Another old-timer asked Tennessee if he knew what had become of old Kentuck and his partner, Sleepy Ben? The former answered that it was never known what had become of them. They were either killed by the Indians or lost in the mountains some time in ’54.
“You know that after they had worked out that rich claim in the winter of ’49-’50 in Georgetown cañon, they went the next season up on Murderers’ Bar, on the Middle Fork, where they did well. The following season they commenced work on the river,
but luck was against them and they were washed out for two seasons in succession. In ’53 they went into the mountains on a prospecting expedition, and returned in the fall with some of the finest specimens, and the biggest, that you ever did see. They struck a rich cañon somewhere at the north, and we all tried to find out where it was, but it wasn’t any use, and it never has been found yet. Well, they started in the spring of ’54 for their rich cañon, and that is the last that ever has been heard of Kentuck and Sleepy Ben. It was very early in the spring when they started, and the supposition was that they got lost in the snow, and were frozen or starved to death.”
CHAPTER XX.
Yank Visits the Old Mining Camp—Yank Seated on the Boulder—The First Loaf of Bread—The Bean-pot Comet—How Julius Sailed Up the River—Jeff’s Plum-Duff—The Stone Statue—The Old Miner Who Was Robbed on Board the Steamer—The Cœur d’Alene Mines—Coasting.
ONE of the company remarked, with rather a sad expression of countenance, that the last time he went through the mining region in the central counties, where he mined in earlier days, it actually gave him the blues to see those small villages and mining camps now all going to ruins and not a single sluice or tom at work for miles around, except once in a while by a Chinaman.
“Why, them confounded ranchers,” he continued, “are jest fencin’ in the whole country, and settin’ out their grape-vines and orchards right where we used to jest roll out ther dust. Why, if them chaps keep on a spell longer, nobody will know that there has ever been any minin’ done there at all.”
“Oh, say, Jim, when were you up in Eldorado County last!” asked Yank, an old-timer, of an old pardner whom he had just met for the first time in many years.