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C. C. Goodwin - The Wedge of Gold

C >> C. C. Goodwin >> The Wedge of Gold



THE WEDGE OF GOLD

BY C.C. GOODWIN,

EDITOR DAILY TRIBUNE

1893

TRIBUNE JOB PRINTING COMPANY
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH




CONTENTS


I. The Mineral Kingdom

II. Indications

III. Making Money at $4 per day

IV. Smiles and Tears

V. The Voyage

VI. Bonanzas

VII. A Dinner Party

VIII. Ways that are Dark

IX. How Miners are Caught

X. Enchantment

XI. Going to Epsom Downs

XII. Westminster Abbey

XIII. Two Kinds of Sorrow

XIV. Tears and Orange Flowers

XV. Sinister Successes

XVI. A Trip to Africa

XVII. On Their Travels

XVIII. The Soul in Clay

XIX. The Wedge of Gold

XX. The Occident and the Orient Meet

XXI. Shipping a Quartz Mill

XXII. A Lost Trail Discovered

XXIII. Back to England

XXIV. Dealing in Mining Shares

XXV. A Wedge of Gold Indeed

XXVI. Fever Visions

XXVII. Selling Stock Short

XXVIII. Convalescent

XXIX. Springing a Trap

XXX. Grand Opera

XXXI. Marriage Bells

XXXII. Fruition




THE WEDGE OF GOLD.




CHAPTER I.

THE MINERAL KINGDOM.


The splendor of the world is due to mining and to the perfectness of
man's ability to work the minerals which the mines supply. The fields of
the world give men food; with food furnished, a few souls turn to the
contemplation of higher things; but no grand civilization ever came to an
agricultural people until their intellects were quickened by something
beyond their usual occupation.

How man first emerged from utter barbarism is a story that is lost, but
when history first began to pick up the threads of events and to weave
them into a record, the loom upon which the record was woven was made
of gold. One of the rivers that flowed through Eden also "compassed the
whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is
good."

"Tubal Cain was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron."
Abraham and Jacob bought fields with money, and when Pharaoh sought to
make Joseph next in power to himself, he took the ring from his finger
and put it upon Joseph's finger; and he put a chain of gold about
Joseph's neck. Thus the grandchildren of Adam, in Holy Writ, were
artificers in brass and iron, and when civilization in Egypt began to
make an impression upon the world, its sovereigns had already discovered
the omnipotence of gold.

Assyria, that came next to be the concernment of mankind, had men who
could perfectly fuse gold and glass, and their work is still an object
of wonder to the world. Their queens wore raiment which was woven from
threads of gold.

The splendor of the Hebrew nation culminated when the roof of their
great temple was laid with beaten gold, and when all the magnificent
furnishings within the temple were wrought from gold and silver and
brass.

The invincible Greeks had chariots and javelins of iron, helmets of gold
and brass, and now as their tombs are rifled there is found beside where
their bones went back to dust the metal implements with which they
wrought, and the imperishable coins with which they carried on their
commerce.

The power of Rome came when her artisans learned how to fashion the short
sword, and her soldiers learned how to wield it, and her splendor came
when, through conquest, she brought under her dominion the gold fields
of Spain and Asia, and learned the power which money carries with it. Her
civilization began to recede when the money supply began to fall off, and
when it became too precious for the masses to possess it, then the race
degenerated until the men were no longer fit to be soldiers, the women
lost the grace to become the mothers of soldiers, and darkness settled
upon Europe.

England remained little more than a rendezvous for wild tribes until
her people learned mining and began the study of how to reduce the metals
which the mines supplied, and her advancement since can be rated exactly
by the progress she has made in bringing the metals into effective
forms and combinations. When first the rude Saxon acquired the art to
mend the broken links in a knight's armor, and how to temper one of the
old-fashioned two-handed swords, it was possible to comprehend, that from
that germ would expand the brains that would by and by construct a steel
ship or bridge; when the first rude spindle was fashioned, all the
commencement necessary to create and work the world's looms was made.

Out of these accomplishments, commerce was born; foreign commerce
required ships, and so the ships were supplied; with commerce was
developed a financial system, and soon it was discovered that after all
the chiefest power of the world was money; that the swiftest way to win
money was to perfect machinery so that out of raw material forms of
beauty and of use could be wrought, and thus in regular chain the majesty
of England expanded from the first day that an Englishman was able to
convert from the dull iron ore something which the world would want,
until ships laden with her wares reached all the world's ports, and to
barbarous lands she became an iron nation more terrible than the first
iron nation.

The world's highest civilization does not come from the fruitful fields,
but from the darkness of the deep mines. Power and independence come with
the digging and working of the baser metals; full civilization waits upon
the production of enough of the royal metals to give to the people wealth
in a form that enables them to command the best attainable talent and
forces to serve them, and enough of leisure to enable them to put forward
their best efforts.

Below the surface of the story which makes this book is a deeper story of
what may be performed by brave hearts when they leave the fruitful fields
behind them and turn with all their hearts to woo the desert that turns
her forbidding face to them at their coming, and holds, closely hidden
within her sere breast, her inestimable treasures.




CHAPTER II.

INDICATIONS.


"What think you of it, Jack?"

"It is growing soft in the drift, Jim; the stringers of ore are growing
stronger and giving promise of concentrating soon."

"So it strikes me," was the response, "and when Uncle Jimmie Fair was
down here an hour ago, I put two things together, and they have kept me
thinking ever since."

"And what were the two things, Jim?"

"Why, Jack, did you hear him sigh as he moved the candle along the face
of the drift, and hear him say, 'You are doing beautifully, my sons,
beautifully; I never had better men,' and then sighed again, and added,
'I fear it's no use; I fear we shall have to drop the work soon?' That
was one of the things. The other was the light in his eyes when he
examined the face of the drift. If I were a gambler, Jack, I would
'copper' what he said and wager all I had on the twinkle of his eyes."

"It looks good in the drift, surely; and, Jim, if we break into an ore
body any time, it will not surprise me."

"Nor me, either, Jack; and if we strike ore here, it ought to be good,
because, as I reckon it, since we left the Gould and Curry shaft, we have
drifted out of the G. & C. ground, clear through the Best and Belcher,
and some distance into the Consolidated Virginia, and by the trend of the
lode, if we could find an ore body here, it would be in regular course
from the Spanish and Ophir croppings."

"How long have you worked here, and how much have you saved, Jack?"

"It is three years and a month since I went to work in the Belcher,"
was the reply; "I made $400 in Crown Point stocks, and I have saved
altogether $2,800 and odd."

"I beat you by a year's work, Jack, and I have, I believe, $3,300 or
$3,400 in the bank. Suppose we try a little gamble in stocks. If we could
get an ore body here, this stock would double in a week, and it will not
fall very much lower if we do not find anything."

"All right, Jim, if you say so. Meet me to-morrow at eleven o'clock at
the California Bank, and we will put in and buy a few shares."

"Agreed," was the answer; "but our twenty minutes are up and we must go.
But, Jack, _mum_ must be the word."

"Mum goes," said Jack.

It was a queer spot where this talk was held. It was by the air-pipe in
the drift which was run from the 1,200-foot level of the Gould and Curry
shaft on the Comstock ledge in Nevada, north toward where the great
bonanza was found in the Consolidated Virginia Mine. In the face of the
drift the temperature was 120 degrees, and miners could work for only
forty minutes and then had to retire to the air-pipe to cool off. It was
while resting at the air-pipe that these men, James Sedgwick and John
Browning, talked.

They were stripped from the waist up; all their clothing consisted of
canvas pantaloons held up by a belt, and miners' shoes; they each had a
little band around the head in which was fastened a miner's candlestick.
Thus exposed, in the candlelight, they were handsome men. The excessive
perspiration caused by the heat of the mine made their faces as fair as
the faces of women, and as they lounged, half-naked, carelessly in the
drift, their muscles stood out in knots, and in the dim light of the
candles, as they rose to return to work, their movements were supple and
elastic as those of caged lions. The one who answered to the name of
Browning was shorter than the other by an inch, but deeper-chested; the
candlelight showed that his eyes were blue, and his mustache and short
curly hair were of chestnut color. The other was a little taller, but not
so compactly built, and in the uncertain light his eyes, hair and
mustache seemed to be black; but really his eyes were gray and his hair
brown. Both were young, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of
age, and both were perfect pictures of good health and good nature.

Their shift was from four in the afternoon to midnight; but when at
midnight they went back through the drift to the shaft to be hoisted to
the surface, the night foreman informed them that there was some trouble
with the cage; that while they could still hoist rock, it was not deemed
safe to trust men on the cage, and, accordingly, some blankets,
mattresses, and supper had been sent down, and they would have to spend
the night in a cross-cut running from the shaft.

The other miners growled. These two made no complaint, but ate their
suppers, then took their beds and spread them in the cross-cut. Sedgwick
and Browning went farthest into the cross-cut, made their beds together,
and lay down. When they knew by the breathing of the miners nearest them
that they were asleep, in low tones they began to talk.

Browning was the first to speak. "By Jove, Jim," he said, "that cage
story is too thin. It worked all right up to ten o'clock, for Mackay and
Fair both came down and spent a good quarter of an hour in the end of the
drift and kept tapping around with their hammers. I was mean enough to
watch them on the sly and saw them both taking samples. If you keep
awake, you will see John Mackay down here again by six o'clock in the
morning, and you may make up your mind not to see any more daylight for
three days or a week to come; that is, if the drift keeps on improving."

"I believe it, Jack," said Sedgwick; "did you notice that the last blast
left nearly the whole face of the drift in ore? Then, did you notice as
we met the car coming out, it had long drills in it, and the shift boss
was following it up close? No blasting will be done to-night, but the
drillings will be saved for assay, and I tell you the plan is that we
shall tell no tales out of school. Believe me, that cage will not be
safe again till as much stock shall be taken in as is needed by those
in control."

"And so," said Browning, "when we get to the surface our little money
will not buy enough stock to make it any object."

"I have been thinking of that," said Sedgwick, "and it makes me hot, for
all day I have been dreaming of doubling my money."

"I have a notion," said Browning, "to try to work my way out on the
ladders."

"That will not work," replied Sedgwick; "I looked, and all the lower
ladders have been taken down."

Then a long silence followed, until at last Sedgwick spoke again. "I
have it, Jack," said he. Lighting his candle, he groped around in the
cross-cut, and found a splinter from a lagging. Fishing out a stump of
a pencil from the pocket of his pantaloons, he said, "Where is your
money, Browning?"

"In the California Bank," he replied.

"All right," was the response. Then on the splinter he wrote for a
moment, and then said, "How is this?" and in a whisper read: "California
Bank, Please pay to John W. Mackay whatever funds may be to our
respective credits."

"What is your idea, Jim?" asked Browning.

"I mean to lay for Mackay, and when he comes down ask him, quietly, to
read the writing when he gets up into daylight."

"But what will he think we want?" asked Browning.

"He will know mighty quick," said Sedgwick; "he knows where we work; he
will understand that we know what we see, and that while we do not intend
to give away the information, at the same time we do not want to 'get
left out in the cold' on this deal."

"What think you he will do?" asked Browning.

"If he believes it safe, and the right kink is on him, he will draw our
money and buy us some stock," said Sedgwick. "He made his money that way,
and it is not long since he was a timberman on this same lode."

"Why not word it differently, and ask him squarely to buy the stock?"
asked Browning.

"Why, Jack," was the reply, "that would be a dead give-away. He would
never present such an order at the bank. It would be a notice to every
man in the bank and every friend of every man in the bank, and that would
mean everybody in town, that the miners who were kept down in the deeps
were trying to buy the stock of the mine. I would rather risk it this
way."

"All right, everything goes," said Browning, and both signed the order.

Then they talked for a long time. They had known each other slightly for
a couple of years, having met first in the Belcher lower levels, and
being thrown together in work on the face of the drift from the G. & C.
shaft, they had, during the previous few days, each found that the other
was a good and bright man, and had grown more and more intimate, and a
warm friendship had sprung up between them. As they lay down again,
Browning said to Sedgwick, "How did you come to be here, Jim?"

"Fate arranged it, I guess," was the reply. "You see, my home was
in Ohio, in the valley of the Miami. My father had a big farm--400
acres--but there were two boys older than myself, and they needed the
land. I took to books naturally, and the plan was to give me an
education, and then add a learned profession, or set me up in some little
business. So I went to school, and after awhile was sent to Oberlin
College. Queer old place, that! Great place for praying and for teaching
the universal brotherhood of man! The result, I used to think, was that
a colored man commanded a premium over a white man there. I worried the
thing through for three years and a half. There was a young mulatto
student in the school named Deering, who was a great deal too big for his
clothes. He was inclined to force himself into places where he was not
wanted, and at anything like the manifestation of a desire to dispense
with his society, he grew saucy in a moment. I did not mind him, but he
was vinegar and brimstone to a young student from Tennessee, a slight,
weakly lad, but as brave a little chap as you ever saw, named Thorne.
Well, one day, for some impertinence, Thorne struck him. Deering was an
athlete; he weighed twenty pounds more than I did, fifty more than
Thorne, I guess; he was quick as lightning, was most handy with his
props, and in an instant he smashed poor Thorne's face with a blow which
knocked him half senseless.

"I sprang to Thorne, at the same time telling Deering it was a cowardly
act for one like him to strike a little fellow like Thorne. He answered
something to the effect that for a trifle he would smash me a good deal
worse than he had Thorne, and--well, in a minute more there were lively
times in that neighborhood.

"It was a tough scrap. It was out on the green; the students gathered
around us, and while some cried out to stop us, others shouted, 'Fair
play!' and so we were not interfered with. I remember saying to myself,
'If I win, it must be a triumph of race and mind over matter;' but, Jack,
that was mighty lively matter. We both had been rowing and practicing in
the gymnasium; we were both as hard as iron. Deering was as supple as a
boa-constrictor, and had a fist like a twelve-pound hammer. Later, the
boys told me the fight lasted twenty minutes. The last I saw was Deering
knocked out on the ground, and then my eyes closed, and the boys led me
to my room. They swathed my eyes with raw beefsteaks and raw oysters,
rubbed me down, and put me to bed. It was ten days before I got out; it
was two weeks before Deering did. Then there was an investigation. It
was shown that I took up a fight that Thorne commenced; that Thorne had
gone for a gun in case I should get the worst of it. So Deering was
reinstated, and Thorne and myself expelled. At the time I had a silver
watch and four dollars in money. I sold the watch for fourteen dollars. I
wrote the facts to my father, and told him I was going West, for he is a
straight-laced Presbyterian; I knew he would feel eternally disgraced by
my expulsion, and I did not want to hear his reproaches. Thorne wanted to
give me money, but I told him I had plenty.

"I worked my way to Texas, and stopped one night at the house of a big
cattle man named Thomas Jordan. I had just $1.50 left. He worked out of
me my history, and when I explained why I was expelled from school, he
laughed until he cried, and said: 'And yo' licked the coon!' and then
went off again into a mighty fit of laughter.

"He was a man about thirty years of age, spare built, but wiry as an
Indian. He had black hair and eyes; he was not educated, but was
naturally a bright man; was brave as a lion; could ride like a Comanche;
was a splendid shot, and had been West; took up a gold mine in Arizona,
opened it, and sold it three years before I met him for $25,000, and with
that bought the ranch and stock. He was originally from Tennessee; when a
boy was in the Confederate army; had been knocked about until he was a
perfect man of affairs, and the heart within him was simply just royal.

"Next morning, as we went out from breakfast, his vaqueros were trying to
ride a vicious horse. He was a big buckskin stallion, six years old, and
strong and fierce as a grizzly. The horse tossed three of them, one after
the other, out of the saddle; neither one lasted a minute on his curved
back. I was watching the performance when Jordan came up to me and,
laughing, again said: 'But yo' licked the coon!'

"I said, 'Yes, but that was not much to brag about.'

"'Yo' licked the coon, but was afeerd to meet the governor, eh?' he said.

"I answered, 'That is about the size of it.'

"'And yo' did not go home?' he said.

"'No,' I replied.

"'Did not send for any money?'

"'No.'

"'How much did yo' have?'

"'Four dollars, and a watch which I sold for fourteen dollars.'

"'How much have yo' left?'

"'I believe, $1.50.'

"'What are yo' going to do?'

"'Going to work.'

"'Wat at?'

"'Anything I can get to do.'

"'Will yo' work for me?'

"'Yes.'

"'Know anything about herding and driving cattle?'

"'No, but I can learn it.'

"'All right, what about wages?'

"'Anything you like.'

"'All right,' said Jordan, 'I will have the boys fix yo' up a gentle
mustang and give yo' a show.'

"I had overheard the cowboys the previous evening telling about a 'gentle
broncho' that they had given a 'tenderfoot,' and how the tenderfoot was
'jolted.' I reflected that I was in Texas and might just as well
establish myself at once. When a boy, I could ride anything on the farm
or in the township. So I said:

"'Mr. Jordan, let me try the buckskin.'

"'What!' said Jordan, 'would yo' mount that wild beast? He's a devil. My
best riders cannot sit him. Indeed, he has tossed half the cowboys in
Texas.'

"'Let me try him,' said I.

"'_All right_,' said Jordan, 'come on.'

"We climbed into the big corral. One of the boys threw a rope upon the
horse, drew him up to the center post, blinded him, and said to me:

"'Young feller! If you ride him, you'll be a good one, shore 'nough.'

"I took off my coat, vest and suspenders, tied a heavy handkerchief
around my stomach, fixed the saddle, sprang upon the horse, and the blind
was drawn off at the same moment. Then for ten minutes I had a game as
lively as I had experienced with the coon. How he did jolt me! But I sat
him. Then, when all his other tricks had failed, he started in a run for
the center post of the corral, with the intention of raking me off. But
it was his side that struck the post; my knee was on top of the saddle,
and when the rebound knocked him away from the post it was not a second
until I was back in the saddle; and then I assumed the offensive and
drove the rowels into him. Between the shock of the blow and the surprise
of the rowels, he gave up, made a feeble jump or two, stopped and stood
trembling.

"I dismounted, and the cowboys threw up their hats and cheered the
'tenderfoot.' Then I took down the reins of the hackamore (the Mexican
Jaquema), bent the brute's head around, and tied him in a half circle to
his own tail. Then, borrowing a cowboy's whip, I tapped him gently with
it, and kept him turning and tumbling until he was covered with foam, and
I saw he was completely subdued. Then I untied the rope, gave him his
head, and then sprang again (without a blind this time) into the saddle.
He moved off in a walk; then I trotted him, then put him in a gallop, and
after circling the corral two or three times, reined him up to the
cowboys, stopped him, and dismounted.

"'No wonder he licked the coon!' said Jordan.

"And one of the cowboys standing near said, 'Bet y'r boots!'

"I went to work and was a cowboy for a year, and it was a happy year, for
I had no trouble and any number of friends. I could ride and shoot with
any of them, and soon learned to throw a rope. My riding the big stallion
gave me a mighty prestige, for I learned later that many had tried him
and no one had kept the saddle for two minutes. He was my vaquero horse,
and many a cowboy stopped and looked as I rode by.

"I had been with Jordan but a short time when one evening he brought a
book and said:

"'Jim! look at this. A preacher-lookin' chap stopped over night har a
year ago and went off in the mornin', and forgot ter take it. See if yo'
don't think it's ther durndest stuff yo' ever seen!'

"I looked at the book. It was the Iliad, Pope's translation.

"'Why, Jordan,' I said, 'this is a wonderful book.' Then I briefly
explained what the great epic was, who the Greeks and who the Trojans
were, the cause of the war between them, how nations fought in those
days, what gods they worshiped, and added, 'Let me read you a little
of it.'

"'Why, in course,' said Jordan. 'If yo' ken make a blamed thing out er
it, we'd all like to har it; wouldn't we, boys?'

"They all assented. I was just out of school and read pretty well.

"So I opened the volume at random and it happened to be in Book XVI.,
where Pelides consents that Patroclus shall put on his own armor and lead
his Myrmidons into the fight, where Achilles arouses and sets in array
his terrible warriors, has the steeds yoked and prays Dodonian Jove to
give to his friend the victory, and then to grant him safe return. After
reading ten minutes, I closed the book, and asked Jordan if I should read
anymore.

"'Sarten,' he said. 'That war fine. It are like that mornin' at
Murfreesborough when all thar bugles war callin' 'nd ther big guns war
beginnin' ter roar.'

"Then I opened at the beginning and read right along for an hour. All the
company were greatly excited, declaring 'it war fine.'

"I read to them every evening the winter through, read the Iliad entire,
and in the meantime Jordan had sent to Galveston for more books, begging
me to select them, and declaring he would fill the house with them if I
would only 'steer his buyin' so as not by his purchases 'ter make a holy
show' of himself.

"When finally the great annual round-up came, I held my own with the best
riders, on trial I could draw and shoot with the quickest and surest
shots, and could handle a rope fairly well. I enjoyed the life.

"Generally every one was my friend, but there was one rough customer, a
man named Turner, who did not like me, though I had never done a thing in
the world to offend him. He made his boasts that no one had ever 'got
away' with him or ever would. He had a tough record and many people
feared him, for he was a powerful man physically, and cruel in all his
instincts.

"One day something was needed from the station, and I rode Buckskin down
to get it. The station was a couple of miles from Jordan's house. Thirty
or forty cowboys were there on a lark, and all had been drinking a
little.

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