Mining tools—a pick, shovels, crowbars, and hose—crucibles also, empty and full flasks of quicksilver, with many other signs, told that this man, young and slender, and not well fitted for toil, was a searcher for the gold with which those eternal hills, that rushing stream, are liberally stocked.
Fishing-rods and tackle, a double-barreled shotgun, and a repeating-rifle stood in one corner of the cabin, showing that in the water and among the hills the young man was prepared to find the food which is so plentiful there, and was not dependent on the far-away stores of Oroville, Marysville, or Sacramento, from which many of the miners drew supplies.
Though this man was young—not over five-and-twenty years of age—there was a weary look in his pale, handsome face, which made him look older. Light-brown hair curled in heavy masses on his shapely head and fell far down on his shoulders, and his beard, a soft, silken brown, not heavy, but long, told that no tonsorial hand had touched it for many months.
“It will be three years to-morrow,” he said. “Three years to-morrow since I looked upon her in her glorious pride and beauty—three years to-morrow since the hour when, madly disgraced by my own folly and the wild passion for strong drink, which has ruined millions of better men than I, I stood before her to hear my sentence, to be told to go from her presence and never to return till she recalled me, which she would only do when she knew I had forever conquered an appetite that had debased my manhood and froze all the love she had given me—a love, oh, so precious, so priceless, so pure!
“Wild with rage and disappointment, I tore myself away and fled with the adventurous throng to this El Dorado, but I dared not stay where men were and strong drink abounded. I wandered on and on until I could go no farther, and here, the highest claim upon this mad river, I fixed my home. Here have I toiled month after month, year after year, increasing my golden store slowly and surely, but, best of all, conquering that base appetite which lost heaven on earth for me, when its gates were wide open.
“No beverage but that sparkling drink, which the hand of the Father gives to man for his good, has passed my lips for these three long years—water, blessed water, has strengthened my brain and given health to my body.
“And now, confident in myself, I would go back and redeem my errors—go back to claim the hand which had long, long ago been mine but for mine own sin. Why will she not bid me come? I have written three times, and have told her I am free from the chains of the demon now; that I have wealth enough to satisfy all reasonable desire, and she has only written: ‘It is not time—perhaps you do not yet know yourself.’
“Ah! could she but see me in this solitude—here where I have lived alone so long—not a visitor, for I have kept my claim and home a secret when I went to the nearest post station, and no one has ever dared to pass the chasm below, which cuts off this last habitable spot in the gorge. They have not learned my secret, or they might come, for the greed for gold makes men dare all dangers.
“The sketch I sent her she received. Here is the single line she sent in answer:
“‘The picture of your “Home” is here. God help the lone one to keep his promises.’”