Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-07-09
ATaIe OF the California Mines

There was a company up the gulct
above us. Portuguese were these-a
quiet, unobtrusive set Of men, with dogs
and shot.guns and the quaintest little
cabins in the world. Brown men, sailors
mostly, with earrings in their ears and
their shirt bosoms open; clannish peo
pie, silent and respectful. Then there
we're other companies below, not unlike
our own--a hundred men or more on
this little mountain stream. Trees above
us in eternal green, chapparal along the
fierce and steep old mountain side. that
pitched almost perpendicularly on either
side the stream upon us, from which
whistled the partridge through the day
and called the gray coyote at night. No
other sounds than these, but the rafting
Of the stones in the cradle or the tom
and the pick and shovel on the rocks.
No doctors, no law, no lawyers, no
thieves. Forty miles to the nearest
trading camp. All things we brought
from there across a wall of everlasting
snow, upon our backs-bread and bacon
and beans, and beans and bacon and
bread, the whole year through. At last
the dreaded scurvy came. Men suddenly
fell i'll, lost the use Of their limbs; fell
helpless on our hands. No help; moth
ing would do them good but change OF
place and change Of diet We could not
carry them out across the snow. This
was dreadful. You could not have seen
these strong, brave men stricken there,
helpless, dying day by day, without hope,
and been silent. Sad fearful
There were six of them, and the worst
case in the six was that of the man with
the leather nose; all brought together,
all lying looking helplessly, sadly into
each others faces, thinking of other
faces, other scenes, in other lands. At
last an old sailor suggested, as last
resort, a remedy. He had seen ships
crew saved in some land in the tropics.
We would try that. 1t was to place the
men, stripped nude as nature, up to the
chin in the earth, and leave them there
through the night, till the loose and
warm rich sell should draw the poison
from their bodies.
There was reason in this Besides, we
had some evidence that it would save our
men; for once, when party of Indians
attacked US, we won the fight, and fol-
lowing them a little way, found a
wounded Indian buried up to the eyes in
the earth. They had done this in the
hope of saving him, to try and heal his
wound, and they are good physicians.
We dug six pits in the shadow of a
pine, in the loose and warm alluvial soil;
and there, as the sun went down, we
stood the men up to the chin, and filed
the earth in about them.
1t was lovely moonlight night, balmy
and peaceful as a paradise. Not q
sound save the doleful howl of a wolf in
the crags above. Even in this condi-
ton the grim Russian was the center Of
interest. But he was as silent as help
less. His head inclined to one side, and
rested on the loose, warm soil beside
him. His hand was half hidden in the
earth.
Oregon Jake was there, assisting as
we'll as he might, in his awkward and
loose way, in the singular experiment
and effort to save the lives of the stricken
men.
But he was not gifted with any special
gravity of bearing, and the grotesque
picture before him, with all its sadness,
had its oomical feature.
He went up to Ginger and began to
talk, as he looked now and then at the
Russian over his shoulder. He half
laughed as he did so.
The buried man heard him, lifted his
head with an effort, and cried out, in a
ghostly, graveyard voice:
Knock him down, Gingerl Knock
him down."
Ginger, true to his helpless friend,
knocked him down on the spot.
Again the feeble head of the helpless
man settled over on the soft soil. He
closed his eyes with the most perfect
satisfaction, and then smiled till his
white teeth looked like the entire roof
to miniature cemetery.
After while the tired miners began
to retire, and with o silent prayer for the
success of the experiment, left it to
time. The invalids were cheerful, and,
now with little hope, chatted gsyly
enough together, but looked strange be-
yond description-th six shaggy heads
just bursting through the earth, like
Banquo's, there in row, in the fitful
moonlight. 1t looked like men rising
from the earth and coming up to judg-
ment. Their voices sounded weird and
ghostly, too, as of another world After
awhile one by one they feel asleep, and
all was still save the bowling of the wolf
on the bluff above. grew frightened
like. l thiak the others did too. And
one by one we stole away and left them
there, as the night went on, and sought
our hunks inside the cabins, and threw
us down in our clothes and slept. 1t
was an experiment for life or death.
What a strange stupor overcomes
men sometimes at night who have been
hard at work all day. Singular that we
should have left those six men there at
midnight in the black shadows, with
only here and there ray of moonlight
to relieve the scene. Strange that we
could not keep awake.
The experiment was a failure. The
wolves came down in the night and ate
of every head level with the ground.