The Press., 1891-05-14

Before I had owned them a week com plaaints concerning them came from neighborihg miners, who owned no hogs. These pigs of mine broke through the cloth walls Of the cabins, and would con. sume the miners entire weekly stock of provisions in few minutes. Then they would go outside and root from out the hotcoals7-4his T .Dntch oven" wherein his bread was baking while he labored afar in his claim, and this bread when cooled they would also deyour. had, on buy ing these animals, engaged that they should find themselves" '5
 There was no reasoning with the sui fering miners in this matter. argued that my pigs had right to run at large, and that they should make their houses more secure. The miners argued that, right or not right, they would shoot my pigs even if found near their cabins. If that was not sufficient they might shoot me. Their .positiveness in this matter was of an intense and violent character. There was no snchI thing as discussion with them on legal or equitable grounds. think now that and the pigs had law and right on Our side, but the miners were in the majority and had might. Nor was this all. These pigs, seemingly recognizing my ownership, came home at night to sleep. They slept in pile just outside my cabin door, and as the night air waited down from the higher Sierra summits became cooler the pigs on the outside of the pile became uncom- fortable. Being uncomfortable they tried to get inside the pile. This the warm pigs inside resisted. The resistance was accompanied with squealing and grunt- ing, which, lasted all night long and dis turbed my sleep. ....
 The pig pile consisted of rind of cold and uncomfortable pigs and core of warm and comfortable pigs, and there was continual effort on the part of, the cold porcine rind to usurp the places of the warm and comfortable porcine core. They gave me no rest, for when, with the warm morning sun, this uproar ceased, there came the season of com plaint and threat from my plundered neighbors. Finally 8 cold storm chilled half of these pigs to death. I sold the remainder as quickly as possible to a ranchman who better understood the hog business.
 During the receding of the waters after one of the annual spring freshets saw several hundred dollars in gold dust washed out near the base of pine tree on the river's bank between Hawkins and Swett's Bar, where probably it had years before been buried by some un- known miner. That is, saw it after it had been washed out and found by an- other more fortunate miner. In all prob ability there are many thousands of dol lars in dust so dug by hard working hands and so buried in California, there to remain, until the last day, perhaps longer. Where's the utility of resur- recting the "root of all evil" on the last day, just at the time when people in heaven or elsewhere are presumed to be able to get along without it? Yet it is a mysterious Providence that impels any poor fellow to dig his pile, bury it for safe keeping, and then go off and die in some out-of- -the-way place without being able to leave any will and testament as to the exact hole where his savings lay.
 Regarding buried treasure, there is a hill near Jamestown concerning which, years ago, there hovered legend that it held somewhere thousands of dollars in dust, buried in the early days by a lone miner, who was, for his moneys sake, murdered in his cabin. They said that by the roots of many trees on that hillside it had been unsuccessfully dug for. Anyway, the miner left memory and hope behind him. That's more than many do. If you want to leave a lasting recollection of yourself behind drop hint from time to time ere you depart for ''The Bright and Shining Shore" that you have inferred $1O, 900 somewhere in quarter section of land; you will then long be remembered and your money dug for. PRENTICE MUIFORD.