Of the army of prospectors who lose themselves in the hills every spring, nothing is ever heard, except of the very few who find a fortune. Among the gambling dens in a mining camp, the scores of men who lose from one to one thousand dollars every night keep their own secret; but let one man win a hundred, and you will hear the barber tell the city marshal that “Redy Quartz broke de bank at Banigan’s las’ night, too easy.” Mining and prospecting are only legitimate gambling, and it is the tens of thousands of little losers that keep the game going.
CREEDE’S COTTAGE AT CREEDE.
CHAPTER XX.
WANDERING IN THE WILDS—AMONG THE MILES OF MOUNTAINS—BENEATH A SUMMER SKY.
AWAY in the hills, far above the bluebells, where the day dawned early and the sunlight lingered when the day was done, the lone prospector had his home. At times he would have a prospecting partner; but often for months he lived alone in the hills, with no companion save his faithful dog, who for thirteen years followed silently where his master led. One day while talking of his past experiences, the prospector said: “When I try to taste again the joy that was mine when I first learned that I was a millionaire, I am disappointed. Like Mark Twain’s dime, it could be enjoyed but once. Great joys, like great sorrows, are soon forgotten; but there are things that are as fresh in my memory as if these years had been but moments. I shall never forget the many beautiful spots where my little dog and I have camped—always on the sunny south hills where the sun coaxed the grass to grow and the flowers to blow, often, it seemed, a month ahead of time. When we had made our camp, sometimes we would go away for a day or two, and upon our return, we would find the little wild flowers blooming by our door. Often, now, when we have finished our midday dinner of porterhouse and pie, I sit on the stoop in the sunlight, my faithful dog at my feet, and as I smoke a fifty-cent cigar, my mind wanders back over memory’s trail.”
I hear the song of brooklets,
The murmurings of the winds;
I smell the smell of summer,