The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-12-27
FOOL GOLD.
IBiil Nye, in New York Mercury

[Bfl Nye, In New York Mercury.l
 It is singular how soon . plain, unss- suming tenderfoot becomes an expexi. eneed miner and mountaineer-in his mind-and how soon he begins to con- verse about difficult and dangerous terms in mining. He begins in two days to talk about blossom rock, surface indications and float. Inside of a week he converses freely on the subject of "colors, milling ore, refractory gre, contact, copper stains, carbonate formations, dips, spurs, varia- tiens, assessment weik, ore on its dump, ore in sight, mill runs, true Assures, min eral in place, pyrites of poverty, sulphates of disappointment" etc., etc.
 One summer day 1 went out into the mountains with hope springing eternal in my breast did not tell any one what my scheme was, but fully intended to wrest a comfortable fortune from the bowels of the earth. As l write these lines, l learn that the aforesaid bowels remain intact.
 There were two of us in the expedition, and our bedding consisted mostly of two patchwork quilts. Old hardened miners do not travel through the mountains with patchwork bed quilts, unless they desire to promulgate their fresh and guileless natures.
 We labored under the deIusion that hunting for gold and hunting for black berries was good deal similar, but it is not. Nothing could be less ditto.
 We hunted for two weeks before we found anything that looked like gold, and our supply of toothsome viands was beginning to get low. How we'll l re- member the beautiful day that l found my first nugget in the bed of an old stream in wild and rocky gulch. There was a little water standing in slight depression of the gravel, and in this little puddle lay my nugget It was a rebble as large as robins egg, literally full of yellow, gilt tering metal, that made my heart jump around in my throat ip a most tumultu- ous manner. l examined the little pool of water more carefully and found an- other larger and even richer nugget. 1 was crazy. began to feel arrogant and purse proud. l knew what it was to look down on the poor. I sat down on a big boulder and tried co look upon my former associates Tn the same way that did be- fore prosperity had come upon me. began to invest my money where it would be safe and still yield me fair interest.
 By and by l began to get hungry. went down to camp and ate little fried salt pork that had been left over from the midday banquet. showed the bonanza to my partner, and told him that he had better take the gold and go into town for more grub. He did so. Two days passed and l toiled on. My partner did not re- turn. A horrible fear came upon me. Perhaps he h ad taken the proceeds of my nuggets and meandered away to some other cline. could not endure the un- certainty, and started out for town. He vas not there. He had fled. inquired everywhere, but could learn nothing of him till l went to an quitting place. where one of the clerks said that a man answering to the description of my part ner had been there a few days before and had tried to "trade some fool gold for grub," he said. And the boys had told him to leave town inside of thirty minutes or they would hang him. and probably he had skipped.
 Then asked him what "fool gold ]" was, and he told me. It is generally a streak of yellow mica that runs through a pebble and under water looks like gold. only little too bright. He said that from the number of these nuggets that had been brought in that season he judged that the fool killer must have been drawn on jury somewhere and prevented from attending to routine business.