Everything had gone wrong for William Swain. He'd spent the whole cold, rainy winter in a claustrophobic cabin on the Feather River. In the spring, he and his partners moved to Foster's Bar on the Yuba, only to be kept from panning by a heavy spring snow melt that turned the clear stream into a roaring brown river. Day after day without success taxed him. But so did his fear of returning home a failure.
Pride is a powerful force.
The pride that kept so many men in California. They want to go home. But I can't go until I've got something to prove my success. They've been reading about success back home. I know, says the miner, how many people are failing.