One day half a dozen groups had given him the shake. He was exceedingly thirsty—his throat as dry as a lime-burner’s shoe.
FUNNY INCIDENTS.
While he was disconsolately roving from saloon to saloon in search of a sympathetic being with whom to shed tears, he encountered a dilapidated-looking individual just arrived from the great West—a Kansas sufferer, in short. Old Joe heard something of this man’s story of the ruin wrought in the West by the grasshopper, and at once froze to him with his story of losses in stocks. After three drinks together—the grasshopper man appeared to have a thin stratum of greenbacks left in his wallet, toward which Old Joe cocked an occasional eye—after about three drinks it was settled by the pair that grasshoppers and bonanzas were two of the worst plagues by which the world had ever been devastated. As more drinks were taken, grasshoppers and porphyry and bonanzas and beanstalks became fearfully mixed. At a late hour they were still mingling their tears and toasting each other. “Here’s hoping,” said the grasshopper man, “that yer cornstalks may always bear three full (hic!) ears and a nubbin!” “And here,” said Old Joe, “is death and confusion to all (hic!) brasshoppers and gonanzas!”
Old Joe then encircled the neck of his new-found friend with his left arm, and said in his most kindly tone: “Now, ef you was perfec’ly des (hic!) destitute and I was perfec’ly des (hic!) tute, you’d soak everything you had for (hic!) me, and I’d spout everything I persessed for you; (hic!) wouldn’t we?”
The opening of the big bonanza at the north end of the Comstock occasioned a grand rush of prospectors to the northward of Virginia City, a region which had, strangely enough, never been prospected.
There had been some surface-scratching done in that direction in early times, and some shafts had been sunk to the depth of fifty to one hundred feet, but no regular scientific prospecting had been done. Claims were taken up in all directions, first-class shafts begun, machinery set up, and buildings of all kinds erected. In a few months quite a village was built up, to which was given the name of North Virginia. This place is about two miles north of Virginia City, and in case of the continuation of the Comstock lode being found in that neighborhood will be likely to be a place of considerable importance. Some excellent “prospects” are being found in the shafts that are being sunk in that direction, and the owners of several mines are confident that at no distant day they will find a big bonanza on their part of the lode.
At the time these claims were being located there was almost a revival of the scenes of early days. Men were out in the night staking off ground and posting notices, and there was a good deal of claim-jumping, with some fights, going on. Men were seen bringing pieces of rock into town as specimens from their mines, and these were passed from hand to hand and commented on, much as when the miners first began to roam the hills. Even the colored population, who seldom trouble themselves about mines, caught the infection and went out prospecting and locating mines—became experts on ore. One of these coming into town with a big chunk of rock in his hand met a friend whose eyes began to dilate at what he thought might be a lump of solid silver. Said the—
First Expert—“Wha—what yer got thar?”
Second Expert—“Look at dat, sah! Dat’s out’en de Day of Jubilee mine. Boy, I tell yer dat’s gwine to be a mine. Wha—what you say, now, dat’s gwine to pay at de present prices of deduction, hey?”