The San Francisco call., 1898-01-23

could notesleep for some hours Finally my eyes closed. But hardly had this happened, as l thought, when l awoke To my astonishment the sun was high above the canyon, so that l knew it must be well along in the forenoon. I jumped up, ate crust of bread and began to search, with all haste possible. for the enchanted mine Less than half a mile from my camping place I found the gold lined spring. There were masses of nearly pure gold in sight that were worth many thousands of dollars.
 You may be sure, my young friends, that l was happy No more poverty; no more struggles for wealth; money enough to send for Aunt Jane and to enrich both myself and my partner and to buy us handsome homes in San Francisco; no telling how much gold there was near the spring. was always prudent, and my first thought was that as there was more gold in sight than I could carry away without help, l would dig Q hole and bury my treasure out of sight before l proceeded to search further. I stuck my DICK in the soil in twenty places only 10 turn up richer nuggets. My brain led, for I had evidently found richer gold diggings than ever had been imag- ined or heard of by man.
 Go where l would, I found gold At one place l cried out with astonishment. TOT in front of me was a high cliff which seemed to be all one huge nugget, and it shone in the sunlight like furnished brass. everywhere were powders and ledgeS from which 1 could pick out al- most pure gold. You may have heard about the joy of burning money. Well, | was so beside myself with excitement that, in pure recklessneSS. | rolled bowl der after powder into the creek, every one of which was worth a fortune and I saw them sink in the water out of sight without sigh or care.
 Pretty soon l noticed that the water in the creek began to rise. and an idea came to me. If I could dam up the creek would have deep water in which to hide my treasures: By the end of the week, working all that my strength would per nit, l had a complete dam made, every stone of which was filled with treasure. That dam was worth $100 900 900 of the Bank of California's S money. At the close of my work on the dam I was tempted to go back to Grass Valley to get help to carry out the gOld but the more I thought the more l believed that it would be better to stay where I was, fence in enough of the claim and wait for some one to find me.
 "The next day I began to fence in the claim. and I carved on several tree limbs the fact that I was the owner. Then. having nothing else to do and finding many fat stones. in the bed Of the creek, l built me house. Never before or since was there such a building. It was bench that sparkled with the precious metal and ate from a gold-inlaid table that was worth the ransom of a prince. I did not wish to draw strangers by fir ing a gun, and so learned to kill game with stones. Often l threw away $500 worth of gold before I could hit bird for breakfast. My practice before l could hit anything cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars.
 altogether I lived at the Enchanted mine three months without seeing any one. Then my curiosity prompted me to dig up the boiling spring. That was a fatal mistake. I stirred up a what do you call it-a genius? One of those queer people who doesn't act like any one else"
 "A genie: perhaps that is what you mean, Uncle Jim"
 "Yes. I guess that is it. One of those spring. He was as black as coal and a;