Upon our return from town to the cabin at night we found the table all set in the very highest style of art, and bottles of champagne were included in the bill of fare. We thought Sandy had gone crazy sure in thinking perhaps of his great disappointment, but when asked for an explanation he only pointed at our gold pan which we saw in the center of the table and resting upon the bottles of champagne. Upon looking into the pan we saw several dollars’ worth of gold dust in the bottom of it, and when we asked him where it came from he pointed his finger in the direction of the tunnel, but we wouldn’t believe a word of it until we had all marched in, in single file, to the end of the tunnel and seen with our own eyes the rich gravel above.
Well, we invited in the boys around, and you bet we just made the night howl. The next day was Sunday and the folks around that camp were astonished to see the whole of the Buckeye Tunnel Company march into church dressed in their best for the first time since they had been in the country. For you see we all felt kinder inclined that way after our good fortune in striking pay gravel.
And these illustrations led to a discussion by the old miners of the uncertainty of not only the mining industry, but of human affairs in general, and old Mike remarked:
“Yis, yis, me b’ys, so goes ther wuorld, for ’tis now yez do and now yez don’t. And again, jist as ye do ye don’t at all, at all, for ’tis jist always afther being a leetle too fur to the right, or a leetle too fur to ther left, de yez see, with all of us. I tell ye, b’ys, this mining business is afther being like all other kinds of business jist; ’tis always jist a leetle ahead of us, de yez see, and jist at that pint when yez are afther ixpecting it ther most, and jist as yez are commincing to faigure out where yez be afther goin, and what yez be afther doin, and how yez’ll be afther spinding all your money, do yez moind, ’tis jist at this pint, me b’ys, ther bed rock kicks up and shlaps yez in ther face, and thin ther purr divil of a miner curses his luck, piles his blankets and tools upon his back and thramps around to find another rich mine that’ll sarve him ther same thrick. But ye ould miners are always jist afther foinding ther spot thet’ll stick right by yez, where yez will some day be afther makin yer pile, and ’tis these ixpectations thet kapes yez agoin’, thrampin around among ther hills, all over ther country, hunting for that same, but ’tis always jist a leetle ahead of yez, jist as ’tis in all other kinds of business in this wuorld. And, be jabers, ’tis moity few of them who are ever afther catchin up with it at all, at all, do yez moind thin.”
“Yes Mike”, Yank remarked, “all human affairs are mighty uncertain, and few of us meet with what we expect; but then we must keep pegging away, and never say die, as long as our grub holds out.”
“Tis thrue for yez, yez must do that same, an’ be jabers thin, yez’l be afther findin’ some toime, if yez sticks to it faithfully, that yez will be afther sthriking it rich, and with the bed rock pitchin’ jist whin yez are ther laist ixpicting it at all, at all, for that’s the way it works with all of us.”
Then Jersey remarked: “Well, boys, what a heap of trouble, vexation, and disappointment would be saved in this life, if we all knew just where and when to begin; where to stop; when to turn a little to the right, or when to turn a little more to the left, or just how long to keep a goin’ either way in all of our affairs; then, when we come to get old, and to look back upon our past life, we would escape from all the vexation of thinking: oh, now if we had only done so and so at such a time, if we had only gone a little further to the right upon such an occasion, or a little further to the left at another time, or had only quit, or had gone on, or had gone to such a place, how much better would it have been.”
“No, no: not at all, at all!” interrupted Mike, “for if we was all afther doin’ that same, we wouldn’t be contint at all, no more than we are at presint, for then ’twould be ther great quantity we would all be afther ixpictin’ ther whoile, do yez moind! jist for ther sake of batin all ther rist of ther bys do yez see, and we wud all be disappointed ther same, an now, be jabers! ’tis ther best as it is now in me own opinion afther all. And thin agin’, me by’s, if all ther knowledge an’ exparience which it takes a life-toime to learn is all afther bein’ understood in ther begining, ther problem of life wud be solved; but, be jabers, b’ys, what wud sich a life be good for at all? Fray from all vexation and trouble, indade thin we wu’d live like ther baists in ther failds; satisfied and contint under any condition, an’ begorra! we wu’d soon larn to browse by ther wayside, an’ be thankful for the loikes of it.”
Just at this point another old miner, a long lean specimen of antiquity from the State of Arkansas, and who had been asleep in the corner, now aroused up and remarked: “Well boys, that is a fact as Mike says, for ’tis now you do, and then ag’in you don’t; but I never told you boys how I got skunked once out of a good claim did I? No, for I don’t like to tell it, for it has sich a smell that it makes me sick.
“But this is how I got left, by going a leettle too fur to the right or to the left, I never knew which.