The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-01-07

below the arastra. You see an arastra
 is an old Mexican style of quartz
 crusher and 1t takes a small Niagara
 to run 1t, and 1t brushes about a ton of
 rock week. He had got out thirteen
 ton of ore and the boys came up with
 their team an hauled it over to the
 arastra for him, and then one of them
 stayed and helped guard the arastra
 with the old man. They slept in tent,
 It was summer and they got along
 fine, but the old man had been living pretty measly for the last six months;
 so they took their meals with old
 Smith down at Boston Ranch, and run
 up a bill for hundred and fifty dol lars, It was three months before they
 were ready to clean up, and when they
 did they had a nice little chunk of
 amalgum, quicksilver and gold all amalgamated, you See. The old gent
 builds fire and sets his retort in and
 the quicksilver begins to evaporate and
 go down the neck of the retort into a pan of water sat conveniently under it. Here it condensed and rolled round in it's liquid form on the bottom of the pan. When the quicksilver stopped coming he took off the retort, and as soon as it was cool took off the cover, and there was his gold.
 A nice little chunk, like a cake of | beeswax, just the shape of the bottom of cup. and Drowned on the bottom a | little like the top of cocoanut cake. | You bet it was great sight to the old mans eyes. Much depended on the re- suit of that clearing up But the old man came out all right this time. He started about dark for Brooks station, eighteen miles away, and in the morn ing walked into the express office and handed his gold over to be shipped to l the San Francisco mint. He got fif- teen hundred dollars out of 1t. You see the gold was nineteen and twenty one- hundredths carets fine. and the old man got a big figure for 1t. It's about the purest gold mined in the state Bout two days after I was over to Boston Ranch for my mail. and who should ring up the telephone but old man Mcdowell; wanted me to take my team and come down and haul up load of grub for him.
 Well, I went back and hitched up
  and there he nearly had the store bought out. w loeded up with the doggondest load of grub. that ever was laid into a miners cabin. There was buckwheat flour (common article wasn't good enough). There was ba- con, regular English breakfast bacon, hams, onions. maple syrup, canned peaches, tea and coffee, canned milk, pipes, tobacco, a case of whiskey, a real nair mattress and quilts and blankets, and regular bleached cotton sheets, mind you. The old man became an ep- icure all at once. Happiest old fellow ever saw. It was late when we got the load up to my house and he put up with me that night, and we snaked 1t over here in the morning All I could \ do to keep him from giving each of my boys twenty dollar gold piece; and on the way up I couldn't chew enough of his tobacco or drink enough of his whiskey to suit him.
 He's got along good since. Took ad- vice and got capital interested and they run the mine and he gets thirty per cent. of all that's taken out. Now he sports around with a good gun and good dog, smokes good tobacco, drinks a little good whiskey and is counted the Biggest dude in these hills; sticks to his | old cabin and his old life only on kinder dililante scale"
 Well, let's be moving along All | quiet down by the mine Oh, everybo- | dy observes Sunday here; aln't an able bodied man in the county but what is out hunting or prospecting to-day"
 Don't that old gentleman you was speaking about ever go out into the world any? You don't mean to say that he just hangs around here all the timer" asked the tourist.
 70 yes, he goes to Frisco once or twice a year and stays q couple of | weeks. Been to New York, but he won't stay anywhere else than up here I suppose long before he struck 1t he'd | got his ambitions down to guns and dogs and good grub, and when 1t did come he just settled down and indulged these fancies"
 There's the old mans cabin there, and there's the prettiest view of the Sacramento valley you'll probably ever see," and the resident grinned trium- phant grin as he viewed the spell bound look of the tourist as he turned his gaze slowly from north to south, in the biggest picture a per son sees in lifetime, and which had burst suddenly on his view as he en- cred the clearing. The point was we'll selected. The hill on which they were though 1t raised its big form behind them, shutting out the view of he receding slopes of the Sierras, shot almost abruptly from their feet to the evel plain below. This hill seemed nore prominent than any of the others which came down and projected their l lose out into the plain either to the forth or to the south, thus giving the ,azers the benefit of as much scenery n either direction as the clearness of he atmosphere allowed, and 1t allowed good deal. The resident now thought t time to explain some little points re- ative to names, but more especially to distances.
 That's old man Daniels ranch down o the foot of the hill. Looks like you ould throw a stone down there, don't |? It's about seven miles from here.
 Them mountains over across there is he Coast range. They're a good hun red miles from here any way. That P,,.. !, Ir 4, 4I,a 1,