When we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback, we had an
addition to the company in the person of Capt. John Nye, the
Governor’s brother. He had a good memory, and a tongue hung in
the middle. This is a combination which gives immortality to
conversation. Capt. John never suffered the talk to flag or
falter once during the hundred and twenty miles of the journey.
In addition to his conversational powers, he had one or two other
endowments of a marked character. One was a singular “handiness”
about doing anything and everything, from laying out a railroad
or organizing a political party, down to sewing on buttons,
shoeing a horse, or setting a broken leg, or a hen. Another was a
spirit of accommodation that prompted him to take the needs,
difficulties and perplexities of anybody and everybody upon his
own shoulders at any and all times, and dispose of them with
admirable facility and alacrity—hence he always managed to find
vacant beds in crowded inns, and plenty to eat in the emptiest
larders. And finally, wherever he met a man, woman or child, in
camp, inn or desert, he either knew such parties personally or
had been acquainted with a relative of the same. Such another
traveling comrade was never seen before. I cannot forbear giving
a specimen of the way in which he overcame difficulties. On the
second day out, we arrived, very tired and hungry, at a poor
little inn in the desert, and were told that the house was full,
no provisions on hand, and neither hay nor barley to spare for
the horses—must move on. The rest of us wanted to hurry on while
it was yet light, but Capt. John insisted on stopping awhile. We
dismounted and entered. There was no welcome for us on any face.
Capt. John began his blandishments, and within twenty minutes he
had accomplished the following things, viz.: found old
acquaintances in three teamsters; discovered that he used to go
to school with the landlord’s mother; recognized his wife as a
lady whose life he had saved once in California, by stopping her
runaway horse; mended a child’s broken toy and won the favor of
its mother, a guest of the inn; helped the hostler bleed a horse,
and prescribed for another horse that had the “heaves”; treated
the entire party three times at the landlord’s bar; produced a
later paper than anybody had seen for a week and sat himself down
to read the news to a deeply interested audience. The result,
summed up, was as follows: The hostler found plenty of feed for
our horses; we had a trout supper, an exceedingly sociable time
after it, good beds to sleep in, and a surprising breakfast in
the morning—and when we left, we left lamented by all! Capt.
John had some bad traits, but he had some uncommonly valuable
ones to offset them with.
Esmeralda was in many respects another Humboldt, but in a
little more forward state. The claims we had been paying
assessments on were entirely worthless, and we threw them away.
The principal one cropped out of the top of a knoll that was
fourteen feet high, and the inspired Board of Directors were
running a tunnel under that knoll to strike the ledge. The tunnel
would have to be seventy feet long, and would then strike the
ledge at the same dept that a shaft twelve feet deep would have
reached! The Board were living on the “assessments.” [N.B.—This
hint comes too late for the enlightenment of New York silver
miners; they have already learned all about this neat trick by
experience.] The Board had no desire to strike the ledge, knowing
that it was as barren of silver as a curbstone. This reminiscence
calls to mind Jim Townsend’s tunnel. He had paid assessments on a
mine called the “Daley” till he was well-nigh penniless. Finally
an assessment was levied to run a tunnel two hundred and fifty
feet on the Daley, and Townsend went up on the hill to look into
matters.
He found the Daley cropping out of the apex of an exceedingly
sharp-pointed peak, and a couple of men up there “facing” the
proposed tunnel. Townsend made a calculation. Then he said to the
men:
“So you have taken a contract to run a tunnel into this hill
two hundred and fifty feet to strike this ledge?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, do you know that you have got one of the most expensive
and arduous undertakings before you that was ever conceived by
man?”
“Why no—how is that?”
“Because this hill is only twenty-five feet through from side
to side; and so you have got to build two hundred and twenty-five
feet of your tunnel on trestle-work!”
The ways of silver mining Boards are exceedingly dark and
sinuous.
We took up various claims, and commenced shafts and tunnels on
them, but never finished any of them. We had to do a certain
amount of work on each to “hold” it, else other parties could
seize our property after the expiration of ten days. We were
always hunting up new claims and doing a little work on them and
then waiting for a buyer—who never came. We never found any ore
that would yield more than fifty dollars a ton; and as the mills
charged fifty dollars a ton for working ore and extracting the
silver, our pocket-money melted steadily away and none returned
to take its place. We lived in a little cabin and cooked for
ourselves; and altogether it was a hard life, though a hopeful
one—for we never ceased to expect fortune and a customer to
burst upon us some day.
At last, when flour reached a dollar a pound, and money could
not be borrowed on the best security at less than eight per cent
a month (I being without the security, too), I abandoned mining
and went to milling. That is to say, I went to work as a common
laborer in a quartz mill, at ten dollars a week and board.
