Gold Seekers of '49

by Edwin L. Sabin

"Yes, I remember your being 'round there," responded Mr. Marshall, in a soft, slow drawl, rising to shake hands. "The country wasn't so full, then."

He was a rather tall, well-built man, with long brown beard and slouch hat. He had wide brown eyes, with a sombre gaze in them. In fact, his whole countenance was sober and a bit sullen.

"So you're still at the mill."

"I have been, but I'm going out. There's no place for me here. The man who discovered this gold ain't given an ounce of it," and Mr. Marshall's voice was bitter. "What did I get for all I did when I opened that mill-race? Nothing; not even gratitude. It's Government land, they say, and so the people flock in and take it, and my only chance is to rustle like everybody else. Do you think that's fair? No, sir! If I had my percentage of all the gold being mined around here I'd be a rich man. Instead, they give me a hundred feet, and expect me to dig like the rest. Bah! I'll starve, first."

Although Mr. Marshall was trying to make this a tale of woe, Charley, for one, could not quite see the reasonableness in it.

"Well, Jim," hastily soothed Mr. Grigsby, "this is a country of hustle, and most of us have to look out for ourselves. You were here first, and I suppose people figured on your making the most of opportunity. Anyway, I wish you'd take us over to the mill-race and show these two partners of mine just where you discovered the gold. We aren't going to stay, but we'd like to see that much."

"Yes, I can do that," assented Mr. Marshall. "Leave your animal here, if you want to. There aren't many white people about" (and he spoke bitterly, again) "to steal it."

Charley tied the burro to the cabin. Mr. Marshall led the way over to the mill, which was abandoned and idle, and paused on the brink of a wide ravine that extended back to the mill wheel.

The ravine was ragged and torn, its bottom bare to the rocks and its sides gashed by countless holes. A number of Chinamen and Indians were working in it, scraping about and filling pans and wicker baskets with loose dirt, which they washed in the stream trickling through. But there were no white men.

"That was the tail-race," explained Mr. Marshall, "which led off the water after it had passed under the wheel. After we got the mill to going, about the middle of January, last year, we found the tail-race wasn't big enough to carry off the water fast and make a current that would turn the wheel. So I threw the wheel out of gear, one night, and lifted the head-gate of the race full open, to flow a hard stream through and wash the tail-race deeper. Next morning early, which was January 24, I went down with Weimer (you know Weimer, Mr. Grigsby; he served in the Frémont battalion during the conquest), who was helping me, to see what the water had done. We shut it off first, of course, above. Well, the tail-race certainly had been scoured a good bit, and we were looking in, as we walked, congratulating ourselves on the job, when I saw a sparkle of yellow on a flat bed-rock. I went down in and picked it up, and I was sure it was gold. I sent an Indian back to the men's cabin for a tin plate. I didn't want to say much about the find till I'd made certain that it wasn't copper, but during the day Weimer and I searched about and found a little more. We tried it out with potash in Mrs. Weimer's soap kettle, and it didn't tarnish. The other men got excited, and the next day started to poking about on their own account, in the rain. I took what I had down to the fort, and the captain and I locked ourselves in and tested it with nitric acid, weighed it, pounded it, did everything we could think of, and made dead certain that gold it was. Next day the captain himself came up to the mill, and we all found gold. It was everywhere. Of course that set us up in great shape, but the captain made us promise to keep the matter a secret for six weeks until he had finished a flour-mill that he was building at the fort, or else he wouldn't be able to get anybody to work for him at wages. But some of the men showed their dust down at the store at the fort, buying goods, and the cat was out of the bag. Everybody deserted the old captain, his grist-mill hasn't been finished to this day, his crops weren't reaped, his saw-mill property was overrun with a regular army, some of the people tried to save a bed of gravel for him, but that's gone now, neither his rights or mine are respected, I don't own an ounce of gold and am busted, and he'll be busted soon. There's no gratitude in this country," and Mr. Marshall turned gloomily away.