The Press., 1890-03-20

ElY1D:::Pe :es :Ps :s s.S: 5: s;s: ;;:: morning. Or if not stiff, they lacked action. Working all the day previously, possibly in the water, or with it splash ing all about, tugging at heavy boulders, shouldering wet sluices, to say nothing of the regular pick and shovel exercise, would make itself felt even when the limbs and blood were younger than now. Dressing was short job. A pair of damp overalls, a pair of socks, a pair of shoes, or possibly the heavy rubber mining boots Flannel shirts we slept in. A face swab- bing with cold water in the tin basin outside and click and promise" for the hair with the comb. That was about all for week days. Vanity of apparel there was little for the working miner. Who was there to dress for? Woman? The nearest was half a mile, 50 years of age, and married. Then breakfast The fire kindled in the contrary little stove. Possibly it was necessary to attack with an axe that dried old stump near by and hack off few chips to cook with. The miners wood pile was generally small.
 He got in fuel on rainy days, or at the odd intervals to be spared from work. You put on the worn tin teapot, lowered the gauge covered meat safe from the tree, cut steak from the chunk of bull mahogany within called beef, slung dab of lard in the frying pan, put therein the meat and let it sizzle. Two or three boiled potatoes might be sliced, fried more or less brown in the gravy, and this, with bread and tea, formed the breakfast. The bread was the bread of your own laborious baking, the loaf of an irregular shape, the crust very hard and thick, the color often "pied," being black where it had burned, brown where it had baked, and of pallid whiteness where it had not baked at all. Within the loaf might be close, heavy, and in color either creamy or a canary yellow, in proportion to the improper amount of yeast powder used.
 The table is 8 broad shelf against the wall. There is no tablecloth. You did not always wash up after breakfast, for the dishes, as they stood, were all in place for dinner. Some fastidious min CTS washed their dishes after each meal; most of us did not. It was too much to expect of hard worked humanity. The cabin door is open while you eat and from it you look forth on the claim There lies the bank of red earth as you left it yesterday after the "cave." There is the reservoir full of coffee col ored ditch water which had run in dur ing the night after being used for wash ing in a dozen claims ''up country" Then you draw on those damp. clammy rubber boots, either to the knee or hip high, the outside splashed with the dried reddish mud, and smelling disagreeably of rubber as you pulled them on and smelling worse as you became heated and perspiring. In these you waddle to the claim. forgot. Breakfast over, one of the most important acts of the day was next on the programme. That was the filling, lighting and smoking of your pipe. Nothing could hurry you through this performance. The filling was cut in slivers with careful and solemn consideration; the weed was care fully bestowed ill the bowl; the match was applied with deliberation savoring of a religious act; the first puff rose in the air as incense to the early morn, and smoking thus you waddled in your big boots to the claim. There you met your three partners, all likewise smoking. There they stand on the bank, looking into the ground sluice. There is no ''good morning. or other greeting; if anything, grunts. There lay the tools-shovels, picks, crowbar and sluice fork-help- lessly about, as left last evening. A little muddy water trickles through the line of sluices. One of us goes to the reservoir, a few hundred yards off, and turns on the water. Another goes to the tail of the sluices with the sluice fork. Then is heard the clicking of the pick and the grating of the shovel against the red dirt; down comes the muddy water over the bank and the days work has fairly commenced.
 We stand in a row, allowing sufficient room between each for swinging the pick. We are undermining the bank, the water running at our feet and be- tween us and the bottom of the bank Each chunk of red dirt dislodged by the pick falls into the running water, and If it be hard and will not readily dissolve it must be broken up by pick or shovel to keep the stream clear and unimpeded. The large powders are picked out by hand and thrown behind us-not in dis ordered fashion, either. Room in the cut is scarce and must be economized, so the ever accommodating powder pile is .'faced up'' with neat wall, laid with out mortar, but with some care and skill. The bed rock is under our feet. We are undermining the bank and keep ing the stream turned in as much as possible to the part undermined. The gravel for foot or six inches is pretty hard, and the stones here are harder and closer packed than those nearer the sur face. There the gravel is lighter. Many of the stones are light and rotten; blow with the pick dashes them to pieces. This streak just above the ledge and for a few inches in the crevices of the ledge is our T. B