yet the assay made it pretend to represent the average value of the ton
of rubbish it came from!
On such a system of assaying as that, the Humboldt world had gone crazy.
On the authority of such assays its newspaper correspondents were
frothing about rock worth four and seven thousand dollars a ton!
And does the reader remember, a few pages back, the calculations, of a
quoted correspondent, whereby the ore is to be mined and shipped all the
way to England, the metals extracted, and the gold and silver contents
received back by the miners as clear profit, the copper, antimony and
other things in the ore being sufficient to pay all the expenses
incurred? Everybody’s head was full of such “calculations” as those–
such raving insanity, rather. Few people took work into their
calculations–or outlay of money either; except the work and expenditures
of other people.
We never touched our tunnel or our shaft again. Why? Because we judged
that we had learned the real secret of success in silver mining–which
was, not to mine the silver ourselves by the sweat of our brows and the
labor of our hands, but to sell the ledges to the dull slaves of toil and
let them do the mining!
Before leaving Carson, the Secretary and I had purchased “feet” from
various Esmeralda stragglers. We had expected immediate returns of
bullion, but were only afflicted with regular and constant “assessments”
instead–demands for money wherewith to develop the said mines. These
assessments had grown so oppressive that it seemed necessary to look into
the matter personally. Therefore I projected a pilgrimage to Carson and
thence to Esmeralda. I bought a horse and started, in company with
Mr. Ballou and a gentleman named Ollendorff, a Prussian–not the party
who has inflicted so much suffering on the world with his wretched
foreign grammars, with their interminable repetitions of questions which
never have occurred and are never likely to occur in any conversation
among human beings. We rode through a snow-storm for two or three days,
and arrived at “Honey Lake Smith’s,” a sort of isolated inn on the Carson
river. It was a two-story log house situated on a small knoll in the
midst of the vast basin or desert through which the sickly Carson winds
its melancholy way. Close to the house were the Overland stage stables,
built of sun-dried bricks. There was not another building within several
leagues of the place. Towards sunset about twenty hay-wagons arrived and
camped around the house and all the teamsters came in to supper–a very,
very rough set. There were one or two Overland stage drivers there,
also, and half a dozen vagabonds and stragglers; consequently the house
was well crowded.
We walked out, after supper, and visited a small Indian camp in the
vicinity. The Indians were in a great hurry about something, and were
packing up and getting away as fast as they could. In their broken
English they said, “By’m-by, heap water!” and by the help of signs made
us understand that in their opinion a flood was coming. The weather was
perfectly clear, and this was not the rainy season. There was about a
foot of water in the insignificant river–or maybe two feet; the stream
was not wider than a back alley in a village, and its banks were scarcely
higher than a man’s head.
So, where was the flood to come from? We canvassed the subject awhile
and then concluded it was a ruse, and that the Indians had some better
reason for leaving in a hurry than fears of a flood in such an
exceedingly dry time.
At seven in the evening we went to bed in the second story–with our
clothes on, as usual, and all three in the same bed, for every available
space on the floors, chairs, etc., was in request, and even then there
was barely room for the housing of the inn’s guests. An hour later we
were awakened by a great turmoil, and springing out of bed we picked our
way nimbly among the ranks of snoring teamsters on the floor and got to
the front windows of the long room. A glance revealed a strange