The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1897-09-16

NO. 5.
likely to have enough to eat. If he
does not he might as we'll be in Hades
with a broken back.
There is no worse place on earth for
q man without money than a mining
camp. There are 800 claims staked
off within 20 miles of this place. You
can see how much chance there is for
a new conner when you consider this.
Everything that is worth anything
has been gobbled up around here, SO
that the only thing left to do is to
move north, and that means to move
into the country further from civiliza-
ton, and the worst country I ever
struck.
Perhaps you would like to know
what sort of town this is and l will
tell you. You have heard about wide
open towns. This is one of them.
Everything goes here. The saloons
never close. Gambling goes on at all
hours. In fact, nothing in the way of
dissipation is ever checked at all.
There is no city government in this
place of tents and shanties, but we
have a vigilance committee, which
takes the place of both the govern
ment and the laws. You see, this is
British country, up here, and most of
the people are Americans, who don't
know much about the law that gov
erns this part of the country. This
being the case, we run the place like
we think we ought to. 1 don't mind
telling you that am one of the vigil
antes myself.
l wish you could take trip around
town here to see these things for your
self. Why, it is nothing at all for
$1,000 to change hands on the turn of
a card. mean that much in gold
dust, for real money is scarce article
out here. Every man has sack of
dust, real money only being brought
in now and then. Men buy or gamble
by the ounce or fraction thereof.
The dancing halls are lively enough
too. There are lots of women up here,
such as they are. These women come
in from Seattle and San Francisco. l
reckon that there are about $500 peo-
pie here all told, but they can make
noise enough for twice that many peo-
pie.
There is not as much killing going
on here as you would think for, be-
cause we do not think much of bad
men up here. We have planted about
dozen of that class in the last two
months, and it has the effect of keep
ing the tough sort quiet.
The sun sets here about 10 D. m.
and rises at 3 a. M, but it never gets
dark and you can read a newspaper
out doors at midnight. So you see it
don't make much difference when you
sleep. The result is that people here
don't have any regular time for Sleep
ing or eating at all. They live just as
they want to, not as Nature DEGREES.
You see all kinds of people here, rep
resenting every Nation we ever heard
of in the States. Everybody is as
good as everybody else-it don't make
any difference what color he or she is.
There is an old fellow here that used
to be slave and his wool is as gray
as sleeps pelt. He came out with
us, or with our cattle that I took out
for McGinnis & Co. He had no idea
of going after gold-a barber by pro-
fession that picked up to act as cook
for our crowd or cattle drivers. Old
as he was he got the fever, staked out
a claim, and you can believe it or not,
but that old devil has cleaned up $780,
600 in gold dust. You ought to hear
him talk what he is going to do with
it. His name is 81. John Atherton.
He CONES from down in Georgia, "just
q piece outa," he says. He says that
the daughter of the man that owned
him during the war is living there on
the old plantation, very poor. The old
man is going back, SO be says, and
then he is going to buy that planta-
ton, and then he is going to have this
woman that's there do nothing but
Give like lady" all the rest of her
days. This is one of the curious
things have heard since I have been
up here and I believe the old man
means just what he says.