Upon being assured by two or three present that they remembered the great tall saloon bummer, Yank continued by saying that upon the arrival of the steamer in New York his pard secured the services of a detective to watch——., who was followed a few days after their arrival into the banking house of Beebe & Co., on Wall street, where he sold about $800 worth of gold dust. A description of the appearance of certain specimens among the dust was given the detective, and he found upon an examination of it that it answered the description and was, no doubt, the stolen dust. The detective explained to the bank clerk that the gold had been stolen, and requested that it be laid to one side until he could send for the owner of it, but owing to some misunderstanding among the clerks, when the detective returned with the Forty-niner to the bank later in the day, they found that it had been sent to the Mint in Philadelphia only an hour before. They therefore boarded the next train, and, upon their arrival at the Mint, found that they were about ten minutes too late; it had gone into the melting pot.
Upon some inquiry being made in regard to——, Yank stated that by a person, who was acquainted with him, he was informed that the gambler had prospered pretty well in life, had a family, was at present in good health, and loved to boast among his acquaintances of the high and exalted position that he once held as Alcalde and Justice of the Peace in Hangtown, California, forty years ago.
Yank was asked if he ran across many of the old-timers during his late prospecting expedition at the North?
He replied that he found them in almost every mining camp. “I met three old acquaintances up in the Salmon River country that I hadn’t heard from for more than thirty years, and they informed me of quite a number who were at work in the Snake River country. Then I found some eight or ten of the old Forty-niners up in the Cœur D’Alene silver region. I met one whose name is Sam Black. He was a passenger in the ship “Gray Eagle” from Philadelphia, in ’49, and at one time in early days worked near Hangtown. Sam is now prospecting a silver ledge, and also working Nine-mile Cañon with a bed rock flume, from which he expects to make money enough to enable him to return once more to San Francisco and spend the balance of his days among his acquaintances, for he thinks he has done his share in tramping through cañons and over mountains, hunting for mineral, and feels now like taking a rest. All of these old-timers are confident now that they have at last struck the right spot, and like the balance of the oldtime prospectors who are yet in harness, they have magnificent prospects just a little ahead of them, and are living in full expectation of one day in the near future striking it immensely rich. They hope to have the satisfaction, at least when it comes their turn to pass, even if they haven’t enjoyed the pleasure during life of holding a full hand, to leave a good hand and a big pot for the benefit of those who will take their places to finish out the game.
“To the old-timers this is a great consolation, ain’t it, b’ys?”
“You bet it is,” was the general response.
“Oh, yes,” he replied, in answer to an inquiry, “there are a great many Forty-niners now living in the State of Nevada; some are hunting for mineral and quite a number are engaged in ranching. An old acquaintance told me that he met quite a number of the old boys in the mining region of Colorado, and a few of them in Utah.”
An old miner enquired of Yank what the prospects were up in the Cœur D’Alene silver region. He replied that from what he saw up there he was satisfied that it would prove to be a very rich mining region. There are now a number of mines from which they are shipping tons of ore daily, but the hills in this region have not yet been prospected only to a small extent, and in my opinion many richer mines will be yet discovered than they are working at present. Another one enquired of him how they happened to discover this silver region, and who made the first discovery. Yank stated that they were discovered by a party of prospectors who came over the summit of the mountains from the gold regions of Pritchard and Eagle creeks to prospect for gold. These were a man by the name of Kellogg and the other was Phil O’Rouke. They packed their tools and grub over upon a donkey. After prospecting around for a few days among the ravines and cañons and finding nothing, they concluded to return. When ready to return they found that their donkey had strayed away and upon searching for him they discovered him away upon the side of the mountain perched upon a mass of rock or croppings of lava, as it appeared to be from a distance, but they found to their astonishment and delight that this outcropping upon which their donkey had taken his station was a solid mass of ore of some character which they didn’t know the value of until they had it properly assayed upon their return home. This mine, first discovered by a donkey, is the Bunker Hill mine, situated near the town of Wardner.
Yank continued by saying that no prospecting can be done up in that country in the winter season, owing to the intense cold and great depth of snow, but there is no difficulty whatever in working a mine and of shipping ore at any time, as a railroad is running convenient to the great majority of the mines. One remarkable phenomenon I noticed in that region was the absence of wind storms. The wind blows but seldom, and the snow falls in large flakes right straight down, and remains where it falls until the coming of the warm air current from the Pacific Ocean, called, in this region, the Chenook, and the influence of which is felt for some distance beyond the Rocky Mountains in this latitude.