The Press., 1890-03-20


 ally the pick strikes a firmly imbedded powder hard and square on it's point, in such way as to send the vibration like a shock along the iron, up the handle and into ones arm and ''crazy bone." Our bank of dirt is about eight feet in height. A few inches of the top is dark mold, below that are three or four feet of "hard pan," below the ''hard pan" light sandy gravel and rotten bowl ders, and near the ledge is the pay streak. This order of formation has varied as we have worked up and into the bank. At first, near the rivers edge, there was only mold on very light allu- vial sand. This was readily washed off and paid $4 or $5 per day. A little far ther back we struck the edge of the red gravel streak. This for time paid bet ter. Farther still came the deposit of light sandy gravel, and lastly came in the accursed "hard pan."
 Our claim, on being first prospected, was reported to pay three cents to the pan from the top down. We believed it at first, not having learned that "three cents to the pan from the top down" means the biggest kind of luck. If you get an average of half cent pan from the top down, and the dirt would wash easily, we should make money. It was hard even for an "honest miner" to give as result of a prospect anything less than ''three cents to the pan." But 'hard pan" is our foe. "Hard pan" is the essence of brickbats. Its consistency is about that of chalk. 1t seems the finest kind of sand cemented and pressed together. It can be carved into any form with knife. It takes as much time to work off square foot of hard pan as ten square feet of soft gravel. When, after half days labor, we suc- ceed in getting down a cave, it goes into the ground sluice in few great Jumps, which must be battered to pieces with our picks before the water will slowly dissolve them into mud. And 1t doesn't hold a "color" of gold. The work in the ground sluice goes on hour after hour. Pick and shovel and scrape, scrape and shovel and pick, the water meantime tumbing and roaring over the bank and making it difficult for us to hear one anothers' voices. The sun climbs higher and gets hotter. The water pail is frequently visited. The backs of the gray shirts are wet with precipitation. In an easy, companion able claim, where the partners are all good fellows and on good terms and not too insane in the matter of getting an enormous quantity of dirt through the sluices each day, there may be more or less brief suspensions from the work, xx11o oil o1o and talk politics. or horses, or last nights poker game, or have short service of tobacco smoke, with the usual solemn preliminaries of cutting the plug and filling pipes. But if the majority of the ''company'' are a mean, grabbed, close listed lot, the misery goes on without cessation.
 A queerly assorted group are we thus laboring together. Jack Gwin's impelling hope and life's idea is to earn enough to pay his passage home to Philadelphia and buy him suit of clothes. A decent suit he has not earned these five years. He would be the terror and distress of his relatives if ever he got back, for with him $5 in his pocket over expenses and sobriety are an impossibility. McFadden dreams of cabin, a COW, some geese and goats, horse and a wife, and is in a fair way of realizing them all. He saves most of his earnings, gets drunk wisely only on holidays. pays his debts regularly, hates the English, lives in that little black, brownish cabin up wonder, does all his cooking in two tin pots, sleeps in one pair of ancient blankets and a most disreputable bed quilt, and $3 will cover the cost of all his domestic fittings and utensils. Bill Furnea, French Ca- nadian, has drifted here into this hole in the foothills very much as he drifted into the world-without aim or object in life save present enjoyment. He is good worker and works because he was brought up to 1t and can't help it. He is good boatman, good logger, a skilled wood cutter, devotee of poker and generally successful one, an entertaining scamp, full of wit and originality, quick to take in the peculiarities and eccentricities of others, something of dandy, as far as dandyism can be indulged in this out of the way place, and born scamp, glib of tongue, unreliable, and socially the best man of the crowd.
 It is near II o'clock. There stands in cool corner of the claim and carefully shielded from any stray flying pebble, a black bottle. It is nearly full of whisky very common corn whisky. It is most welcome at this hour. Poison it may be, but draught from the tin cup brightens up and makes all things new. The sunshine is more cheerful. All nat ure smiles. The picks descend with in- creased force and a host of new day dreams start into being. It revives hope. It quenches despair. It gilds the monot- ony of our lives. It was ever thus, and possibly ever shall be, world without end. It is high noon. The sun is over our heads and the shadows are at their shortest length. One of our number trudges wearily up to the reservoir to shut off the water. So soon as it's flow lessens we trudge off in wet overalls or heavy rubbers to our respective cabins. We are now ground sluicing at or about the year 1860, when miners generally had abandoned "cabining" in squads and each man kept house by himself. Cause general ineompatibility of temper, tenn perament, disposition, and habit. The sober miner found it disagreeable to live permanently with the spreeing miner, and the miner nice in his domestic econ- omy and particular about his food soon became tired of 8 companion who never aired his blankets and didn't care wheth- CT his bread was light or heavy, sweet or sour. Trudging to our cabins, we pick up the dried twipa in ol1r hath ThnSe