Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-04-01
CHAPTER TX.
CLOUDS.

CHAPTER TX.
CLOUDS.
Broener remained with me several months
before making another trip TO San Francisco.
lie taught me banning OUT and the use of
inc rocker. agonized for days before get
ting the knack of that instrument 1t is to
be rocked with the left hand, while water is
poured by the right ON the dirt in the top
sieve, and my right and left arms seemed
continually trying to do each others work,
the right the shaking and the left the pour
lnes-at least, they'd make efforts to that
effect-and often was l so irritated by the
seeming contrariness both of my arms and
the machine, that was tempted to kick it to
pieces.
Broener would laugh, saying: Take it
easier. Sit down and let your mind rest.
There's where the trouble lies Your mind is
trying to educate your body to the unaccus-
toned movement, and it's hard work at first
Tor both teacher and scholar. Don't get
angry Recollect how many times you fell
down when you We're trying to walk
In few days | mastered the rocker. Be
fore leaving Broener thus advised me: 81
will leave you twenty ounces of river dust.
Use it when you trade at Rankin's. I've
sailed the claim here beside. You don't
know what that means? Scattered Stanis-
laus river gold dust broadcast in it, so it's
bound to yield four or five dollars a day with
easy work. That'l keep up the reputation of
the claim. We must seem to be making
something here. If | salted it with Tuolmune
river dust or dust from the dry diggings the
trader would detect it. That would excite
their curiosity, and that's what we want of
all things to ward off"
Il want to make as quick work as posi-
bic, he continued, "of the Bank up the noun
tain. don't think it's vein that'll hold out
long. Its not the right formation The
ledge is the same on both sides-granite-an
that's not good holding ledge for gold A
quartz vein to hold out should lie between two
different kinds of rock-say. granite and
slate. How this gold bearing quartz gets
poured in between them, as it is apt to lie, the
Lord only knows | think ours is a short
lived deposit-mighty rich so long as it lasts.
but when it gives out it viii peter all at once
like some peoples goodness when the temp
tation becomes too strong
1t was about the first of March when
Broener made this trip to San Francisco. On
leaving, he said to me:
Watch the Bank very carefully, butd
touch it. l want to do all the work on it
myself. Go to it every day, and keep an
eye on all stragglers, prospectors and stran-
gers, and the more ragged and no account a
man looks, the more you want to look out
for him.
| was left alone But six months had
elapsed since l left Eastport | had now
time and solitude to think things and myself
over. seemed to have lived ten years in as
many weeks, PASSPORT and my Eastport
self seemed of some remote period | was
part and parcel of a new life, amid new sur
rnlndings and new men-not mere locker
on, but watcher vitality interested in every
movement about me, because it might deeply
affect my own fortunes.
Above and beyond all in my reflections
stood out this man Broener In one sense. |
was his follower absorbed by him. led by
MIN. He was entire master of the situation.
looked up to him and admired his keenness
of Judgment, his ease and adaptability to men
and circumstances, his outside appearance of
recklessneSs, which seemed but a cloak for
the caution underneath.
Yet did not feel wholly to like Broener.
One reason was, he repealed anything like a
warm expression of friendship.
Don't try to thank me for what YOU say
I've done for YOU he remarked one evening,
when in certain set and 70 some extent pre-
viously -composed phraseology, | attempted to
do SO. you owe me nothing. You are as
useful to me as | am to you. We suit and fit
into each other for the time being Some
power fashioned us to do So Thank that.
whatever it is not me. When things shape
themselves for us to part, we part-according
to the same law-rfor our mutual advantage,
We may part friends, perhaps enemies We
can't tell what we shall grow into or what
may grow into us that'll make us friendly.
indifferent or hostile TO each other That's
my doctrine, In plain, old-fashoned words,
its every man for himself in reality and the
Old Scratch take the hindmost You don'G
like it, | see. You believe in friendship to
the last and clinging to whatever you like
until it's in the last stage of decay and killing
you with its poison. You believe in hanging
on to friend while he maybe, out of pure
ignorance or selfishness, is through his weak
ness, dragging you to ruin along with him.
don't. l like strong people, so long as they
are strong. | pity them if they become
weak. l cut from cripple when he leans
on me too heavily
And how with womenf' | asked
That's somewhat another affair am as
TO women tyrant in this way. l. or rather
the nature inside of me, exacts of a woman
who attracts my admiration-or compels it,
rather-that she shall continue to do So IL
she doesn't | cut, the same as with men To
remain true as it is called, is for me to re-
main hypocrite and pretend a sentiment
which is not felt"
Broener seemed to me an iceberg, glitter
ing in the sunlight and rejecting that light
from a thousand pinnaceJ, but cold to the
touch full OF power, too, but unpleasant to
near approach; PLEASING only so long a. one
maintained the proper distance
Yet socially, he was ever to me most fas-
cinatng and when he chose could make one
forget him a. the iceberg. An educated
man, bat not pedant; book learned, but
not boo1ish or book laxative; alive to the
pas, but as much'if not more fully so to the
present, and especially keen in seeing and
more in making others see the points in the
varied array Of human nature on Bull Bar.
1t is true much of his conversation was in
terlarslcd with the slang and common phrase
elogy OF tic day
u like, he said, "the luxury at times of
talking el Geshabille It's hard work to feel
obliged continually to express oneself in a
dinner dress of nouns, verbs and propositions
previously arranged for you by some old
pedant Why couldn't there be a compromise
made between book English and every day
English2 "Twould make life easier. There's
q good deal of slang, too, born of necessity
Times, eras, circumstances develop expressions
which can only belong to that time and era.
People must have their every day words as
thes have their every day clothes.
In letter from home it was casually men
toned that Blanche Seton had left East
port and was living, they believed in New
York She had become, it was added more
mysterious than ever, and had quite sun
dered herself from Eastport people. From
Blanche herself heard nothing. One of her
remarks on the evening we parted was that
she would write if she had anything to
write, and would like me to do the same.
She dislilled, she said, to have letters ex-
pected of her at regular intervals by any
one It was too much like correspondence
by machinery.
About fortnight after Broener left, a
stranger came sauntering along the bank
and stopped at the hole from which / was
taking and washing gravel | was some
what excited that day from having come on
deposit of hard, neavy gravel lying on the
ledge and in a deep creyice 1t was yielding
richly and without aid of any of Broener's
sailing When a man knows that every
bucket he dumps into his ''head seive" is to
wash out fifteen on twenty dollars work be-
comes more like play. Occasionally would
| pick bit of ''shot" or coarse gold from the
Il, Il,