The Press., 1891-07-02
FOUNDED AND LAID OUT IN CALI
 FoRNiA BY PRENTICE MILFORD.

SE &2IiittE EffS&z ~ ~% A<4- 4z-9@~
 >@@A@S$E::|| >
 .':s :ssxsN~\~~ ~-&-1
 ..5 I TRUDGED b~1z nine
 SAH miles to Sonora, my pock-
 cts full of specimens" sF sSIsl from the newly discovered
 g S claim, my head cyclone
 of copper hued air castles.
 R , saw the ''boys." was
 ~ mysterious. I beckoned
 them to retired spots. Il
 showed them the ores. l told them of the find. They were wild with excitement. They were half crazed with delight. And in ten minutes some of them went just as far into the do- mains of unrest and unhappiness for fear some one might find and jump the claim ere got back to guard it. The Copper head company was organized that night.
 The "Enthusiast," man who lived in the very top loft of copper insan- ity, was sent down with me to super intend the sinking of the shaft. The secret was soon out. Shares in the vein were eagerly coveted. sold few feet for $500, and deemed had conferred a great favor on the buyer in letting it go so cheaply. lived up, way up, in tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company in Sonora met almost every night to push things, while the Enthusiast and myself blasted and burrowed in the rock. By day they exhausted their spare cash in horse hire, riding down to the claim in hope of be- ing on hand when the next blast should reveal bed of ore immense in breadth and unfathomable in depth.
 My company was made up chiefly ot lawyers, doctors, politicians and editors. They never realized how much they were indebted to me. For four months I made them feel rich, and if a man feels rich what more should he want! For millionaire can do no more than feel rich.
 Feeling certain that the Copperhead was very rich claim, and that other rich claims would be developed from the extensions" and that bustling town would be the result, pre-empted sec- tion of the land which l deemed most valuable, on which it was intended that "Copperhead City, should be built. This ''city" l partly laid out. think this was the third city had laid out in Cali fornia.
 There is a sepulchral and post mortem suggestion in the term "laid out" which is peculiarly applicable to all the "cities' which l attempted to found, and which ''cities" invariably foundered. Actuated also, at that time, by those business principles so largely prevalent in most Christian communities, "claimed" the only spring of good drinking water in the neighborhood of my ''city." My in- tent in this was in time to realize profit from the indirect sale of this water to such of the future "city's" population as might want water-not to sell it by the glass or gallon, of course; but if there was to be a "city" it would need water works The water works would neces- sarily lie on my land. would not be guilty of the inhu1nanity of selling water to parch tongued people, but I proposed that the ''city" should buy of me the ground out of which came the water.
 But one house was ever erected in Cop perhead City proper. and that had but one room. But three men ever lived in it. Yet the city was thickly populated. It was located in regular jungle, so far as jungle is ever attained in California, | and seemed the head center and trysting place of all the rattlesnakes, coons, | skunks, owls and foxes on the west side l of Table mountain. When the winter wore off and the warm California spring wore on and merged into the summer heat of May, and the pools made by the winter rains dried up, think all the rattlesnakes and copperheads for miles around went for my pre-empted spring of pure water.
 The ''city"-I mean the house-was To- catcd within few feet of the spring. Returning thither at noon for dinner, I l have started half dozen snakes from the purlieus and suburbs of that spring. | Snakes get dry like human beings. | Snakes love water. Snakes, poor things, can't get anything else to drink, and l must fill up on water. These were so- ciable snakes. When startled at our ap- l proach they would not run away from | our society. No. They preferred to re- main in the "city," and so, in many in- stances, they ran under the house. It is not pleasant at night to feel that you are sleeping over veteran rattler four feet | long, with crown of glory on his tail in the shape of fourteen or fifteen rattles. You won't crawl under your house to evict such rattlesnake either. Skunks inhabited our "city" also. Skunks know their power-their peculiar power.
 The evening gloaming seems the fa- vorite time for the skunk to go abroad He or she loves the twilight. There must be a vein of sentiment ill these far creatures. I have in the early evening travelled up the only street our ''city" ever laid out-a trail-and ahead of me on that trail I have seen 8 skunk. was willing he should precede me. In the matter of rankness was perfectly willing ko fall 8 long way behind him. Now, if you have studied skunks you will know that it is far safer to remain n the skunk's rear than to get ahead of 1im, because when he attacks with his 'avorite aromatic means of offensive de- sence he projects himself forward Gas it were). have, then, in my city, had a skunk keep the trail about fifty feet ahead of me, at pace which indicated title alarm at my presence, and, do my pest, 1 could not frighten the animal, 1or could get ahead of him or her. If ran he ran; if l walked he concurred n rapidity of pace. I dared not ap- oroach too near the animal. would 'ather break in upon the "sacred divin- ty" which, they say, ''doth hedge dng' than transgress the proper bounds 70 be observed with reference to skunk. Let a king do his best, and he cannot punish an intruder as can skunk.
 The skunk is really pretty creature. It's tail droops over it's back, like the olumes of the Knight of Navarro. It is T IL