Some Pioneers met good fortune or disaster at the very threshold. One young man, upon landing in San Francisco, borrowed ten dollars, went immediately to a gambling saloon, won seven thousand dollars, and with rare good sense took the next steamer for home. Another newcomer, who brought a few hundred dollars with him, wandered into the gambling rooms of the Parker House soon after his arrival, won twenty thousand dollars there, and went home two days later.
A Pioneer who had just crossed the Plains fell into a strange experience upon his arrival at Placerville. He was a poor man, his only property being a yoke of oxen which he sold almost immediately for one hundred dollars in gold dust. Shortly before that a purse containing the same quantity of gold had been stolen; and when, a few hours later, the newly-arrived teamster took out his pocket-book to pay for a small purchase, a man immediately stepped forward and accused him of the robbery. He was, of course, arrested, and a jury to try him was impanelled on the spot. The quality of the gold in his purse corresponded exactly with the quality of the stolen gold. It was known that he had only just arrived from the Plains and could not have obtained the gold dust by mining. The man to whom he sold his cattle had gone, and he was unable to prove how he had come by the treasure. Under these circumstances, the jury found him guilty, and sentenced him to receive thirty lashes on the bare back, which were thereupon administered, the unfortunate man all the time protesting his innocence.
After he was whipped, he procured a pistol, walked deliberately up to the person who first accused him, placed the pistol at his head, and declared that he believed him to be the guilty man, and that if he did not then and there confess that he had stolen the money he would blow his brains out. The fellow could not stand the power of injured innocence. He became frightened, acknowledged that he was the thief, and drew the identical stolen money out of his pocket. The enraged crowd instantly set upon him, bore him to the nearest tree, and hung him. A subscription was then started, and about eighteen hundred dollars were raised in a few minutes for the sagacious teamster, who departed forthwith for his home in the East.[43]
Of the many thousand Pioneers at work in the mines very few reaped a reward at all commensurate with their toils, privations and sufferings,—much less with their expectations. The wild ideas which prevailed in some quarters as to the abundance of the gold may be gathered from the advice given to one young Argonaut by his father, on the eve of his departure from Illinois. The venerable man urged his son not to work too hard, but to buy a low chair and a small iron rake, and, taking his seat comfortably, to rake over the sand, pick up the nuggets as they came to view, and place them in a convenient box.
In reality, the miners’ earnings, after deducting necessary living expenses, are computed to have averaged only about three times the wages of an unskilled day-laborer in the East. Few of them saved anything, for there was every temptation to squander their gains in dissipation; and men whose income is subject to wide fluctuations are notoriously unthrifty. The following is a typical experience: “Our diet consists of hard bread, flour which we eat half-cooked, and salt pork, with occasionally a salmon which we purchase of the Indians. Vegetables are not to be procured. Our feet are wet all day, while a hot sun shines down upon our heads, and the very air parches the skin like the hot air of an oven. Our drinking water comes down to us thoroughly impregnated with the mineral substances washed through the thousand cradles above us. The hands and feet of the novice become painfully blistered and the limbs are stiff. Besides all these causes of sickness, many men who have left their wives and children in far-distant States are homesick, anxious and despondent.”[44]
Many a family in the East was desolated and reduced to poverty by the untimely death of a husband and father; and in other cases long absence was as effectual in this respect as death itself. The once-common expression “California widow” is significant. Some Eastern men took informal wives on the Pacific Slope; others, who had succeeded, put off their home-coming from month to month, and even from year to year, hoping for still greater success; others yet, who had failed, were ashamed to go home in poverty, and lingered in California until death overtook them. This phase of Pioneer life is treated by Bret Harte in the stories How Old Man Plunkett went Home, and Jimmy’s Big Brother from California. Of those who were lucky enough to find gold in large quantities, many were robbed, and some of these unfortunates went home, or died, broken-hearted.
But as a rule, the Pioneers rose superior to every blow that fate could deal them. Men met misfortune, danger, even death with composure, and yet without bravado. A traveller being told that a man was about to be lynched, proceeded to the spot and found a large gathering of miners standing around in groups under the trees, and quietly talking. Seeing no apparent criminal there, he stepped up to one person who stood a little apart from the others, and asked him which was the man about to be hung. The person addressed replied, without the slightest change of countenance, “I believe, Sir, it’s me.” Half an hour later he was dead.
There was a battle at Sacramento in 1850 between a party of “Squatters” on one side, and city officials and citizens on the other. Among the latter was one J. F. Hooper from Independence in Missouri. Hooper, armed only with a pistol, discharged all his cartridges, then threw the weapon at his advancing opponents, and calmly faced them, crossing his hands over his breast as a protection. They fired at him, notwithstanding his defenceless situation, and one ball piercing his right hand inflicted a wound, but not a mortal one, in his side. Four men were killed and several others badly wounded in this fight.
When a father and son were arrested by a vigilance committee at Santa Clara for horse-stealing, and were sentenced to receive thirty-six lashes apiece, the son begged that he might take his father’s share as well as his own.
Men died well in California. In November, 1851, two horse-thieves were hung by a vigilance committee at Stockton. One of them, who was very young, smoked a cigar up to the last moment, and made a little speech in which he explained that the act was not dictated by irreverence, but that he desired to die like a man. When Stuart, a noted robber and horse-thief was being tried for his life by the Vigilance Committee in San Francisco, he complained that the proceedings were “tiresome,” and asked for a chew of tobacco.