scarce a snake of any size hasn't an emerald or splice of gold in him.”
“There's more gold lies hidden by fellows that have never lived, or come back to claim it, than ye know of,” said the old trapper; “and that's the kind of 'Placer' I'd like to chance upon, already washed and smelted.”
“They talk of martyrs!” said a tall, sallow Spaniard, who had been educated for a priest: “let me tell you that those Injians, ay, even the negroes, have endured as much torture for their gold as ever did zealot for his faith. There was a fellow in my father's time up at Guajuaqualla, who, it was said, had concealed immense treasures, not only of gold, but gems, emeralds, diamonds, and rubies: well, he not only refused all offers from the Gobernador of the mines to share the booty, but he suffered his toes to be taken off by the smelting nippers, rather than make a confession. Then they tried him with what the miners call a 'nest-egg,' that is, a piece of gold heated almost red, and inserted into the spine of the back; but it was all to no use, he never spoke a word.”
“I heard of him; that was a nigger called Crick,” cried another.