The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1882-03-10

gether. Pulling off my boots about
o'clock one sultry day, barred my bis
tered feet tn the cool evening breeze,
and, creeping into clump of young
manzanitas, fell asleep, hoping that I
would never awake ag Ain this side of the
stars. did, however, conscious that
nv toes were being licked in q gentle
ing done by q brown setter dog, ab )ut
as hungry looking and generally dilapi-
dated IA was myself.
"Where he came from never knew,
but. looking into his half human eyes,
we speedily entered into sc rt of dumb
compact to trudge on together. found
that the poor fellow Il never could call
him brute) had sore knee. indamed
and bleeding. 1 tore strip off from
my last handkerchief TO bind it up.
and, in place of the Good Samaritan's
oil and wine, gave him my last scrap OF
cold bacon. 1t is strange, but, forlorn
as 1 was in those days, recall them
with a tender pleasure almost unac-
countable. III had been raised Brah.
min would have believed that some i'm
mortalspirit of unfailing cheerfulness ne
unendIng resources was imprisoned in
that dogs body Did you ever read the
fairy legend Of the White Cat, who,
after she had persuaded the young
Prince, her lover, to cut off her head
and tail and throw them in the fire,
suddenly stood before him q woman,
fair as Aurora? Fritz, for that was the
name by which called the dog, looked
at me with Jennie's brown eyes, half
roguish, half thoughtful, and together
we resumed our journey. Nor would /
have followed in the wake of the young
Prince, even had 1 known the result
would have been similar, for Fritz, the
dog, was Invaluable just as he was. All
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
miners camp Ivy describing mine as 1
approached Bidwelrs bar, / may say,
though, that one might have supposed
an earthquake or tornado had been at
work there, tearing up the hundreds of
thousands II cubic feet that had Eeen
moved ana removed by mortal hands in
their frantic, persistent search for gold.
"The bar was 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, 1, like thousands
of others, began to dig and burrow and
wash dirt. But my labor and its results
hoI tor how
leather bag of gold dust got no heavier,
toll as 1 would. Wages being good, 1
stopped digging and hired myself as
camp scullion. did every kind of Job
bling within the range of a miners wants.
Washing dirty flannel shirts and cotton
overalls, patching leather trousers and
cooking fiapjacks, is not the most digni-
fled and fiower-sIrewn path of fortune,
you must know; and to n 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
knew; and that had In advance labeled
Bonanza
" 1 might have succeeded, but 1 was
Frustrated 10y 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 MS q tender
and appieciative sympathy which the
gift of speech could not have made more
assuring. Ny nurses had pitched me
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 for all appetite
was gomez, and one evening hope failed
me. Believing 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
bit of tallow candle began the letter,
the first / had written for months. L
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. 1 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 wolf or fox,
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
half bushel of gravel, which he had loos-
ened, when my eye caught the CLEAN OF
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 q lode (thanks to a Ropher), and L
thereby had found a fortune. As soon
as possible had the gold of that pre-
cious stone wrought of my own design
| ing. all of it. at least. but the contents