Finally, one of the party holding this opinion volunteered to spare sufficient time from his business to go and look after the mine, which, by the way, was called the “Royal George.” He arrived in the neighborhood in which the mine was understood to be situated, and after two days of inquiry at last found a man who said he could point out the Royal George location. This man led the way to a rugged hill and in its side, where there was a small streak of decomposed granite, pointed out a little open cut, such as any man of ordinary industry might dig in half a day. The stockholder thought his guide mistaken: “Where was the tunnel, where the dwelling of the men, the ore-dump and the rest of the works?” The guide, however, pointed to a notice posted on the trunk of a small cedar, a short distance above the cut; and proceeding thither, the stockholder read the name of the claim—the Royal George—and below it his own name and the names of fifteen or twenty of his business friends as the locators of—“this silver lode or lead, with all dips, spurs, angles and variations.”
During his journey back to Silver City, the stockholder had plenty of time in which to swear, and he doubtless made the most of the opportunity. It was afterwards ascertained that the honest miner who was the discoverer and original locator of the Royal George, never went near the claim after making the location, but was all the fall and winter engaged in cutting wood on a ranche he had taken up in the Palmyra Mountains, many miles away, and quite in a different direction from the region in which was located the Royal George. The assessments collected were sufficient to keep the honest fellow in provisions, to enable him to hire some assistance, and, indeed, to keep his wood-ranche running very nicely until he found a purchaser at a good round sum—good wood-ranches being at that time in brisk demand.
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE PARADISE OF BOGUS MINERS.
In the early days the roving, prospecting miners who swarmed the country were given to tricks of all kinds. Not being able to “salt” quartz veins as easily as they had salted the placer-mines Of California, where they frequently planted gold in the gravel, to the taking in and undoing of Chinamen and greenhorns, they often showed rich specimens of ore obtained from mines on the Comstock, and, pretending that they were obtained in some wild region in distant mountains, soon had about them men of capital from San Francisco and other cities, who were only too glad to accommodate them with loans of from $20 to $50 or $100.
These men were always about to return to the place wherein was situated their “big finds,” but were able to find no end of excuses for not going at once. They must have money with which to pay up their landlords before leaving; they must have money with which to procure a proper outfit, and when this had been given they pretended to have discovered that they were being watched—that there were parties dogging them day and night for the purpose of following them out into the mountains and crowding in and gobbling up the lion’s share of the “big thing” discovered.
SONG OF THE HONEST MINER.
Thus these pretended prospectors, who probably never went outside of the town, would linger and delay, living on the fat of the land. They carried a memorandum book of considerable size, in which they could be induced, after much persuasion, to place the name of a man of means as one whose good fortune it would be to have a share in the wonderful silver discovery when the mine came to be duly located. Once he was thus fairly hooked, the man of money was never to refuse the jolly prospector any favor, was always to stand ready to hand out any sum that might be called for, from a four-bit piece to a double eagle; otherwise, the prospecting man might bring out that little stub of a pencil which he always carried in his vest pocket—with which he was to be seen figuring most industriously, as though trying to estimate the millions in his mine—and at a single sweep scratch out the name of the moneyed man and his chance for an interest in one of the biggest things of the age. This kind of game the pretended prospector would play till found out by all with whom he had dealings, when he would find it necessary to start business afresh in some other camp.
In the early days the Indians were supposed to know the whereabouts of many rich mines, and men were ready to follow wherever they might lead. A man who always had an eye open for the main chance, one day saw a Piute Indian strolling about Virginia City with a piece of very rich silver-ore in his hand. He at once secured that Indian’s undivided attention by enticing him out to a vacant lot.
Would Jim tell where he found the ore? Well, Jim might tell. Could he find the place again? O yes; Jim could find the place, sure. Was there more ore of the same kind in the place Jim had seen? Heap more. Finally, Jim agreed to point out the place in consideration of his receiving a big red blanket and two new shirts. Jim then led his white acquaintance up the side of the mountain to the dump of the Ophir Mining Company, and pointing out a great heap of ore said: “Me ketch um there. You see, heap plenty more all same. Injun man heap good, he no lie!” It was a fair transaction, still the white man was not happy.