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Show The Gentleman From Ploche. Owen Smith was up from Ploche the other day. It was the first time in a quarter of a century. cen-tury. Ho knows every hill, every claim, every sage brush in Nevada. And he had his experience here. His own account of his visit was something some-thing like this: "You see I have been here for a week. In Nevada when streaks of good ore come up through an Iron cap, it is an Indication that down below there is something worth having. "When I first come I saw a whole lot of indications indica-tions which seemed to bo to lead to something beautiful; I started In on the formation. There were Indications of rubles, sapphires, topazes and no end of old gold. I worked 'em all. Some petered out, some faulted on me, and some of the best looking specimens would not assay two-bits a bushel. I have never put in a week's work in which I have worked so many over hours. This place reminds me of a spot? In Mexico where I was going to got rich in a few days. A man showed me some beautiful placer gold in a bottle and took me to tho creek, where he had worked It. I took a pan and washed some myself. my-self. It was all right. Below where we were was a flat of thirty acres, covered with palms, wild bananas and gorgeous flowers. It was a clear case that the spot had never been disturbed and that the flat must bo full of gold. It was up back of old Mount Colima, one of tho beauty spots of the world. How the sun shone! How glorious were the flowers. I kept down my excitement, but I bought the claim. That night I did not sleep. All night long I was figuring out the houses that I would build; the schools and hospitals that I would endow; the blooded stock that I would assemble as-semble on a ranch that took In a county of California. Cali-fornia. I went to work next morning. The gravel was there in plenty, but did not seem to be in place as we miners say. I tried another an-other place; it was the same. I kept trying until about five o'clock in the evening, and then dropped on the situation. The ground had oen worked over probably a dozen times in the first century after the conquest by Cortes; so long ago that the rains had beat down the surface and a new vegetation had sprung up. I did not get much gold, but I knew more. I did not endow hospitals or start the big stock ranch, but I was wiser. I am going back to Pioche by the first train which leaves this evening. I have caught on to something since I came, and that is that possibly the people dropped on me as easily when I came as I would drop upon a tenderfoot who - might come to Pioclie with a plug hat and in patent leather shoes. Every man for his own place. Mine is out in the sagebrush. "But I have been calling up the names of the old boys since I came Harry Thornton, John Garber, Delos Ashley, Will Bishop, Perly, Pitt-zer, Pitt-zer, Dave Buell, Judge Mesick, Captain Day, Zine Barnes all the old band, and do you know almost the whole bunch are gone. I begin to feel lonesome. lone-some. I am going back to the desert. I don't feel quite at home here, though some of the benzine here has a natural flavor. But I am not broke. Don't you ever think it. I had more money when I came, but I still have enough. Come down to Pioche when the road gets in. We will have a time of it, you bet. Good-bye." |