The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1882-03-17

at me with Jennie's brown eyes, half
roguish, half thoughtful, and together
we resumed our journey. Nor would I
have followed in the wake of the young
Prince, even had / known the result
would have been similar, for Fritz, the
dog, was invaluable just as he was. Ali
loneliness was gone now that he rarely
left my side. and although our shadows
had grown less by the time We reached
the bar our immaterial entities were
in prime order for everything in the
shape Of adventure. Have never seen
any gold dug. Then I'll not at this
late day spoil your first impression OF a
miners camp by describing mine as [
approached Bidwell's bar, I may say,
though, that one might have supposed
an earthquake or tornado had been at
work there, tearing up the hundreds of
thousands of cubic feet that had been
moved and removed by mortal hands in
their frantic, persistent search for gold.
"The bar was a world In miniature.
Almost every nationality was there rep
resented, and almost every feature of
human kind but humanity. Armed with
pick. pan and shovel, I, like thousands
Of others, began to dig and burrow and
wash dirt. But my labor and Its results
would not balance, for somehow my little
leather bag of gold dust got no heavier,
toll as I would. Wages being good, I
stopped digging and hired myself as a
camp scullion. I did every kind of job
bing within the range of miners wants.
Washing dirty flannel shirts and cotton
overalls, patching leather trousers and
cooking faplacks, is not the most digni-
fed and fower-strewn path of fortune,
you must know; and to boy whose
ideas of chivalry, independence and deeds
Of knightly valor were purely Byronic
such fate, you must acknowledge, was
a sort of poetic injustice. My aim,
though, was to earn enough money with
which to buy certain claim of which I
knew; and that had-in advance labeled
Bonanza.
81 might have succeeded, but I was
Frustrated by malarial fever, and for
days and weeks lay unconscious at the
tender mercy of few rough Welsh
miners with human hearts. NY little
hoard of money and my energy melted
away together like spring snow. But
for Fritz I'd have died of disappoint-
ment alone. He had adopted the never
say die motto, and [ often read in his
glorious eyes the sentence, you great
old coward At him again 7 as tender
and appfeciatiye sympathy which the
gift of speech could not have made more
assuring. Ny nurses had pitched me a
tent on the south side of low hill and
had left me to get well at my leisure.
My bottom dollar had dwindled to the
value of dime, my legs to the thick
ness of pair of tongs Gor all appetite
was gomez, and one evening hope failed
me. Believing I was going to die, re-
solved to do the fair thing by Jennie,
apprise her of the event and advise her
to forget me. By the Pickering light of
a bit of tallow candle l began the letter,
the first [ had written for months. |
thought aloud and wrote, Fritz lay be-
side me, his nose wedged between his
paws, but [ knew by the twitch of his
ears that he understood every word I
was writing.
81 had reached The climax of renun-
citation and wretchedness-or rather, my
expression of it-when he suddenly rose
and went out. l soon heard him paving
and tearing and scratching the earth
about six feet from me, as though he
was under contract to dig tunnel to
China before daylight. Thinking he had
found the burrow of a wolf or fox, I
called him off, but he was as deaf as a
rat to my voice. Selling the candle, 1
hurried to the spot, around which lay q
half bushel of gravel, which he had loos-
ened, when my eye caught the CLEAN of
a dull, red streak that veined piece of
quartz about the size of an egg lying
among The free earth. Would you be-
lieve it? That streak was worth $50,
for it was virgin gold. Nor was it the
only one upon that hillside. Fritz had
found lode thanks to gopher, md l
thereby had found o fortune. AS soon
as possible I had the gold of that pre-
cious stone wrought of my own design
ing, all of it, at least, but the contents
of the blunt corner, which, in its native
roughness, I had mounted as a simple
brooch. Sending these to Jennie, T."
can act of great generosity, sir, I
think, - interrupted Ruth, with laugh
able CLINT in her eye. Zone would have
thought you would have preserved such
piece of rare good fortune as memo
rial stone."
"You anticipate me, madam. It was
as q memorial that / sent my first bit
of treasure, but / expected to get it
back again in two years, the girl with
it,"
"And did you?"
"No; nor even received letter of
acknowledgment that my offer had been
accepted. Nothing finds gold quicker
than gold, when man has once got a
fair share of it, and in two years I had,
in various ways, secured $4,000. In
yesting it, as l thought, safely, I re-
turned to Philadelphia in all the pride of
conquering hero. My story ought to
end here, to wind up with a chime of
wedding bells and beautiful Rachel as
my reward for faithful serving, but had
scarcely arrived when I heard. inci-
dentally, that Jennie had gone with her
father to Europe, nor left one sign that
she ever remembered me-"
"You certainly did not let that fact
dampen the ardor of your pursuit %
queried Ruth; "you followed her, of
course"
II did no such thing, madam. I re-
turned to San Francisco and plunged
into the excitement of gold-hunting
with reckle sness that woman car
not understand Six months after that
| lost every dollar, but by that time
had learned that experience is worth
nothing as solid capital until it has
been dearly bought. l whistled my
rhyme:
Loss and gain, easure and pain,
Balance the see-saw tf fe
IN the sensitive car of my friend Fritz,
Rugged his own brown head close to nv
shoulder-don't laugh, that dog was my
friend rolled up my sleeves, and again
went to work with vigor that knew
meant certain success if the vein held
out. 1t did, and five years afterward l
had bank account which ran largely to
the thousands. I invested it in land.
BY that time I was bachelor of 80.
Hard knocks and my own disappoint
ment had shaken all the romance out of
me, and when again went East it was
on business connected with the con-
struction of this railroad.
AY.1