The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-21

fast horse; front pew; termination, .
marble monument in the Terryvills
cemetery, Beloved and respected by al
| who knew him, he sleeps in hope of q
still brighter immortality"
We stop at the Judges" for the night
Wife and child are sent off to the Indian
camp in the chaparral. Sam Lugal
drops in after supper. The judge is an
incessant talker. The bottles and glasses
! are placed on the table. The judge be
comes fatherly as to counsel and admon-
ition against excess in drink. Also
against gambling. He has peculiar the
illogical views. Moses, he says, was
keen old miner. He and Aaron put up
a plan to gain all the gold in the Israel.
ties possession. While Moses was on
Mount Sinai receiving the stone tables
Aaron was counseling the making and
worship of the golden calf. By such
means did he concentrate in lump all
the Jews jewelry. What then? Moses
comes down, sees the calf, gets angry,
breaks it into pieces, burns it up. But
what becomes of the gold2 D1dn't
Moses and Aaron sneak around that
night and "pan it out" of the ashes!
The Judge is his own theologian.
We visit Price, of Hawkins Bar. Price
is now the sole constituency of Hawkins.
He ran this bar in its golden infancy; he
saw it in its youth; he is steadfast to it
in its decay. Thirty-four years ago 500
men lived here; the Tuolumne banks
were lined with them, shaking their era
dies.
Old Hawkins first discovered gold here.
Price tells of the picket jars full he had
buried under the floor of his cabin. The
secret could not be kept. They came
trooping down the steep Red mountain
footsore, weary, thirsty, hungry-but
hungrier still for gold. They put up
tents and brush houses, or crept, slept
and cooked under the projecting rocks;
.hey stood all day in ice cold water; they
overworked bodies hitherto unused TO
manual labor; they blistered delicate
hands; they lived on bacon and heavy
bread of their own making; they drank
raw whisky by the quart; they died, and
were buried almost where they died, In
nameless graves.
Up yonder, but few yards In the
rear of Prices cabin, is the old camp
graveyard. The fence is rotting away,
and stands at various angles. The in
scriptions on the headboards are half
effaced by time and the elements. Some
are split and have fallen down. Read
"Jacob Peiser, act. 81" He died close by
in the gulch hard by, with pistol bull
let through him. A dispute over
claim. Samuel Purdy, 81" Drowned
trying to cross the river during a freshet.
"John Wilkins, act. 35." Killed by
cave in the bank claim about hundred
yards away. Samuel johnson, act. %"
He dove with sandbag to stop a great
leak in the Ford Chann's headwall, and
he stopped the leak in part with his own
body, for the stream sucked him in the
crevice, and he never came up alive.
"John Weddell, 3d." Blown up by the
premature explosion of blast in the
Split Rock quartz claim. "Abram
Hewison, 49," Delirium tremens, stark
mad at midnight, jumped into the river
from the point yonder.
Price has seen all this. That was the
climax of his life. Prices heaven is not
in the future. 1t is in the past. 1t is
embraced in period about twenty-five
years ago, when he made IAN ounce per
day" Those, he remarks, were times
worth living for. Eight hundred souls
then at Hawkins; five gambling houses
in full blast every night; music. dancing
and fandangos at either end of the bar.
The river roars unvexed toward the
sea. 1t has burst through its dams and
choked the races with sand. The scars
and burrows on the hillsides are quite
hidden by the thickly growing vegeta-
ton. Young oaks and pines are coming
up in the place of the old. Trail and
road are overgrown with brush.
''Civilization" here put in transient
appearance. 1t SCARED the hillsides with
pits and burrows dug for gold. 1t cut
down the wide spreading, symmetrical
oaks. 1t forced the Tuolumne through
race and flume from its channels. 1t
built gaudy temples dedicated to the
of Bacchus, resplendent with
mirrors, pictures and cut glassware, To-
Gated on the very site where a few
months previous stood the Indians
smoking wigwam. 1t brought toiling
men, hard listed, awkward, ungainly,
clumsy, with all grace and suppleness
worked out of them and strong only to
lift and dig. 1t brought all manner of
men, educated and ignorant, cultivated
and coarse, yet for whom Christian
training, Christian church, Christian
bible, Christian spire in city, town and |
village pointing heavenward had failed |
to convince that gold was not the chief |
aim and end of all human effort.
By day there was labor drudgiDg, la |
Dor spasmodic, few prizes, many /
blanks, some hope, much more discour- |
agement. BY night, revelry, carousal, |
gambling, oaths, recklessness, pistol |
shots, knife thrusts, bloodshed, death |
Bird and beast fed affrighted 10 lonelier |
and more secure retreats before the ad- /
vent of the raging. cruel animal, man
But now civilization has flown and |
proved by its absence. Price is ours.
&c will walk nine miles OF election day /
% Chinese Camp, the nearest precinct,
% deposit ballot for Us. An order On
ne proprietor Of the Phoenix saloon for
generous supply OF whisky stimulates
lis devotion 10 his country. What
glorious land OF liberty is this.
PRENTICE MILFORD.
The Bitter Badly Bitten.