It was somewhere in the neighborhood of Mono Lake that the
marvellous Whiteman cement mine was supposed to lie. Every now
and then it would be reported that Mr. W. had passed stealthily
through Esmeralda at dead of night, in disguise, and then we
would have a wild excitement—because he must be steering for his
secret mine, and now was the time to follow him. In less than
three hours after daylight all the horses and mules and donkeys
in the vicinity would be bought, hired or stolen, and half the
community would be off for the mountains, following in the wake
of Whiteman. But W. would drift about through the mountain gorges
for days together, in a purposeless sort of way, until the
provisions of the miners ran out, and they would have to go back
home. I have known it reported at eleven at night, in a large
mining camp, that Whiteman had just passed through, and in two
hours the streets, so quiet before, would be swarming with men
and animals. Every individual would be trying to be very secret,
but yet venturing to whisper to just one neighbor that W. had
passed through. And long before daylight—this in the dead of
Winter—the stampede would be complete, the camp deserted, and
the whole population gone chasing after W.
The tradition was that in the early immigration, more than
twenty years ago, three young Germans, brothers, who had survived
an Indian massacre on the Plains, wandered on foot through the
deserts, avoiding all trails and roads, and simply holding a
westerly direction and hoping to find California before they
starved, or died of fatigue. And in a gorge in the mountains they
sat down to rest one day, when one of them noticed a curious vein
of cement running along the ground, shot full of lumps of dull
yellow metal. They saw that it was gold, and that here was a
fortune to be acquired in a single day. The vein was about as
wide as a curbstone, and fully two thirds of it was pure gold.
Every pound of the wonderful cement was worth well-nigh $200.
Each of the brothers loaded himself with about twenty-five
pounds of it, and then they covered up all traces of the vein,
made a rude drawing of the locality and the principal landmarks
in the vicinity, and started westward again. But troubles
thickened about them. In their wanderings one brother fell and
broke his leg, and the others were obliged to go on and leave him
to die in the wilderness. Another, worn out and starving, gave up
by and by, and laid down to die, but after two or three weeks of
incredible hardships, the third reached the settlements of
California exhausted, sick, and his mind deranged by his
sufferings. He had thrown away all his cement but a few
fragments, but these were sufficient to set everybody wild with
excitement. However, he had had enough of the cement country, and
nothing could induce him to lead a party thither. He was entirely
content to work on a farm for wages. But he gave Whiteman his
map, and described the cement region as well as he could and thus
transferred the curse to that gentleman—for when I had my one
accidental glimpse of Mr. W. in Esmeralda he had been hunting for
the lost mine, in hunger and thirst, poverty and sickness, for
twelve or thirteen years. Some people believed he had found it,
but most people believed he had not. I saw a piece of cement as
large as my fist which was said to have been given to Whiteman by
the young German, and it was of a seductive nature. Lumps of
virgin gold were as thick in it as raisins in a slice of fruit
cake. The privilege of working such a mine one week would be
sufficient for a man of reasonable desires.
A new partner of ours, a Mr. Higbie, knew Whiteman well by
sight, and a friend of ours, a Mr. Van Dorn, was well acquainted
with him, and not only that, but had Whiteman’s promise that he
should have a private hint in time to enable him to join the next
cement expedition. Van Dorn had promised to extend the hint to
us. One evening Higbie came in greatly excited, and said he felt
certain he had recognized Whiteman, up town, disguised and in a
pretended state of intoxication. In a little while Van Dorn
arrived and confirmed the news; and so we gathered in our cabin
and with heads close together arranged our plans in impressive
whispers.
We were to leave town quietly, after midnight, in two or three
small parties, so as not to attract attention, and meet at dawn
on the “divide” overlooking Mono Lake, eight or nine miles
distant. We were to make no noise after starting, and not speak
above a whisper under any circumstances. It was believed that for
once Whiteman’s presence was unknown in the town and his
expedition unsuspected. Our conclave broke up at nine o’clock,
and we set about our preparation diligently and with profound
secrecy. At eleven o’clock we saddled our horses, hitched them
with their long riatas (or lassos), and then brought out a side
of bacon, a sack of beans, a small sack of coffee, some sugar, a
hundred pounds of flour in sacks, some tin cups and a coffee pot,
frying pan and some few other necessary articles. All these
things were “packed” on the back of a led horse—and whoever has
not been taught, by a Spanish adept, to pack an animal, let him
never hope to do the thing by natural smartness. That is
impossible. Higbie had had some experience, but was not perfect.
He put on the pack saddle (a thing like a saw-buck), piled the
property on it and then wound a rope all over and about it and
under it, “every which way,” taking a hitch in it every now and
then, and occasionally surging back on it till the horse’s sides
sunk in and he gasped for breath—but every time the lashings
grew tight in one place they loosened in another. We never did
get the load tight all over, but we got it so that it would do,
after a fashion, and then we started, in single file, close
order, and without a word. It was a dark night. We kept the
middle of the road, and proceeded in a slow walk past the rows of
cabins, and whenever a miner came to his door I trembled for fear
the light would shine on us an excite curiosity. But nothing
happened. We began the long winding ascent of the canyon, toward
the “divide,” and presently the cabins began to grow infrequent,
and the intervals between them wider and wider, and then I began
to breathe tolerably freely and feel less like a thief and a
murderer. I was in the rear, leading the pack horse. As the
ascent grew steeper he grew proportionately less satisfied with
his cargo, and began to pull back on his riata occasionally and
delay progress. My comrades were passing out of sight in the
gloom. I was getting anxious. I coaxed and bullied the pack horse
till I presently got him into a trot, and then the tin cups and
pans strung about his person frightened him and he ran. His riata
was wound around the pummel of my saddle, and so, as he went by
he dragged me from my horse and the two animals traveled briskly
on without me. But I was not alone—the loosened cargo tumbled
overboard from the pack horse and fell close to me. It was
abreast of almost the last cabin.
A miner came out and said:
“Hello!”
I was thirty steps from him, and knew he could not see me, it
was so very dark in the shadow of the mountain. So I lay still.
Another head appeared in the light of the cabin door, and
presently the two men walked toward me. They stopped within ten
steps of me, and one said:
“Sh! Listen.”
I could not have been in a more distressed state if I had been
escaping justice with a price on my head. Then the miners
appeared to sit down on a boulder, though I could not see them
distinctly enough to be very sure what they did. One said:
“I heard a noise, as plain as I ever heard anything. It seemed
to be about there—”
A stone whizzed by my head. I flattened myself out in the dust
like a postage stamp, and thought to myself if he mended his aim
ever so little he would probably hear another noise. In my heart,
now, I execrated secret expeditions. I promised myself that this
should be my last, though the Sierras were ribbed with cement
veins. Then one of the men said:
“I’ll tell you what! Welch knew what he was talking about when
he said he saw Whiteman to-day. I heard horses—that was the
noise. I am going down to Welch’s, right away.”
They left and I was glad. I did not care whither they went, so
they went. I was willing they should visit Welch, and the sooner
the better.
As soon as they closed their cabin door my comrades emerged
from the gloom; they had caught the horses and were waiting for a
clear coast again. We remounted the cargo on the pack horse and
got under way, and as day broke we reached the “divide” and
joined Van Dorn. Then we journeyed down into the valley of the
Lake, and feeling secure, we halted to cook breakfast, for we
were tired and sleepy and hungry. Three hours later the rest of
the population filed over the “divide” in a long procession, and
drifted off out of sight around the borders of the Lake!
Whether or not my accident had produced this result we never
knew, but at least one thing was certain—the secret was out and
Whiteman would not enter upon a search for the cement mine this
time. We were filled with chagrin.
We held a council and decided to make the best of our
misfortune and enjoy a week’s holiday on the borders of the
curious Lake. Mono, it is sometimes called, and sometimes the
“Dead Sea of California.” It is one of the strangest freaks of
Nature to be found in any land, but it is hardly ever mentioned
in print and very seldom visited, because it lies away off the
usual routes of travel and besides is so difficult to get at that
only men content to endure the roughest life will consent to take
upon themselves the discomforts of such a trip. On the morning of
our second day, we traveled around to a remote and particularly
wild spot on the borders of the Lake, where a stream of fresh,
ice-cold water entered it from the mountain side, and then we
went regularly into camp. We hired a large boat and two shot-guns
from a lonely ranchman who lived some ten miles further on, and
made ready for comfort and recreation. We soon got thoroughly
acquainted with the Lake and all its peculiarities.
