TO A RAPIDLY DISAPPEARING CLASS, THE PIONEER PROSPECTORS, WHOSE
BRAVERY, INTELLIGENCE AND INDUSTRY BLAZED THE TRAILS IN THE
WESTERN WILDERNESS FOR ADVANCING CIVILIZATION, AND MADE POSSIBLE
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT WEST, THIS VOLUME IS VERY
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
_PREFACE_
Oh that my words were now written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!--JOB xix, 23.
Books have, from time immemorial, been the conservators of human
wisdom, the repositories of information, the mentors of youth and
adolescence, the counsellors of manhood, the comfort and companionship
of age.
The experience of an individual, school or era, when committed to book
form, becomes the common property of all succeeding time, and the
accumulated knowledge of the past, transmitted from generation to
generation, through the medium of books, may with justice be regarded
as the most valuable of human heritages.
But they have not always been unmixed blessings; they have both led
and misled; they have elucidated, yet have mystified.
They have dissipated the shadows of ignorance and superstition, but in
some instances have confused and obscured the searchlight of truth. In
the economy of human affairs, books have been factors of no small
importance. They have proved the most potent expositors of iniquitous
systems, and when properly directed against crying evils have
accomplished speedy reforms. They have precipitated wars, incited
revolts and seditions in the cause of progress, yet have intensified
prejudice, political, religious and racial. With silent eloquence,
they have cried out against the wrongs of those who had none to plead
their cause, while in other cases, their influence has tended to
perpetuate existing abuses. In some instances they have taught men to
be content with servitude, in others have ignited the beacon fires of
liberty. Though they are usually found enlisted under the banners of
justice, yet no cause has ever been so unworthy, and no institution so
unholy, that books have not been written in their defence. In verity,
they have sown both wheat and tares.
Books have been written on every conceivable subject, under all
conditions, by all sorts of writers, and from an endless variety of
motives. The recompense of those who have written them has been
equally various. Some have been apotheosized and worshipped, others
have been the recipients of orders and decorations of honor at the
hands of kings and potentates, while others have received the ovations
of admiring multitudes. Some have anonymously contributed their mite
toward the enrichment of literature, others have appeared, from whence
we know not, and after placing their offerings upon the altars of
poesy and art have departed unrewarded into the shadows of obscurity,
leaving as footprints innumerable quotations which have become
proverbial. Some, as the bards and minnesingers of old who in
mediæval castles ate their bread by the sufferance of the feudal lords
and barons, have in more recent years been dependent upon the bounty
of some munificent, and usually titled patron, to whom they, as a
matter of policy, dedicated their strains and panegyrics, consequently
wielding mercenary pens. Some who have presumed to write in a manner
displeasing to those who sat in high places have met with
vilification, exile, imprisonment, decapitation, and have not been
strangers to the pillory. Criticism and ridicule are the patent
rewards of incipient authorship, while want, neglect and starvation
have terminated the career of more than one name afterwards great in
the world of letters.
Aside from motives common to all who with reverent steps humbly strive
to follow where the great lights of poesy have led, the author of
these unpretentious pages has been actuated by a desire to portray, in
his correct light, a very frequently misrepresented character, viz.:
the pioneer prospector. It has long been customary for writers of
western fiction to picture this character as a large-hearted but rough
and untutored individual, expressing himself in a vernacular
consisting of equal parts of slang, profanity and questionable
grammar, possessing no ambitions above the card table or the strong
waters which cause all men to err who drink them. An intimate
acquaintance with this class, extending from the years of infancy to
middle age, convinces the writer that the common description is
manifestly unjust and misleading.
The men who flocked to the early gold excitements, and who
subsequently prospected the western mountain ranges for their hidden
wealth, were the cream of American and European manhood; men possessed
of more than ordinary endowments of intellect, education and physique,
while their industry, bravery and hardihood have never been
questioned.
Proof of this exists in the names which have lingered behind them as a
matter of record, for it was the prospector who christened the
mountains, gulches and mining locations of the west. A cursory perusal
of the maps of mineral surveys in any western mining district, will
reveal in abundance such names as Hector, Ajax, Golden Fleece, Atlas,
Pegasus, etc.; indicating that those who applied them were, if not
college graduates, men not unfamiliar with the classics. The use of
such names as Cleopatra, Crusader or Magna Charta, by a prospector
unversed in history, would naturally be unexpected. One without
knowledge of literature would hardly grace his location stakes with
such names as Dante, Hamlet or Mephistopheles, while one entirely
unlettered could not by chance hit upon such names as Pandora, Medusa
or Sesostris.
Of the pioneer prospectors but few remain; many have fallen asleep,
others tiring of the privation and uncertainty incident to a miner's
life, are pursuing other vocations, while many have become prosperous
ranch and cattle-men and may now be found in almost any western
valley. A few, a very few in comparison with the less fortunate
majority, acquiring a competence, removed to other localities, and in
not a few instances, have become conspicuous figures in the world of
business, politics and finance.
In the mountainous districts of the west, you may still occasionally
see a veteran prospector of the old school, living the life of a
hermit in his log cabin, situated in some picturesque park or gulch,
near his, sometimes valuable but more frequently worthless, mining
locations. There he lives winter and summer, his only companion a cat
or dog; the ambitions of his youth still unrealized, but at three
score and ten, hopeful and expectant. His bent form, white hair, and
venerable bearing impress you strangely at first, but it is only when
you overcome the reticence peculiar to those who have long dwelt in
solitude, and engage him in conversation, that his mental status
becomes apparent. To your surprise you discover that he can converse
entertainingly on any subject, from the Mosaic dispensation, to the
latest inventions in the world of mechanism. You may find him to be,
not only a Shakspearean scholar, but a deep student of that volume
which, whether considered from a sacred or secular point of view,
stands preeminently forth as the Book of Books. You may find him able
to translate Homer, or Virgil, and that the masterpieces of literature
are as familiar to him as his own cabin walls. A glimpse at the
interior of his cabin discloses an ample stock of newspapers and
magazines, while books are not strangers. There is something pathetic
about his loneliness; you leave him with the feeling that society has
been the loser by his voluntary banishment, and are reminded of Gray's
immortal lines:
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene.
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
You speculate upon the story of his life, for you feel that it has a
secret, if not a tragedy, connected with it, into which you may not
probe. You ask yourself the question, "Has not his life been wasted?"
and if he alone is to be considered, there is none but an affirmative
answer. But his life has not been barren of results. He has been a
contributory factor in the upbuilding of an empire, for he is one of
the class who laid the foundations of western prosperity.
These men came west for various reasons, some actuated by the spirit
of adventure, some to acquire fortunes or to retrieve vanished ones,
others possibly to outlive the stigma of youthful mistakes. In the
lives of many of them are sealed chapters. It is with such that these
pages have to do.