Vivia Hemphill

“ We would fell an oak sapling across the mouth of the hole, tie a rope, usually my pony's lariat, to the tree and slide down it to explore the depths below. If we came to a side drift we would swing into it, light our candle-lanterns and go looking for gold. We were always sure that we should yet find a forgotten cache of gold—perhaps guarded by a lonely skeleton—but we never did! ”

“ Rosa Phillips sat in the Mountaineer House strumming a Spanish guitar, and singing,
“There's a turned down page, as some writer says, in every human life, A hidden story of happier days, of peace amidst the strife. A folded down leaf which the world knows not. A love dream rudely crushed, The sight of a face that is not forgot. ”

“ A hide Rand had seen, but it was the coyote-skin coat of an Indian who had made one sign and instantly vanished. Very quickly the dreaded halt came.
“Look out, Tex! There's a rifle barrel from behind that tree trunk.”
“Halt!”
“Halt it is. There's nothing we can do.” Was it Jo's presence in the stage below that made him give in without a struggle, or did he know that the Wells-Fargo box had vanished from under the driver's seat? Or was it knowledge of the horde of yelling Indians which rose from the snowy brush, and swooped down upon the shooting robbers? ”

“ Eric laid a hand fondly on the magnificent black “half breed,” who had just enough mustang to give him the stamina and spirit and wildness characteristic of the Spanish-bred horse.
“Keep him on a steady rein and he'll beat anything in the mountains. I'd never have sold him except—.” He sighed, turning to the cattle horse. She was long necked, long legged, long haired, wall-eyed, lean, and badly in need of currying, and yet Irish Mike was no fool, and Mike knew Eric's extremity—his and the girl's whom he loved. ”

“ A delicate girl mounted upon a little mule and a sturdy youth walking in the dust, his hand upon the beast's shoulder. With their serene and joy-illumined faces they somehow suggested the holy family, symbolical of all that was divine in a sordid world.
The girl smiled and waved to Rosa, but the young man doffed his hat coldly and hastened by.
“The sweet little Elena,” said Rosa to herself, “and her lover-husband. I wear the silken wedding gown which no lover sees, but she travels the way in calico with the man she loves. ”

“ I quoted, softly.
“Not to darkness, but to eternal light, to rise again from the Mother Lode to mingle in the busy lives of men.”
“'Who maketh His messengers with two, and three, and four pairs of wings'.”
“Exactly. To be born again, and yet again. The real mother-vein of gold was imbued in the men shaped by the life of the frontier. It was the cornerstone of great fortunes, of families, of enterprises, of achievements which are peculiarly California's own. ”

“ There is no such general opinion of you. Were you not exonerated from having stolen the wretched little Jew's goods? It is all forgotten,” and George Taylor paused in his restless pacing, before the long, graceful figure on the bunk against the wall. Dick raised handsome eyes whose flashing light was made of pain.
“George, I wish—how I wish that it were forgotten. But it is not. They whisper it in doorways, and over the card tables and down in the drift tunnels. Wherever I go it follows me like an evil spirit, rearing its unclean head between me and all fair things.” ”

“ The holy old church service which he had heard at home in stately English cathedrals—the nuggets in the contribution plate—the radiant bride who had come across the plains to hear “Dearly Beloved, We are gathered together,” standing beside the man she loved. The service for the dying: “When we shall have served thee in our generation we may be gathered unto our Fathers, having the testimony of a good conscience, the confidence of a certain faith, in favor with Thee our God, and in perfect charity with the world.” ”

“ Everywhere in the foothills of the Sierras there are still evidences of gold mining. High cliffs face the rivers, all that is left of hills torn down at the point of the powerful hydraulic nozzles, with great heaps of cobbles at their base which Mother Nature, even in seventy years has been unable to change or cover. ”

“ At the mouth of nearly every ravine there are countless little mounds which marked the end, or dump of the sluice-box in the placer mining. When the mound got the proper height the sluice was simply lengthened, like putting another joint onto a caterpillar—and there you were! The sluice-boxes have long since been moved away or rotted to mould but the little mounds remain, to be mansions for hustling colonies of small black ants.
The country, in various localities, is pitted with prospect holes, and the hills are pierced with drift tunnels and abandoned mines. ”

“ Blessed are the pure in heart for they are of the children of God,' he has written. Why, it is money!” gasped Patty, “and such a large amount!”
“He had me put up ye'r little bag o' gold on his mare. These are y'er winnings.” Mike smiled inwardly at the sum of money. “Sure, auld Andy must have put a rock or two in the wee buckskin bag,” he thought, but aloud he said, “I never spile sport, an' I could not tell ye before, but 'tis auld Andy Magee an' his famous racin' mare, the fastest quarter mile horse bechune the state of Missouri and the Pacific ocean. ”

“ I will win. I must. Old Irish Mike has brought over his whole stableful of saddle horses and I was raised in Kentucky. Do not despair, we shall beat the gambler at his own game. Here is Mike, now. Perhaps—Mike, it's a fine string of horses you've picked up.
“It is so. Many a thoroughbred I've bought that came all the way from Kentucky or Missouri. All that had the stamina to get to Californy, the one thing left that many of the poor devils could sell when they reached the coast.” ”

“ After the sheep were counted and gone, Longley glanced scowlingly across the bridge and hastily closed the tollgate. A band of Indians, several on ponies but most of them on foot, crossed the bridge and halted before him.
“Go back, ye varmints!” growled Longley.
“No Indian pay,” said the old chief. “He go the bridge and the road—no pay.”
“Well, the Chinamen paid.”
“But the Indians, no! No pay. Me go Whiskey Bar—big pow-wow. Plenty ox, plenty bear meat, plenty firewater—”
“You go back!” roared the tollkeeper, swearing, “and go ford the river. That's good enough for a Digger! ”

“ There passed Welch miners, who were to be the fore-runners of quartz mining; miners from Australia, who were to replace the wooden “bateas” of the Mexicans with the rocker and the iron gold-pan, and the term of “specimen” with “nugget.”
Finally came a hale, old voyaguer whom Longley greeted heartily as he swung open the toll gate:
“Greetings, Monsieur Francois Gendron, and from whence came you today?” The big Frenchman handed over the “six-bits” toll for himself and his horse. ”

“ Nothing remains of Auburn station. But the road bed of the old railway is still to be found in certain wooded tracts which have not given way to the fruit ranches; and the highway from Fair Oaks into Folsom follows the old cuts and grades for several miles.
In the days preceding and immediately following the discovery of gold in California, building was very difficult. Every stick of lumber in my grandfather's house came by ship “around the Horn,” and the fruit trees grape vines, flowers, even bees, for his lovely garden: were all sent from Europe. ”

“ The Merritt party stayed to work the bar. Before the summer passed the river swarmed with men, some of whom joined forces to make up mining companies. One of the rules of such a company: “Any shareholder getting drunk during the time he should be on duty, shall pay into the common treasury of the company a fine of one ounce of gold dust and shall forfeit all dividends during such time.” ”

“ Coming back to the girl she whispered, “The guards are tied to trees, and the gang is waiting for Dick and Cy Skinner to get back with new mules, as the Wells-Fargo mules all are branded and would give them away, but if he finds out that you are here he may—”
The Singer-Lady sprang to her feet! From the trees behind the house floated a snatch of song in a clear baritone.
“When coldness or deceit shall slight the beauty now they prize; When hollow hearts shall wear a mask, 'twill break your own to see. ”

“ He robs the stages of the Wells-Fargo box, but lets the passengers go free, and he has never been known to take anything from a woman. He says that since all the world is against him, his hand is against the world.
“His den is now at Folsom, they say, but he ranges far afield. He robs the sluices, and the bullion trains, but he does not take horses or mules except to get away with his booty. No cell can hold him. He has escaped from every jail in the northern mines. ”

“ A horse was galloping up the Folsom road. The horseman was near—was under the trees in front—was past—and gone down the river road without slackening his animal's rapid gait.
“He does not stop at the Mountaineer House these days,” said Tom Bell's sneering voice at her elbow. “There is a new actress at the opera house in Rattlesnake.” ”

“ Do you go there at once. I will come soon, and together we will select a gift for your bride. Go quickly!”
She passed again behind the bar. Jack Phillips was at one end, lame Jim Driscoll at the other, Tom Bell in the middle. Rosa paused near a branching candelabra which had once graced the altar of a Spanish church.
“Is Jose below?” whispered Bell. She nodded. “Why did you save that boy, just now? A new lover?” She directed upon him a level glance of hate.
“I do what pleases me, senor.” She raised her arm high, beginning the first stamping measure of a Spanish dance. ”

“ Curley Coppers the Jack VII “On Selby Flat we live in style; We'll stay right here till we make our pile. We're sure to do it after a while, Then good-bye to Californy!” —Canfield's “Diary of a Forty-Niner.”
The beautiful Casino at Monte Carlo stands in one of the loveliest settings on earth. Facing the blue Mediterranean and enhanced by the exquisitely kept marble villas of Monaco, it may justly be called the acme of gambling institutions. It has become an institution through the years. Time has brought it stability. ”

“ A further-reaching, broader arc than the most wondrous rainbow of their imaginings born of dreams, and built of hunger and despair.”
“So shall we find, at last, the Mother Lode, the virginity of the essence of creation, the beginning and the end. The curve of the circle which is unchanging, insoluble, omniscient; which shall return to that which created it; which is all; which is God!”
“'49” “We have worked our claims, We have spent our gold, Our barks are astrand on the bars; We are battered and old, Yet at night we behold Outcroppings of gold in the stars. ”

“ O'er thee let years so gently fall, They shall not crush one flower beneath!”
“Ah, 'here comes the bride!' 'All the world's a stage!' Let us on with the next scene,” and he reeled back to his little table in the corner.
The kissing and congratulations after the wedding were interrupted by the shouts of a man on horseback, and riding hard.
“Where's the minister? Send for Doc Miller! That beast of a Mexican horse thief—he' shot Jim Muldoon down at Dolton's Bar. Jim caught he's stealing his horse and I'm afraid the dirty greaser's killed him. ”

“ Listen! Phillips is in trouble! Go help him! Call the boys! Hurry!” As Jim Driscoll, with a halt in his walk, left him, Tom Bell stole quietly to one of the tunnels and ran to the trap-door which opened into an outhouse.
He found the corral full of saddle-horses and the Mountaineer House completely surrounded by Sheriff Paul's, posse.
“Come on, boys,” said a voice.
“Did he get in?”
“Ye-ah—put his hand in with the bullet on a string, got his foot in the door, gave the password and heaved the door wide open. Come on, now, and there's orders not to take the woman, remember.” ”

“ The Mother Lode is one of the most extraordinary metalliferous veins in the world. Gold-bearing lodes usually range only five or six miles, but this can be traced for more than sixty. The rock is a hard and white quartz, rich in very fine particles of gold, and the vein varies in width from a foot to thirty feet. ”

“ Then if you were rich, you bought a horse or a mule and rode for the rest of your journey. If you were poor, or thrifty perhaps, you walked, or tried to get a ride on one of the ox-freight teams which plied their way across Haggin Grant to Auburn and Dutch Flat, or to Folsom and Coloma. ”

“ I must find George Taylor. Perhaps he—”
“Dearie, George Taylor is with Dick, and the Skinners and Cherokee Bob and Lame Jim Driscoll. They say, too, that at times Dick rides with Tom Bell's gang.”
“Ah, he tried with all a strong man's power to win a new name for himself—and for you—but Fate was too strong. His false record followed him up and down the state from every idle throat, casting a blight over all he sought to, do. Every sheriff hounded him on. Each unproven crime was laid at his door.” ”

“ This old cabin is good enough for me.”
So they left him. Bob relit his pipe and settled back on his bench. Once he roused a moment to mutter. “But they'd ought to know me better. They needn't have run away from their best friend.”
Soon after dark a pinto paced home through the quiet, mourning camp with a very weary bulldog at her heels. Beckey slid from her side saddle and crept to Bob's open door. By the light of a full moon she could see the big lax figure in an attitude of utter despair. ”