Berkeley High School - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 19 text:

in this bank, in undisturbed gravel, the skull would certainly be prehistoric; if not, there was an Indian Rancheria near by from which it might have come, in which case it would be interesting also. So now there was nothing to do but to find out conclusively for myself the location of the skull when found. I shouldered my gun one fine morn- ing and started out. I was almost half way there when I met Dave Hall, an old crony of mine, who had worked on the bridge as it was being built. Of course as is the custom in the mountains, I must stop and ask when it was going to rain (an alternative to asking if he had seen any stray cattle around) and when the Penon Blanco mine would start running, and how the quail shooting would be next month, and many other absurd and unnecessary questions, and he had to tell me of the killing of Joe Musante ' s heard about the bridge he l:)ecame interested for he had himself worked on it. I asked him if he had been ])resent when the find was made. Well, lemme see, perching himself on a l)Oulder on the side of the road; It ' ll be bout three months past that me and the gang was a ' workin ' on Carlon ' s bridge. Yep! t ' was along near the end o ' last June, jest after ole man McReady l)lasted hisself on Priest ' s Mill where they was gradin ' . Sure I remember now. W ' e ' d jest snaked down the bridge stringers from up I)ack o ' Boneyard, — you know where that big bunch o ' timber is u]) there on the ridge — an ' some fellers was makin ' a cut on the right, by that bunch o ' alders, an ' the gang had jest about got to where that big mossy boulder used to stick up. jest above the old road, y ' know, when ole man Musante I SKETCHED IT FROM EVERY ANGLE colt by a mountain lion up at the High Ranch several days before. It would not have been proper for him accord- ing to mountain eti- quette to have left me until he had found out my business in his part of the country, so I told him what I was after and how all my hopes were staked on it, of course modestly avoid- ing all reference to the size of type that would announce my great dis- coverv. When Dave 17

Page 18 text:

S ' §@)@S lK SKULL$1 1HAA E always been more or less interested in Indian remains. 1 was ever on the w tch. while I was in the Sierras amon - the rcnn- ' nts of the ancient Indian tribes, for any relics that might have snrvived the ransacking- of the gronnd. by the placer miners. So one day when a friend who knew of my collecting instinct mentioned to me that he had seen a re- markable looking skull on exhibition in the town store, I at once became anxious to obtain it. And so I did, and an interesting specimen it proved to be. It was a dirty grey color, fine and round and shiny, with a hole in the top of it and three teeth in its jaw. I considere d it a great acquisition. It was evident th ' t it had originally belonged to an Indian, or perhaps, I thought, it might ha e belonged to a member of those prehistoric races that scientists claimed once inhabited the west. I was really excited about it : I measured it with a tape in the manner of a tailor measuring a man for a new suit: I sketched it from every angle; I compared it with illustrations of a Fuegian ' s skull from Cape Horn and decided it belonged to a much more primitive type ; it even seemed to bear a close resemblance to the famous Neanderthal Skull and to the Calaveras Skull, which has been found in a gravel mine, under an ancient ri ' er channel, about forty miles northeast of our mining camp. I concluded that it must ha -e belonged to a man con- temporary with these skulls. In the excitement aroused by these specula- tions 1 thought that I might be able to pro -e the Calaveras Skull was no hoax, as had been claimed by some prominent scientists ; I saw my name on the front page of the Prospector, described as Our prominent fellow citizen, and then half a column in the city papers, and then I began to trace the pedigree of my find. It had been given by one know i as Spec, to my friend. Spec had with an eye to profit gi ' en three tops and a bullet mould to some one else, who had got it from a gentleman who kept a hotel, whose wife objected to his using it for a paper-weight. This gentleman, a Mr. Jones, had been pre- sented with it by a man who had worked on the Coulterville road when a new bridge was being l uilt across Jackass creek. My hopes seemed almost realized, for. on the nearer end of the liridge there was a high bank of conglomerate. If the find had been made here. 16

Page 20 text:

hollers out. Queek I Dead Mans I Then the fellers all run up and I bet ye a shot o ' that there gun you couldn ' t guess what we saw. Well, sure as I ' m a sittin ' here there was a barlev-sack full o ' bones all soft an crumbling like punky wood, all piled in a kind o thrown down there when thev was ■ m nil fr}-in ' I WAS ALMOST HALF WAY THERE WHEN I MET DAVE HALL Then when the ' cept what they holler in the rocks jest as if they ' d been half-dead and covered with a pile o ' slate rock. Them poor Greasers — here I gave a disappointed grunt — Yeh I them were Greasers, I know, ' cause there was a couple o bateas ' that the lexicans use for pannin ' an ' pieces o ' old boots, like what they used ter use in fifty-nine, ' and all kinds o pots an ' pans, and heaps o ' other relicts : ind I tell ye — here he looked up and e} ' ed me. them poor Greasers must ha ' died pretty pronto ' cause there was a couple or perhaps a half a dozen big stone pestles like what Injuns use now for poimdin ' acorns, an ' what ' s more a big, black, flint spear-head, the size o ' my arm here, was stickin ' in I ine o ' them skulls. But, I said, you don ' t mean to tell me that a party of Mexicans had lieen killed at the bridge, do you? Sure, continued Dave, the Greas- ers had camped jest below where the bridge is, before ever you or me was thought of an while they was a sittin ' aroun ' their campfiire cookin ' their ' frijoles, ' they ' d been all hit over the head with them pestles, or p ' rhaps peppered with arrers from the brush, all their grub and guns and things to use they dumped all them dead Injuns had swiped didn ' t know how Greasers into a hole an ' covered them with rocks so ' s the cayotes wouldn t get them, for the Greasers spirit might ha ' haunted them if they did ' . Arter the boss had picked out the big spear-head we throws the whole pile out at the side o ' the road, an ' a sort o ' funny feller what worked on the scraper gang took one o ' them skulls, and I guess that s the one you got hoi of. Don t be cut up any. he added consolingly as he noticed I seemed 18