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Show 1 appear timt he Was moving mcmiuains. Alter basking in the sun a bit he took the pick and pushed on up, and soon had tho bowlders tumbling and rumbling down the angry stream, while I sat thcro and pulled some of tho prettiest flowers ever seen. It was like picking tho patterns out of brown Brussels carpet; car-pet; they were so soft and lino and spiritual. spir-itual. They had such delicate, fresh tinted little stems, and the new blue blossoms were as blue as the eyes of a baby. But they went to sleep, closed their eyes forever, almost as soon as I pulled them up out of the warm brown carpet they were so new and tender. I heard a wild shout, and springing up I saw two arms tossed in the air and a little bare, black head thrown back till the face looked straight up to the center of the blue tent of heaven. The big little man walked toward me majestically ma-jestically down the mountain side, tiptoeing, tip-toeing, on eggs! Ah, but he was tall! We he had struck it. Going back with him we found the water clear here, flashing down over a curiously green and brown and white floor of bare bedrock, and here, right mm A E STRUCK IT. "If I had ouiv come here away back m the enrlv fifties!" sighed a dreamy man to me as we waited for the train at Fmitvale last week. And another man chipped m and sighed also as he said, 'Ilti-di times then, vou bet. and big strikes: but I only got here m the seventies seven-ties gon hero without a cent and have hell mv own right along! ' First lot mo once for till disabuse the pouular mind aoout tne flush times and big strikes of the early fifties. es, there were big strikes, but they were, luce the big generals of our great war, not the rule. on hear of the big strikes ana you hear ot the big generals. The thousands a. id hundreds of thousands mat ponsneJ m tne ranks vou never hear about. i- or the benefit of tho dreamy man who sits waiting and lamenting, let me sav that tho openings and opportunities are better today than thov were m the i seventies, and they were better in the seventies than thov were in the fifties. Toe wear and tear of life was so terrible terri-ble then too. Every aollar cost about two dollars and a half to get in those -davs. through this, where his pick had struck, gleamed and shot and flashed a glittering glitter-ing seam of solid metal. If jtou could have seen those swinging, sweeping arms! That windmill that overthrew Don Quixote was nothing in its velocity and persistence. I was made to comprehend that the vein ran here and that it ran there; was boundless bound-less and was bottomless; that the mountain moun-tain was in fact one solid mass of virgin gold! Yet he said not a word only those arms. We got a piece of it out, more than a pound, and almost pure. I battered off a piece of crag, rods up the hill, and that, too, was heavy, almost solid. We sat late by the fire that night after supper, and it was later still when he spoke for the first time, and then he spoke almost spasmodically: "To buy California first, all California, including includ-ing this mountain of solid gold. That's it, you see, before they find out that gold is so plenty; then buy Oregon, on time; then come and get the gold; buy Ireland, poor Ireland! By gosh! Then buy England; go right to Queen Victoria and buy her crown and her throne on contract; good lawyer, so she can't back out; then come back and get the gold." He was silent for a time and then with his face lifted far above me as if searching for the north star, he said half savagely: "Say, straight over the mountains to Yreka tonight on the crust, Flannigan not to know a word, nor Campbell; straight to Yreka; got enough already to bind contracts, buy California and contract with the Oregonians before tomorrow to-morrow night!" Another pause, then suddenly again, "Say, look here; Imight kill you and keep the whole thing. It is all my find anyhow." And bless me if he didn't look as if ha might. A nyhow the campfire was smoking smok-ing on my side and I got tip and leaned against a post. Then he got up, too, and said, "Come on, let's go." I followed the desperate little rascal, keeping benind him all the way to Yreka, where we arrived just as Great-house Great-house & Sheer opened their bank. Breathless, and with face still lifted far It has been estimated, and I think about corrcctlv. that it each miner had received twenty-five cents a day and board for his labor and such labor! sixteen hours a dav generally we would have had more golddust than we got m those famous "early fifties." So cease this deploring that you came so late to Calitorma. mv dreamful friend. Of course we would all like to live over the impetuous old davs again; but I doubt if von who don t get on today to-day would have got on then. Better, far better for you. for all. to settle down content b$- some sweet village in tins fair land, where you can have clean domes, good food, hooks, papers, the presence of women and all tue healthful refinements that attend her. than sit etghmg for the davs of old. ou can at least get your board and twenty-five cents a day. and that, be assured, is more than wo got on an average to the man. notwithstanding all our privations. priva-tions. An old forty-niner from New Bedford. Bed-ford. Mass.. Mr. Haskins. who has written writ-ten a very readable boom about his fellow fel-low argonauts and a very important booic it is, as it contains tho names of more than Ej.OOO of them told me that ot tue 3. out) who came from his town, first and last, it was hard to find more than a very few who were much ahead m the world. Ho told me that on returning re-turning home after forty years he and his old friends took 300 of their select young men whft came and compared tneir fortunes with 300 similar young men wlin remained .it krnii. a,l tl, above me, the boy who was going to buy Queen Victoria's throne and crown and have her throw in Ireland, strode np to where Charley Slicer, now in Oakland, was buying dust and laid th6 nuggets before his eyes. . "Pure stuff !" Young Slicer turned it over and over, took up a glass, looked at it carelessly and then, handing it back as he turned to attend to some one else, said, sotto voce, "Yes, pretty pure copper." I got a job as cook on Greenhorn next day, and poor Hi, after getting himself into peeks of trouble and mixing mix-ing himself up with me and my affairs, died at Red Bluff, with his face still lifted to the stars, I am told. Joaquin Miller in Elmira Telegram. found that the proportion of those who had prospered at home was as ten to four against those who had come in forty-nine. On tho other hand, they futind tnat notwithstanding the perils and hardships the proportion of argonauts argo-nauts still living was ten to three against iliose who remained m J,ew Bedford-Some Bedford-Some dav. my dreamful friends who lament your late coming and are continually con-tinually taking tho free local trains of Oakland m oraer to fly from toil as from a contagion. I will sit down and tell you how to make fortunes right here by the Bay of San Francisco far easier th"n they were mado m the "early fifties." But for the present the contract is to tell you how we struck it in the middle fork of Humbug creek. I had a "pardner ' for about a week, winter of ls-j j. He was not yet twentv, small for his asre. and I was not vet thirteen. "A fool for luck." and cr, Pt Flauingan, tiio banker at Coos Bav, staked him so he said and Frank Campoell, of the Howlm' Wilderness saloon, Etarted mo. Neither of us h-i it be tranklv told, had enongii practical sen.-e to come in when it rained. Surely we would striice it. it there was a bit of truth m the oid adage. His mime was Hi tlnains Miller, so he said, and he claimed to bo kin of mine, but I afterward learned that his r.ariii' was Mili.-r illjams. lie was a ii .m ul liar, and had auout as much con-svieiice con-svieiice aa a rnboor band. Bonis and pick- and pan and shovel, 1-atia, Coin-, trying pan, beans and b..ii.ltl-,o, XT..1 so, !mii hidden under our "S" hi.ii.-, v. o civjit out of camp at midnight no the narrow trail of the nu. ;die ioric h el ween mirh walls snow. I" r 1 i i 1 i i ii t i Ii L 1 fiom o 1 1 E( kil ' t nt rl itei in the I'ut river ma -sacre. liow in the world Hi Miller Williams n:.!iiiii;ed to keep all this name I don't see. .Nairn's were rare luxuries in thoe da s, especially long ones like this, and many a good old man niav bo found in those mountains to this dav with name and dine and naf.onalitv all worn mv.iv tinil gone as from an old quarter. But tne true silver, trim God. is still there- liii-ee nu.es up tue creek, a mile above me very lusi cabin: tne la.st mile or two solid snow, suft and lintiassable bv day becaii-e of the sun. but hard as sttel by Mgiit, and here we hud down our loads nt davli:;ht and took shelter in a brush fciie-i built bv Alva Buies. o fried our bacuii and fctwaoKi and a;o like wolves. On tue third (lav. discouraged and iIi-vusluiI, i.jr not a cnlor as vet had we ioiiid. v. u t .vk tile t.iols and climbed up 0 .t ut the caiivun to a wj'.rni mountain 1 t Mti nu liw is ph is tut 1 i 1 i' 1 i1 t 1 J shot tu;viua tho bi-uwu earpwt ot pme quills 1 l el, ft a f t i u tun lin, tu . am. made iiuiddv from a slide on the f.'.'P hill anovo. My "pard" did not li..) uutl l,.t. he was uiwavs making it |