With the lighting of the pipes one evening, the conversation of the Club
turned upon what constituted courage and a high sense of honor; whether
they were native or acquired gifts. A good deal of talk ensued, until at
last Wright's opinion was asked:
"You are all right," said he, "and all wrong. Some men are born
insensible to fear, and some have a high sense of honor through
instinct. But this, I take it, is not the rule and comes, I think,
mostly as an hereditary gift, through long generations of proud
ancestors. In my judgment, no gift to mortals is as noble as a lofty,
honest pride. I do not mean that spurious article which we see so much
of, but the pride which will not permit a man or woman to have an
unworthy thought, because of the sense of degradation which it brings to
the breast that entertains it. This, I believe, is more common in women
than in men, and I suppose that it was this divine trait, manifesting
itself in a brutal age, which gave birth to the chivalry of the Middle
Ages.
"I have known a few men who, I believe, were born without the instinct
of fear. Charley Fairfax was one of these. He was a dead shot with a
pistol. He had some words with a man one day on the street in
Sacramento, and the man being very threatening, Fairfax drew and cocked
his Derringer. At the same moment the man drove the blade of a sword
cane through one of the lungs of Fairfax, making a wound which
eventually proved fatal. Fairfax raised his Derringer and took a quick
aim at the heart of the murderer, but suddenly dropped the weapon and
said: 'You have killed me, but you have a wife and children; for their
sakes I give you your life,' and sank fainting and, as he thought,
dying, into the arms of a friend who caught him as he was falling.
"There are other men as generous as Fairfax was, but to do what he did,
when smarting under a fatal wound, requires the coolness and the nerve
of absolute self-possession.
"Not one man in a million under such circumstances could command himself
enough to think to be generous. Many a man has, for his courage, had a
statue raised to his memory who never did and never could have given any
such proof of a manhood absolutely self-contained as did Fairfax on that
occasion.
"But, as a rule, we are all mere creatures of education. A friend of
mine came 'round the Horn in a clipper ship. He told me that when off
the cape they encountered a gale which drove the ship far to the
southward; that the weather was so dreadfully cold that the ship's
rigging was sheeted with ice from sleet and frozen spray.
"One evening the gale slackened a little and some sails were bent on,
but toward the turn of the night the wind came on again and the sails
had to be taken in. Said my friend: 'The men went up those swaying masts
and out upon those icy yards apparently without a thought of danger,
while I stood upon the deck fairly trembling with terror merely watching
them.' After awhile the storm was weathered, the cape was rounded and
the ship put into Valparaiso for fresh supplies.
"The sailors were given a holiday. They went ashore and hired saddle
horses to visit some resort a few miles out of town. They mounted and
started away, but within three minutes half of them returned leading
their horses, and one spoke for all when he said: 'The brute is crank; I
am afraid he will broach to and capsize.'
"The men who rode the icy spars off Cape Horn on that inky midnight were
afraid to ride those gentle mustangs.
"There are, I suppose, in this city to-night one hundred men who, with
knife or pistol, would fight anybody and not think much about it. But
what would they do were they placed where I saw Corrigan unconcernedly
working to-day?
"He was sitting on a narrow plank which had been laid across a shaft at
the eight hundred-foot level, repairing a pump column. He was eight
hundred feet from the surface, and there was only that plank between him
and the bottom of that shaft nine hundred feet below. Put the ordinary
ruffian who cuts and shoots on that plank and he would faint and fall
off through sheer fright."
"I guess you are right," interposed Carlin. "There is the Mexican who
lives across the street from us. If I were to take a revolver and go
over there in the morning and attack him, the chances are I would scare
him to death; were I to try the same experiment with a bowie knife the
chances are more than even that he would give me more of a game than I
would want, and simply because he is accustomed to a knife and not to a
pistol.
"So the mountain trapper will attack a grizzly bear with perfect
coolness, or cross the swiftest stream in a canoe without any fear, but
bring the same man for the first time here to the mine and ask him to
get on a cage with you and go down a shaft, and he will grow pale and
tremble like a girl."
"An Indian," suggested the Professor, "at the side of a white man will
go into a desperate battle and never flinch; so long as the white man
lives he will fight even unto death. But let a white man engage in a
hand to hand fight with two or three Indians, and if he has the nerve to
hold him up to the fight for two or three minutes he will conquer,
because an hereditary fear overcomes the savage that the pale face will
conquer in the end. That is really the cowardice which Falstaff assumed
to feel, the cowardice of instinct in the presence of the true prince,
and is the mark which the Indian mothers have impressed upon their babes
for ten generations.
"The rule is that we follow our trades!"
"Then some men are brave at one time and cowardly at another," said the
Colonel. "Men who will fight without shrinking, by day, are often
completely demoralized by a night attack. With such men the trouble is,
they cannot see to estimate their danger, and their imaginations
multiply and magnify it a hundred fold. I know a man in this city who
has been in a hundred fights, many of them most desperate encounters. He
told me once that he believed it would frighten him to death to be
awakened at night by a burglar in his room.
"This is the fear, too, which paralyzes men in the presence of an
earthquake. The sky may be clear and the air still, but the thought that
in a moment chaos may come is too much for the ordinary nerves of
mortals."
"The bravest act I ever witnessed was on C street in this city,"
responded Strong. "It was a little Hebrew dunning a desperado for the
balance due on a pair of pantaloons. The amount was six dollars and
fifty cents. I would not have asked the fighter for the money for six
times the sum, but the little chap not only asked for it, but when the
fighter tried to evade him, he seized him by the arm with one hand and
putting the forefinger of his other hand alongside his own nose, in the
most insulting tone possible said: 'You does not get avay. Der man vot
does not bay for his glose is, vots yer call him? one d----d loafer. I
vants my monish.'
"The fighter could no more escape from that eye than a chicken hawk can
from the spell of the eye of the black snake, and so he settled.
"That was the courage which it required the hardships and persecutions
of one hundred generations of suffering men to acquire, and I tell you
there was something thrilling in the way it was manifested."
"So, too, men's ideas of honor are often warped strangely by education,"
Miller said. "Do you remember there was a Frenchman hanged in this city
a few years ago? On the scaffold, with a grandiloquent air, just before
the cap was drawn over his face, he said: 'Zey can hang me, but zey
cannot hang Frawnce.' He had from childhood entertained the belief that
there was but one entirely invincible nation on this earth, and that was
France; and the thought that to the last France must be honored
possessed him.
"That man had murdered a poor woman of the town for her money."
"I should say there were some queer ideas of honor in this country,"
chipped in the Colonel. "I believe the rule among some or all sporting
men is, that it is entirely legitimate to practice any advantage on an
opponent in a game, so long as the same idea controls the opponent.
Still those men have most tenacious ideas of honor. Indeed they have a
code of their own. If one borrows money of another he pays it if he has
to rob someone to do it. If one stakes another--that is gives him money
to play--and a winning is made, the profits are scrupulously divided. If
one loses more at night than he has money to pay, he must have it early
next morning or go into disgrace.
"A friend of mine who lived on Treasure Hill during that first fearful
winter, told me that during that season a faro game was running, and the
owners of the bank had won some thirty-five hundred dollars. The
dealer's habit was to lock up his place in the forenoon and not return
until evening. The interval was his only time for sleep, as the game
frequently ran all night.
"Three or four 'sports' who lived together in a house, had lost heavily
at this game. One morning, one of them said that if he could only get
that dealer's cards for half an hour he believed he could 'fix' them so
that the luck of the boys would change.
"They had for a cook and servant a young man who had confessed that he
left the East without any extensive or extended preparations, and that
he did it to avoid paying a penalty for picking a lock and robbing a
till.
"He was called up, it was explained to him what was wanted and for what
reason, and asked if it was not possible for him to procure those cards.
"The youth took kindly to the proposition, went away, and in a few
minutes returned--not with the cards--but with the dealer's sack of
coin, saying as he laid down the sack: 'As I picked the lock of the
drawer I found the sack and the cards lying side by side. I thought it
would be easier to take the coin than to fool with the cards, and here
it is.'
"Instantly there was a commotion, and a perfect storm of imprecations
was poured out upon the thief. On every side were shouts of: 'Take back
that money! you miserable New York thief! What do you take us for? Take
back that sack or we will sell you for headcheese before night!'
"The youth carried back the coin and brought the cards. They were found
to be 'fixed'; they were 'fixed' over and returned, and that night 'on
the dead square,' the bank was broken. The boys had the sack for the
second time, but this time the transaction, according to their code, was
entirely legitimate.
"By the operation the professional thief obtained new ideas of the nice
distinctions which are made in the gamblers' code of honor."
"I once in Idaho knew a most conscientious judge," said Miller. "In his
court a suit involving the title of some mining ground was pending
between two companies. In another part of the district the Judge had
some claims which were looked upon as mere 'wild cat.'
"He had for a year been trying to raise money to open his claims, but
without avail. He had incorporated with 40,000 shares and held his
shares at one dollar, with the understanding that twenty per cent. of
the stock should be set aside as a working capital. But no one could see
the ground with the sanguine eyes of the Judge, so he still had all his
stock.
"But one night quite late the Judge heard a soft knock on the door. In
answer to his 'come in,' the president of the company that was plaintiff
in the mining suit entered, when this conversation ensued:
"'I was looking at your claims over on the east side to-day,' said the
President, 'and I believe they are good and would like some of the
stock.'
"There is some of it for sale at one dollar,' was the reply.
"'I will take ten thousand shares,' said the President. 'If you please,
have the stock ready and I will call at nine o'clock to-morrow morning
with the money.'
"'I suppose this transaction had better be kept secret at present,'
suggested the Judge.
"'Oh, yes. It is a private speculation of my own and I would rather my
company would not hear of it.'
"'Very well, the stock will be ready.'
"The money was promptly paid and the stock delivered.
"The day of trial drew near, when one day the Judge met the
superintendent of the company which was defendant in the suit. The Judge
told the superintendent that he had some promising claims, and added
impressively that if he could afford to purchase about 10,000 shares he
felt sure that he would do well. The superintendent admitted that he had
examined the claims with considerable care, and believed with the Judge,
that there was promise in them. The result was that the next day another
ten thousand dollars was paid to the Judge and ten thousand more shares
delivered. The Judge deposited sixteen thousand dollars to his own
account and four thousand dollars to the credit of the company. With the
four thousand dollars he let a contract for work on the mine.
"In due time the case in court came on and was decided in favor of the
plaintiff and an appeal provided for. The plaintiff kept still about the
stock transaction, but the superintendent of the defendant company did
not hesitate to declare that the Judge was a thief. So matters ran along
for some months, when one day the aforesaid president and superintendent
each received a note asking them to call at the office of the Judge at a
certain hour. Both responded, and each was greatly surprised to see the
other.
"The Judge opened the business by saying that a grand deposit of ore had
been struck on one of the claims from which enough ore had already been
taken to enable the company to pay a dollar per share dividend on the
capital stock, upon which he pushed a check for ten thousand dollars to
each of the men. He then went on to say that he had that morning
received an offer of two hundred thousand dollars for the property,
which he thought was a fair price, and asked the opinion of the others.
They thought so too, and in a few days the money was paid over and each
of the two received fifty thousand dollars.
"'Now,' said the Judge, 'let me give you some advice. Settle up that
foolish lawsuit outside of court. The claim is not worth what either one
of you will pay out in attorneys' fees if you fight it out in the
courts.'
"By this time the three men had grown familiar, so the superintendent
ventured to say:
"'Judge, will you tell me what caused you to urge me to buy those
shares?'
"'I thought it was a good investment,' was the reply.
"'But was not there something else?' asked the superintendent.
"'To tell you the truth,' replied the Judge, 'I had received ten
thousand dollars from the President here, and I was afraid if the matter
went that way into the court I might be prejudiced, so I sold you a like
amount that I might go upon the bench, to try the case, _entirely
unbiased_.'"
"He was a good judge, no doubt, but he ividently had a leaning toward
the east side," said Corrigan.
"That was one case where the only justification was success," said
Brewster.
"He took his chances, that was all," Miller remarked, "and that is the
corner-stone on which every fortune on the coast has been builded. I
mean every fortune in mining."
"That is so," chimed in Carlin. "Mining is simply a grand lottery and is
about as much of a game of chance as poker or faro."
"Oh, no, Carlin," said Strong. "You have picked up the idea that is
popular, but there is nothing to it. I am not referring to mining on
paper, that mining which is done on Pine and California streets. That is
not only gambling, but it is, nine times out of ten, pure stealing. But
what I mean is where a man, or a few men, from the unsightly rock, by
honest labor, wrest something, which all men, barbarous and civilized
alike, hold as precious; something which was not before, but which when
found, the whole world accepts as a measure of values, and the
production of which makes an addition to the world's accumulated wealth,
and not only injures none, but quickens the arteries of trade
everywhere; that is not gambling. Of course there are mistakes, of
course worlds of unnecessary work have been performed, of course hopes
have been blasted and hearts broken through the business, but in this
world men have to pay for their educations. Twenty years ago there was
not a man in America who could work Comstock ores up to seventy-five per
cent. of their money value; only a scholarly few knew anything about the
formations in which ore veins are liable to be found; processes to work
ores and economical methods to open and work mines had to be invented;
so far as the West was concerned the business of mining and reducing
ores had to be created. The results do not justify any man in calling
mining a lottery. In my judgment, it is the most legitimate business in
the world; the only one in which there can be no overproduction, and the
one which, above all others, advances every other industry of the
country.
"When the steam engine was first invented steam boilers blew up every
day. This was no argument against the engine, but was a notice to men to
build better boilers. For the same reason the sixty-pound steel rail has
been substituted for the old wooden rail with an iron strap on top on
railways, and the sixteen ton Pullman car for the old rattle trap that
the slightest collision would smash. The Westinghouse air brake and the
Miller platform are part of the same education.
"By and by men will learn to know the rocks, and when their marks and
signs are reduced to a perfect alphabet the crude work of mining as
carried on now will take on the dignity of a science, and mining will
become what it deserves to be, the most honored of industries."