One day a boy about six years of age was lost at Virginia City. His parents and their neighbors searched in vain for the missing child. The police turned out to their assistance, and many firemen and miners joined in the search. Bell-ringers had been through the city, and every place above ground had been searched. A dog had accompanied the boy when he left home, and this dog was also missing. Finally some one went up on the side of the mountain above town, and entered an old tunnel, in the floor of which was a vertical shaft over one hundred and fifty feet in depth. Calling at the mouth of this shaft, a faint cry was heard below. A windlass was hastily rigged, and a miner descended the shaft, and at its bottom found the missing child with not a bone broken. He had fallen upon the dead bodies of two or three goats that lay at the bottom of the shaft. The dog was also found alive at the bottom of the shaft. The man who descended was almost suffocated when he came to the surface. The air was bad in the bottom of the shaft and the stench from the dead goats almost unendurable. The child was nearly dead when taken out, and was covered with a mass of flies that had insinuated themselves into his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes; but in about ten days the little fellow had fully recovered and was ready for fresh adventures.
Many other instances—scores of them—might be given to show the dangerous character of these traps, which everywhere cover the face of the country, for miles about the principal mining towns, but I shall conclude with the following:
A teamster, stopping at noon two or three miles from the city, unhitched eight yoke of oxen from his wagon, in order to let them graze about among the sage-brush while he was eating his dinner. Although unhitched, they were fastened together in a string by a heavy log-chain which passed through their several yokes. The teamster, seated on his wagon, eating, was astounded at seeing his whole team of cattle, then distant about one hundred yards, suddenly disappear into the ground. In picking along they reached an old shaft, round which those in the lead had passed, then moving forward had so straightened the line as to pull a middle yoke into the mouth of the shaft. All then followed, going down like links of sausage. The shaft was three hundred feet in depth, and that bonanza of beef still remains unworked at its bottom.
The Comstock range is a region in which a stranger should never venture to wander at night, either on foot or on horseback. Even in daylight, in the midst of a driving snow-storm, a man once rode his horse into a shaft over fifty feet in depth. The city authorities have caused most of the old shafts to be filled up or securely planked over, but scores of open shafts are still to be seen everywhere in the suburbs of the town.
CHAPTER XX.
THE MOUNTAIN REGION OF NEVADA.
Mount Davidson, of which frequent mention has been made, was originally called “Sun Peak.” This was the name given it by the early miners of Gold Cañon—Old Virginia, Comstock, O’Riley, and the other pioneers of the country. It was a very appropriate name, as the towering granite peak reaching far above all others about it is the first to be lighted by the morning sun and the last on which rest his evening rays.
The mountain was given its present name in honor of the late Donald Davidson, of San Francisco, who in the early days purchased the ores of the Ophir and other companies on the Comstock, sending them to England for reduction. On one of his trips to Virginia, Donald Davidson accompanied a party of men to the summit of the mountain. On their return to the town it was unanimously agreed that the tall peak which they had that day scaled should be called Mount Davidson.
Half a score of the hardy miners whose camps were pitched along the lead had accompanied Mr. Davidson up the mountain, and while on their way a number of quartz veins of more or less promising appearance were found. In the evening, while in a saloon, talking over the events of the day, it was thought that it would not be a bad idea to locate some of the ledges they had seen. The charge was then fifty cents per name for recording a claim of two hundred feet on a ledge. A man called “Joe Bowers,” but probably not the original “Joe” immortalized by the poet, took the lead in making out the notices and arranging for the recording. Joe swore that all the ledges they had seen were immensely rich—millions in them!—and would make the fortune of any man who had an interest in any one of them. As the names were mentioned and written down on the notices, Joe called for “four-bits.” This must be put up, in order that it might be handed over to the recorder of the district the first thing in the morning.
Donald Davidson would say: “Well, here is Mr. A., a neighbor of mine in San Francisco, and a very worthy man; suppose we put him down for a claim in this mine?”
“All right, Mr. Davidson,” Joe would cry, “all right, sir; put up for him and in he goes!”