The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1870-01-15
,naiEss's7 Cat.

Gulch, waH cat oI luck tstlu o Little down.
hearted, lie sAwculd seat II Eaoufning over
the loss Of q aM0ndeFz1 Ill cas- ha used to
own (for.where women and children are
not, men Of kindly impulse take up with
pets, for they annst love something
And he always spoke Of the strange ga
gacity OF that cat with the air OF a man
who believed in his secret heart that
there was something human about it
may DO gwen supernatural.
heard him talking about this animal
once. He said, gentlemen. I used to
have cat here, by the name of Tom
Quartz, you'd took an interest in,
reckon-most anybody would. I had
him here eight years-and he was the
remarkablest cat ever SEQ. He was q
large gray one of the Tom specie, and
he had more hard, natural sense than
any man in his camp, and power of
dignity; lie wouldn't let the Gown cf
California be familiar with him. He
never ketched a rat in his life-'peared
to be above it. He never cared for moth
ing but mining. He knowed moro about
mining, that cat did, than any man I
ever see. You couldn't tell him nothing
about placer digging-and as for pocket
mining, why he was just born for it.
He would dig out after me and Jim when
we went over the hills prospecting, and
he would trot along behind us for five
miles, if we went go fer. And he had
the best judgment about mining ground
why you never see anything like it.
When we went to work, he'd scatter
glance around, and if he didn't think
much of the indications, he would give
look as much rs to say, "Well, I'll have
to get you to excuse me-" and without
another word he'd hyste his nose into
the air and shove for home. But if the
ground suited him, he would lay low and
keep dark till the first pan was washed,
and then he would sille up and take O
look, and If there was about six or seven
grains of gold he was satisfied-he didn't
want no better prospect'n than that-and
then he would lay down OH our coats und
snore like steamboat till we'd struck the
pocket, and then get up and superintend.
Well, by-and-by, up comes this quartz
excitement, and everybody was into it
everybody was picking and blasting,
instead of shoveling dirt on the hill
side-cverybody was putting down q
shaft, instead of scraping the surface.
Nothing would do Jim, but we must
tackle the lodges too, and so wo did
We commenced putting down shaft,
and Tom Quartz he begin to wonder
what in the Dickens it was all about.
He hadn't ever seen any mining like
that before, and he was all upset, as you
may say-he couldn't come to o right
understanding of it no way-it was too
many for him. He wns llown CO Il, .oo,
you bet you-he was down on it power
ful-and always appeared to consider it
the cussedest foolishness ont. But that
cat, you know-he was always agin new
tangled ngements--somehow he
could never abide 'em. You know how
it is with old habits. But, by-and-by,
Tom Quartz begin to get sort of recon-
ciled little, though he never could
altogether understand that etornal sink
ing of shaft and never panning out
anything. At last. he got to coming
down in the shaft himself aud try to
cypher it out. And when he'd got the
blues, anG feel kind o scruiTy, aggra-
vated and isgusted-knowing. as he
did, that the bills was running up all the
time and we warn't making cent-he
would curl up on gunny-sack in the
corner and go to sleep. Well, one day,
when the shaft was down about eight
foot, the rock got So hard that we had to
put in blast-the first blasting we'd
ever done since Tom Quartz was born.
and 3hen we lit the fuse, and ciumb out,
and got fifty yards-and forgot and left
Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny-
sack. In abont minute, we seen puff
of smoke burst up out of the hole, and
then everything let go, with an awful
crash, and about four million tons of
rocks and dirt and smoke and splinters
shot up about milo md q half into the
air. And, by George! right in the midst
Of it, was old Tom Quartz, going end
over end, aud o snorting and sneezing,
and clawing and reaching for things,
like all possessed. Bnt it warn't no use,
you know-it warn't no use. And
that WAS the last we see of him, for
about two minutes and half; and then,
all of sudden, it begin to rain rocks and
rubbage, and directly he como down
ker-whop, about ten foot off from where
We stood Welh I reckon he was,
p'raps, the orneriest looking beast you
ever see. One ear was sot back on his
neck, and his tail was stove up. and his
eye-winkers was swinged of, and he was
all blacked up with powder aud smoke,
and all sloppy with mud and slush from
one end to the other. Well, sir, it
warn't no use TO try to apologize-we
couldn't say word. He took sort OF a
disgusted look at hisself, and then he
looked at us-and it was just exactly the
same as if he had said: "Gent's maybe
you think it's smart to take advantage of
cat that amt had no experience OF
quartz mining, hut 1 think different -
And then he turned on his heel, and
marched off home, without ever saying
another word"
That was jest his style And may be
you won't believe it, but after that YOU
never see cat so prejudced against
quartz mining as what he was. And by
and by when he did get to going down
in the shaft again, you'd been asto.
nished atbhis sagacity. The minute we'd