Gold-seeker

“ Joe picked up his shovel again. After a few minutes' energetic digging he uncovered the rest of the sacks and in a short time all four were on the floor of the cave.
The Hardy boys examined each in turn, and found that each was identical with the first in that it contained gold dust and nuggets in large quantities. The sight of so much gold sent a thrill through them, just as it has sent a thrill through gold-seekers since the world began. Here was wealth, wealth in the raw, wealth for which men had fought and struggled, wealth that had been drawn from the depths of the earth. ”

“ If I wasn’t too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work I’d get a job on the docks myself. As things now stand I’m going to Alaska and I’ll bring back so much gold that if I threw it on the market there’d be a slump in the price of it,” orated Jack boastfully, as he rubbed his hands together in pleasurable anticipation like a miserable young Shylock. But the magic of gold is apt to make misers of even the most generous folks. ”

“ While gold dust and gold nuggets were to be found in every miner’s cabin in amounts ranging up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, still the boys were as poor as ever, for nowhere had they found the slightest signs of gold packed in moosehide sacks and corded up like stovewood.
They had gone through valleys, up and down streams, over tundras, into forests and across lakes and they had combed these districts pretty well, but the only visible effect of their efforts was the exeunt of their good grub and they were fast running short of their reserve rations for both themselves and their dogs. ”

“ From the Pacific Ocean on up to the Arctic Ocean there’s gold. In every stream and river, as well as the land between them, this precious metal is found in either particles or in nuggets. Take the Klondike! it’s not much larger than the Rat River here and yet so much gold was found there its name became known all over the world. Every river in Alaska and the Yukon, I suppose, is just as rich but you don’t hear much about them because the Klondike was the first and so outshone all the rest. We’ll get ours yet, don’t worry,” said Jack hopefully. ”

“ Sometimes it is ’bedded in quartz when the ore, as it is called, has to be mined and then crushed in a stamp mill to get the gold out; more often it is found as free gold, dust and grains and bits of pure gold mixed with the dirt when it must be panned, that is, put in a pan and the dirt washed away and then the gold, which is the heaviest, falls to the bottom of the pan, and again,” he lowered his voice to make what he was about to tell them more impressive, “nuggets of gold are picked up from bits the size of a pea to chunks as large as my fist! ”

“ Jack London tells us that white men who were prospecting in the land of the Yeehats, a tribe of Indians in the gold country of Alaska, found diggings where there was gold, gold, nothing but gold, I tell you, and they packed it in moosehide sacks so that they could get it back to civilization. ”

“ I have been always wise enough to see that the men who made rapid fortunes in gold were not the men who stampeded head-over-heels to the diggings, but the men who stayed behind and opened up some kind of business which the gold-seekers would patronize. ”

“ Indeed, it seemed to be impossible for even the sanest of men to mingle long with a crowd of hurrying gold-seekers and think of what they were hurrying for, and not catch the fever of unreasoning haste. The thought that they might be too late, that each moment they might be missing a golden opportunity by not being on the spot, seemed to obsess all minds; and the nearer they got to the gold-fields the greater became this excitement and hurry, until it degenerated into little more than a wild stampede of gold-mad men. ”

“ Sleeking and glinting through a dust of perished rags—piled to the throat, and kept burnished by the sand that had filtered in—a glut of gold!
Gold in rouleaux and ingots; gold in sovereigns and ryals; gold in angels and rose-nobles—near all of Henry the Seventh’s and Henry the Eighth’s reigns, and of incalculable antiquarian, apart from their intrinsic, value; gold in patens; gold and more in a jewelled ciborium; chased gold and ivory in an exquisite chalice with handles, and little queer figures of saints in rich enamel; gold in such wealth as we had never dreamt. ”

“ Jack laughed at his pal’s little joke. “No, to dissolve out the gold when we find it in quartz.”
“I suppose we’ll have to take it and pay for it and all them other prospectin’ tools just to make things look regular, but we’ll throw them away as soon as we gets outer sight. We’re after gold in sacks, not in handfuls,” said Bill. “Why man alive it ’ud take a freight car to transport all the stuff he’s goin’ to sell us ”

“ See that red cross I’ve marked there just below the Arctic Circle on the Big Black River? Well, that’s our destination and when we reach it we’ll be in the land of the Yeehats. At any rate that is where they once lived, for from what I have gathered they were wiped out of existence some years ago. Once we get into their country it’s up to us to find out where the gold is cached.”1
“But suppose the Yeehats, or some other tribe of Indians, are still there and that they’ve got the gold corralled, what then?” ”

“ I stumbled forward and slipped my feet from the thongs, and jerked off my mittens, and thrust my hands into that heated water poured forth from the fiery heart of the earth—or was it hell?—and caught up and let fall through them that lavish stream of gold.
It was there! Gold in greater abundance than I have ever seen! Gold that dripped from my wet fingers, and splashed back into the clear, warm water. Gold in such abundance that under my eyes lay a fortune. A stream almost paved with it, as if all the red gold of the world had been collected there to await my coming! ”

“ Citizens of the world, those—the foot-loose, the drifters, the good and the bad, the manicured and the horny-handed. And all—the age-grizzled, the youthful, the sober, and the drunken—answered the call of gold, and their eyes burned deep with the lure of it. As vividly as though it lay before him, he saw the freight-cluttered Dyea beach, with its rabble of howling, whimpering curs that later were to die like flies on the Chilkoot, or be knocked on the head or pitched into the icy black water of Linderman and Bennett and Labarge to lighten ice-logged boats. ”

“ It seemed to me, standing there by his side in the dimness of the trading post, that all the world, that world outside, depended on money—on the gold that we dug from the earth. His very helplessness, his inability to even send them a word of encouragement, the months of anxiety he must endure until he could know how they had fared, and what had become of them, were appalling. ”

“ I thought of the tired man haunting the docks in search of a ship, often aching with hunger and at night sleeping in a shed, and yet all the time with a piece of gold in his pocket which he would not change in order that I might have it.
A coin is an emblem of wealth, but this gold piece is an emblem of a rarer currency, of that wealth which is—in a peculiar sense—"beyond the dream of avarice," a something that no money could buy, for what sum could express the bounty or the sentiment of this generous heart? ”

“ Do you not feel air and space purified? Here is neither labor nor suffering. The soaring arch of gold has reached the summit. From the lowest gutters, where its stream commences, from the little shops where it is stopped by puny coffer-dams, from the heart of the counting-houses and great workshops, where its volume is that of ingots—gold, in the shape of dowries and inheritances, guided by the hands of young girls or the bony fingers of age, courses towards the aristocracy, where it will become a blazing, expansive stream. ”

“ How easy for you to change that and to produce goldsmiths’ work that would be a joy to all of us. The gold is ready for you in unexhausted treasure, stored up in the mountain hollow or strewn on the river sand, and was not given to you merely for barren speculation. ”

“ Can you estimate the complete insignificance of the Phoenicians in this commerce? This small lump of gold has no real value: it is yellow, it is heavy, a man cannot eat it, and that is the end of the matter. A man does not clothe himself with gold and he cannot stop his hunger or thirst with it. If he had a lump of gold as big as the pyramid, he would be as poor at the foot of it as a Libyan wandering through the western desert where there is neither a date nor a drop of water. ”

“ Did not many a common bit of human clay without family or name of the least value make a large fortune in the gold fields? When, then, The O’Melaghlin stooped to seek the ore, would not the earth open wide her bosom of uncounted treasures and lavish gold upon him? ”

“ I asked.
"These," said my guide, "are those who in the world found gold without seeking it, and possessing it in abundance, knew not how to make use of it. Their sole delight was in wasting it. The same passion remains with them after death."
I fell into a reverie.
"Is it possible," thought I, "that these people have nothing at all to do with their money? Could they be in ignorance of the poverty that surrounded them whilst in the world? ”

“ Shopkeepers took advantage of our foolish innocence, and the tailor demanded sums in paper that he would never have dared to ask in gold. I doubt if the habit of thrift will ever be restored till the gold currency comes back. Gold is the only metal for which human beings have any lasting respect. No one but a child would save up pennies. There is something in gold—the colour, perhaps, reminding us of the sun, the god of our ancestors—that puts us into the mood of worshippers. ”

“ It occurs to me that an objection may be raised to my argument classing gold as wealth, and defining wealth to be that which can be made use of to minister to life, comfort and happiness; or perhaps to the distinction of permanent and transitory wealth. Gold, as permanent wealth, can only minister to man through its exchange for other valuables of which direct use can be made. It may be said that in that sense gold can legitimately be money. ”

“ Men the world over, when faced up to fabulous quantities of the metal royal, become gold crazed and invariably love to parade their wealth before all mankind. As an extreme example of this form of madness it is on record that a goldfields storekeeper in Victoria actually had his horse shod with golden shoes, the weight of each of the four being over seven ounces.
The diggers as a class also spent a deal of money on personal adornment. Expensive rings, tie pins and watch chains of gold and greenstone were regarded as an outward and visible sign of prosperity. ”

“ The possibility lay in the gold, and a very faintly burning flame of hope held out the still more faintly glimmering chance that fortune, finding him there almost alone, might, for lack of another lover, smile upon him by way of squaring accounts. She might lead him to a cavern of gold, and gold would do anything; even, perhaps, purchase so priceless a treasure as a certain princess of the blood royal. ”

“ CHAPTER XXVII. GUAJUAQUALLA
There are few things in this world gold cannot buy: but one among their number assuredly is—“a happy dream.” Now, although I went to sleep in a great bed with damask hangings and a gilt crown upon it, my pillow fringed with deep lace, my coverlet of satin edged with gold, I dreamed the whole night through of strifes, combats, and encounters. At one time my enemy would be an Indian; at another, a half-breed; now, a negro; now, a jaguar or a rattlesnake: but with whom, or whatever the struggle, it was always for money! ”

“ Gold is now every man’s business. The earth is yielding it by the hand-full and spade-full. Already nearly fifty millions sterling have been raised by the rude exertions of a part of the population who might have been starving upon six-shillings a-week, in delving and ditching. And it is a wonderful sight to see thousands upon thousands of brisk, brawny, and sturdy men, in their shirt-sleeves washing the productive earth, and rocking the gold to rest in their own pockets—the finest of all kinds of cradling. ”

“ Conroyal looked up, his face white and his eyes shining. "It is gold; and enough of it to make us all rich beyond our fondest dreams. No wonder the miner called it the Cave of Gold."
"IT IS GOLD! IT IS GOLD! AND ENOUGH OF IT TO MAKE US ALL RICH BEYOND OUR FONDEST DREAMS."
"Gold! Gold! Now Ruth shall have her breastpin nugget and gold necklace!" and Thure, with hands that trembled so that he could hardly hold the candle, began an excited search for the largest chunk of gold that he could find. ”

“ Freely if dishonestly he came by his gains, freely at any rate he gave; and many a man owes a good turn to the very men whose delicate sense of touch drew more gold into their pockets than was ever won by any single miner's pick. ”

“ Still the pursuit of gold went on, more frenzied than ever, and still the greater and richer claims were struck. The price of gold soared and the commodities of life were almost beyond the dreams of avarice. It was a tune in which the worst of men's natures stalked forth, hydra-headed and deaf, roaring for gold, spitting fire, and shedding blood. It was a time when gold and fire and blood were one. It was a tune when a horde of men from every class and nation, of all ages and characters, met on a field were motives and ambitions and faiths and traits merged into one mad instinct of gain. ”

“ Indeed, the value of every product of Mother Earth, of the fields, the forest or the mine has been fixed by its worth in gold. Hence the quest of gold has inspired mankind to acts of heroism, to a search for knowledge, and to a resignation to hardship and privation that have given to the explorer and prospector a character scarcely second to that of the heroes of the battlefield or the leaders of the world's senates. ”