and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they
must love something). And he always spoke of the strange sagacity of
that cat with the air of a man who believed in his secret heart that
there was something human about it–may be even supernatural.
I heard him talking about this animal once. He said:
“Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of Tom Quartz, which
you’d a took an interest in I reckon–most any body would. I had him
here eight year–and he was the remarkablest cat I ever see. He was a
large gray one of the Tom specie, an’ he had more hard, natchral sense
than any man in this camp–‘n’ a power of dignity–he wouldn’t let the
Gov’ner of Californy be familiar with him. He never ketched a rat in his
life–‘peared to be above it. He never cared for nothing but mining.
He knowed more about mining, that cat did, than any man I ever, ever see.
You couldn’t tell him noth’n ’bout placer diggin’s–‘n’ as for pocket
mining, why he was just born for it.
He would dig out after me an’ Jim when we went over the hills
prospect’n’, and he would trot along behind us for as much as five mile,
if we went so fur. An’ he had the best judgment about mining ground–why
you never see anything like it. When we went to work, he’d scatter a
glance around, ‘n’ if he didn’t think much of the indications, he would
give a look as much as to say, ‘Well, I’ll have to get you to excuse me,’
‘n’ without another word he’d hyste his nose into the air ‘n’ shove for
home. But if the ground suited him, he would lay low ‘n’ keep dark till
the first pan was washed, ‘n’ then he would sidle up ‘n’ take a look, an’
if there was about six or seven grains of gold he was satisfied–he
didn’t want no better prospect ‘n’ that–‘n’ then he would lay down on
our coats and snore like a steamboat till we’d struck the pocket, an’
then get up ‘n’ superintend. He was nearly lightnin’ on superintending.
“Well, bye an’ bye, up comes this yer quartz excitement. Every body was
into it–every body was pick’n’ ‘n’ blast’n’ instead of shovelin’ dirt on
the hill side–every body was put’n’ down a shaft instead of scrapin’ the
surface. Noth’n’ would do Jim, but we must tackle the ledges, too, ‘n’
so we did. We commenced put’n’ down a shaft, ‘n’ Tom Quartz he begin to
wonder what in the Dickens it was all about. He hadn’t ever seen any
mining like that before, ‘n’ he was all upset, as you may say–he
couldn’t come to a right understanding of it no way–it was too many for
him. He was down on it, too, you bet you–he was down on it powerful–
‘n’ always appeared to consider it the cussedest foolishness out. But
that cat, you know, was always agin new fangled arrangements–somehow he
never could abide’em. You know how it is with old habits. But by an’ by
Tom Quartz begin to git sort of reconciled a little, though he never
could altogether understand that eternal sinkin’ of a shaft an’ never
pannin’ out any thing. At last he got to comin’ down in the shaft,
hisself, to try to cipher it out. An’ when he’d git the blues, ‘n’ feel
kind o’scruffy, ‘n’ aggravated ‘n’ disgusted–knowin’ as he did, that the
bills was runnin’ up all the time an’ we warn’t makin’ a cent–he would
curl up on a gunny sack in the corner an’ go to sleep. Well, one day
when the shaft was down about eight foot, the rock got so hard that we
had to put in a blast–the first blast’n’ we’d ever done since Tom Quartz
was born. An’ then we lit the fuse ‘n’ clumb out ‘n’ got off ’bout fifty
yards–‘n’ forgot ‘n’ left Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny sack.
In ’bout a minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the hole, ‘n’
then everything let go with an awful crash, ‘n’ about four million ton of