THE FIRST GOLD
We arose before daylight, picketed our horses, left our dishes unwashed,
and hurried down to the diggings just at sun-up carrying our gold pans
or "washbowls," and our extra tools. The bar was as yet deserted. We set
to work with a will, taking turns with the pickaxe and the two shovels.
I must confess that our speed slowed down considerably after the first
wild burst, but we kept at it steadily. It was hard work, and there is
no denying it, just the sort of plain hard work the day labourer does
when he digs sewer trenches in the city streets. Only worse, perhaps,
owing to the nature of the soil. It has struck me since that those few
years of hard labour in the diggings, from '49 to '53 or '54, saw more
actual manual toil accomplished than was ever before performed in the
same time by the same number of men. The discouragement of those
returning we now understood. They had expected to take the gold without
toil; and were dismayed at the labour it had required. At any rate, we
thought we were doing our share that morning, especially after the sun
came up. We wielded our implements manfully, piled our debris to one
side, and gradually achieved a sort of crumbling uncertain excavation
reluctant to stay emptied.
About an hour after our arrival the other miners began to appear,
smoking their pipes. They stretched themselves lazily, spat upon their
hands, and set to. Our friend of the day before nodded at us cheerfully,
and hopped down into his hole.
We removed what seemed to us tons of rock. About noon, just as we were
thinking rather dispiritedly of knocking off work for a lunch--which in
our early morning eagerness we had forgotten to bring--Johnny turned up
a shovelful whose lower third consisted of the pulverized bluish clay.
We promptly forgot both lunch and our own weariness.
"Hey!" shouted our friend, scrambling from his own claim. "Easy with the
rocks! What are you conducting here? a volcano?" He peered down at us.
"Pay dirt, hey? Well, take it easy; it won't run away!"
Take it easy! As well ask us to quit entirely! We tore at the rubble,
which aggravatingly and obstinately cascaded down upon us from the
sides; we scraped eagerly for more of that blue clay; at last we had
filled our three pans with a rather mixed lot of the dirt, and raced to
the river. Johnny fell over a boulder and scattered his panful far and
wide. His manner of scuttling back to the hole after more reminded me
irresistibly of the way a contestant in a candle race hurries back to
the starting point to get his candle relighted.
We panned that dirt clumsily and hastily enough; and undoubtedly lost
much valuable sand overside; but we ended each with a string of colour.
We crowded together comparing our "pans." Then we went crazy. I suppose
we had about a quarter of a dollar's worth of gold between us, but that
was not the point. The long journey with all its hardships and
adventures, the toil, the uncertainty, the hopes, the disappointments
and reactions had at last their visible tangible conclusion. The tiny
flecks of gold were a symbol. We yapped aloud, we kicked up our heels,
we shook hands, we finally joined hands and danced around and around.
From all sides the miners came running up, dropping their tools with a
clatter. We were assailed by a chorus of eager cries.
"What is it, boys?" "A strike?" "Whereabouts is your claim?" "Is it
'flour' or 'flake'?" "Let's see!"
They crowded around in a dense mob, and those nearest jostled to get a
glimpse of our pans. Suddenly sobered by this interest in our doings, we
would have edged away could we have got hold of our implements.
"Wall, I'll be durned!" snorted a tall state of Maine man in disgust.
"This ain't no strike! This is an insane asylum."
The news slowly penetrated the crowd. A roar of laughter went up. Most
of the men were hugely amused; but some few were so disgusted at having
been fooled that they were almost inclined to take it as a personal
affront that we had not made the expected "strike."
"You'd think they was a bunch of confounded Keskydees," growled one of
them.
The miners slowly dispersed, returning to their own diggings. Somewhat
red-faced, and very silent, we gathered up our pans and slunk back to
the claim. Our neighbour stuck his head out of his hole. He alone had
not joined the stampede in our direction.
"How do you like being popular heroes?" he grinned.
Johnny made as though to shy a rock at him, whereupon he ducked below
ground.
However, our spirits soon recovered. We dumped the black sand into a
little sack we had brought for the purpose. It made quite an appreciable
bulge in that sack. We did not stop to realize that most of the bulge
was sack and sand, and mighty little of it gold. It was something
tangible and valuable; and we were filled with a tremendous desire to
add to its bulk.
We worked with entire absorption, quite oblivious to all that was going
on about us. It was only by accident that Yank looked up at last, so I
do not know how long Don Gaspar had been there.
"Will you look at that!" cried Yank.
Don Gaspar, still in his embroidered boots, his crimson velvet breeches,
his white linen, and his sombrero, but without the blue and silver
jacket, was busily wielding a pickaxe a hundred feet or so away. His
companion, or servant, was doing the heavier shovel work.
"Why, oh, why!" breathed Johnny at last, "do you suppose, if he _must_
mine, he doesn't buy himself a suit of dungarees or a flannel
shirt?"
"I'll bet it's the first hard work he ever did in his life," surmised
Yank.
"And I'll bet he won't do that very long," I guessed.
But Don Gaspar seemed to have more sticking power than we gave him
credit for. We did not pay him much further attention, for we were busy
with our own affairs; but every time we glanced in his direction he
appeared to be still at it. Our sack of sand was growing heavier; as
indeed were our limbs. As a matter of fact we had been at harder work
than any of us had been accustomed to, for very long hours, beneath a
scorching sun, without food, and under strong excitement. We did not
know when to quit; but the sun at last decided it for us by dipping
below the mountains to the west.
We left our picks and shovels in our pit; but carried back with us our
pans, for in them we wished to dry out our sand. The horses were still
at their picket ropes; and we noticed near the lower end of the meadow,
but within the bushes, three more animals moving slowly. A slim column
of smoke ascended from beyond the bushes. Evidently we had neighbours.
We were dog tired, and so far starved that we did not know we were
hungry. My eyes felt as though they must look like holes burned in a
blanket. We lit a fire, and near it placed our panful of sand. But we
did not take time to cook ourselves a decent meal; we were much too
excited for that. A half-made pot of coffee, some pork burned crisp, and
some hard bread comprised our supper. Then Yank and I took a handful of
the dried sand in the other two pans, and commenced cautiously to blow
it away. Johnny hovered over us full of suggestions, and premonitions of
calamity.
"Don't blow too, hard, fellows," he besought us; "you'll blow away the
gold! For heaven's sake, go easy!"
We growled at him, and blew. I confess that my heart went fast with
great anxiety, as though the stakes of my correct blowing were millions.
However, as we later discovered, it is almost impossible to blow
incorrectly.
There is something really a little awing about pure gold new-born from
the soil. Gold is such a stable article, so strictly guarded, so
carefully checked and counted, that the actual production of metal that
has had no existence savours almost of the alchemical. We had somewhat
less than an ounce, to be sure; but that amount in flake gold bulks
considerably. We did not think of it in terms of its worth in dollars;
we looked on it only as the Gold, and we stared at the substantial
little heap of yellow particles with fascinated awe.