The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1879-05-17


three months before, and the hole was emp
ty. johnny was 'mosl crazy, but had no
idea of the thief who robbed him. 1t SEEM
ed that he would have to give up goin' to
Australia, for he couldn't start broke; but
he was good fellow, and the other fellows
wouldn't leave him behind, 80 they Clipped
in all around enough to e i've him us much
as any of them had; and that fixed it. But
the day they were to start, just us they
! were descrtin' their cabin, Billy Garfield
you must have heard Of him.come over
from Coultervillc, and when they told him
how johnny had hcen robbed, "Rohbcd be
blowcd j says he lie asked about where the
gold had been buried, and johnny told
him it was in the floor, just below Il nick
he'd made in one of the logs that the cabin
was built of Billy went into the empty
cabin and looked around, says he:
"Wherc's the nicl2"
"Thcy had got high-toncd when their
luck was good, and lined their walls with
muslin, so the nick was covered up.
It's just there, says johnny, pointin'
to a spot above where he had been dggin'.
"3ill said.nothin' but ripped down the
muslin, when, 10, and behold the nick
was II good five feet from where Johnny
had thought it was; and when they dug
down under it they found his gold all right
You see, he had clean disrcmcmbered the
. location of his mark.
''But the quccrcst thing ever did know
of was Interested in myself, and ii was Il
real robbery, with no person guilty after all.
Two men named Vcscy and Kiddcr-at
least them were the names out thcrc-were
working partners with me Oh claim at the
city of Tuolumnc, in Sonoma county, IN
nv IxS,,,
of lis had his share of several thousand dol
lars, in coarsc gold and little nuggets hid
away in what we considered safe place.
We lived together in little cabin next to
the United States Hotel, that Greenwood
used to keep then, and Vcscy thought the
sufcst place for his pile was to bury it in
the dirt under the pork barrel. One day he
went TO it, to add a good handful to what
hc already had, and when he came to dig it
he turned white as Il sheet and said to us:
Boys, it's gone. I've been robbed =
cit was mighty unpleasant for us, for We
supposed we were the only ones, as we
thought, that knew of his hidin place, and
he might very readily have suspected us.
| Whether he did or not, | never knew. At
all events he said nothn' of the sort, and
went right Oh with his work but he found
! some new place to hide his gold, which he
didn't happen to mention to either of us.
The rainy season came on, and one day,
when we were all three in the cabin, unable
to work because of the rain, which waspour-
in down all as if the fumes aloft was turned
loose, our little adobe chimney got soaked
with water and tumbcd down., OF course,
we had to go out with shovcls and picks
and fix it up the best we could, without re-
gard for the rain, OF else be smoked out of
. the cabin. | was diggin up some earth at
the corner of the cabin near the chimney,
to patch it up, when my eye caughf the
gleam of a little yellow nugget. 1 picked
it up, and saw several more. In minute
more we were all three down on our knees
in the mud, forgcttin' all about the rain
and the chimney, scrapin' up the gold and
congratulatin' ourselves on having struck
the richest kind of Il claim. But directly
Vcscy got some of the nuggets in his hand
he knew them, and says he:
why Blast my eyes, if it isn't my
own gold
'1lc recognised the buttons he had melted
down and broken up himself; and right he
was, as we made no manner of doubt.
If we'd had any doubts, though, they would
soon b I've been set at rest by our discovery
of how lie had been robbed. a gopher had
burrowcd its hole along under the corner of
the cabin, and beneath the solid dirt floor,
and accidently struck his gold which was
put down in buekskin bag. If it had
been in a tin can, it would have been safe
enough, for the gopher wanted neither tin
cans nor gold, but it did want the buckskin
bag; so it gnawcd the bag and dragged it
away along its burrow scattering the gold as
it went, and that was how we came to
strike the trail. We followed up tho hole,
and recovered within half an ounce at most
| guess of all that had been lost; and do
believe that Kidder and nc were sight
more glad than Vescy himself was.