The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1897-12-16
AdvertIsinx Rates.
A MINeRs soLILoouY.
How Greenhorn Got It's Name-A Model
Love Letter.
eioLpnN EAetE MISE, Dec. II, 'e7.

GOLDEN EAGLE MINE, Dec. l2, '97.
EDIToR CHRONICLE:
In my last letter to THE CHRONICLE
stated that why this section was called
the Greenhorn vas unknown. I was
mistaken. In early days there was an
old fellow came out to tie old camp of
Robinsonville, representing himself as
miner. His experience in mining had
been acquired in digging potatoes in
Missouri, >or prying a wagon from the
abysmal depths of mud on the Pike
county highways. He was given em-
ployment and sent down a thirty. foot
shaft to put in blast. After considera-
BILE time he managed TO get a three-
cornered hole drilled into the rock and
the powder securely tamped therein.
He was slow of speech, and when every
thing was ready he eung out to be
hauled up. He had been given fifty
foot coil of fuse, so that he could cut off
as much as was required. As the boys
at the windlass started to haul him out,
he drawled out "Haul me up slow SO 1
can unwind the fuse.'' He was going to
use it all. This was only one of a
long series of like bright thoughts on his
part, and the nickname of Greenhorn
was saddled onto him, and finally as he
worked all over the camp it came to be
applied to the district, and the mount
ain.
There is something pathetic ir de-
serted mining camp, especially a de-
serted placer camp. The old workings
look desolate and forbidding, and here
and there forlorn, but determined bush
or bit of weeds finds place for it's rootlets
and grows solitary and listless. Out of
the pay-streak at some convenient spot
is a little cemetery holding the remains
of the few luckless miners who got
caught beneath falling bank, or sue
cumbed to an extended dose of hog
meat, bad bread and beans. The rough
cabins have rotted, the roofs become
sway backed or fallen in, the paths
down to the spring near by are over.
grown, and the white boulders CLEAN
like they were indeed the skeleton of the
old camp, left TO bleach uncared for and
unburied by those who washed from
them their golden store. Such town
is RobInsonville, though in the past
year the searchers after quartz have put
mp few new cabins, and living beings
now take the place of the longtime
ghosts, if ghosts they were, who stalked,
lblue-shirted and be-whiskered, through
the silent by-ways.
#x#
What history was made when these
old camps were still alive with the hum
of the hydraulic, the click of pick and
the sturdy ring of the sledge hammer.
What romances have been woven by the
hardy delivers after gold. What motive
power of love has driven pick and shovel.
What blue-eyed sweetheart in the
states has moved the dauntless young
miner to labor from daylight to dusk. to
face the inclement weather. and to feel
it not, warmed by the knowledge that
way back across the plains some loved
one waited the day of his return, pa
tient, hopeful, true. What dreams of
what was to be when Fortune smiled
and the gray gravel yielded up reluct-
antly its stingy horde of gold. What
dreams of night; what idle fancies of
a day, conceived in the God given hope
that springs forever in the breast-and
alas in most cases, withers like any
other blossom, whether of the field or
heart, from the cruel blasts of icy disap-
pointment.
Recently an old miner, who knew /
had penchant for ecribbling, brought
me a letter he found sticking in the
chinking of one of the old Robinsonvllle
cabins. 1t bore neither date nor sigma
ture, but the writing was that of girl,
and it was undoubtedly written to the
occupant of that cabin, who, go the
story goes, now rests under big pine
tree a few rods distant therefrom. l
found myself wondering if that letter
was ever answereds if its author ever
knew what became of her 'sdear boy,,'
and whether she yet waits patiently for
some word from him whose lips grew
dumb and fingers moveless at Robinson
vile thirty years ago. It is not likely.
may be dreaming. miners dream,
but if so it is modern one. I fancy.
somehow, that some other fellow, who
stayed back East and looked after the
pigs and chickens on the old farm, is the
grandfather of her grandchildren, and