44 44 C4 Tales of Town ana' Trail Experience of cz Pocket Miner Mr. Gillis, a great friend of Bret Harte, tells this story of his first experience at mining: Lured by 'Gold, Gold, hard and cold' I left San Francisco on May 4, 1863 to try my luck as a pocket miner in Tuolumne County. Taking passage on the old steamer 'Paul Pry,' I landed at Stockton the next morning, and at six o'clock of the same day boarded one of the six-horse coaches of the old Sisson Stage Company and started on the sixty-mile ride to Sonora. I shall never forget that ride as long as I live, bumping over rocks, into chuck holes, and through blinding clouds of dust and sweltering heat. I was sitting on the seat with the driver, 'Missouri Bill', who told me what he would do should we be stopped by robbers. Near the end of his tale he said, 'Say, do you see that hoss fly on my off leader's ear? You just watch him'. With these words the lash of Blill's whip shot out and flicked off the fly without touching the horse. 'Now', said Bill, 'that's what I'd do to any son-of-a-gun who tried to hold up this stage. Before he can get his gun on me, my lash will take him between the eyesg next it will go to the backs of m'y leaders, then - good b'ye, John to the robber, and the treasure is saved.' Without the experience of a hold-up or witnessing Billis dex- terity with his whip on a robber, I arrived in Sonora at six o'clock that evening tired, hungry and dirtier than ever before in my life. The next morning, after getting a kit of tools, comprising a pick, shovel, crow-bar, sledge hammer and gold pan, and accompanied by my brotherjim, I took the train to Jackass Hill to take up the life of a pocket miner. That evening I moved into a cabin with Dick Stoker. The fol- lowing morning, while Dick and I were at breakfast, Jim burst into the cabin with, 'Billy, if you expect to make anything pocket mining you've got to get an earlier start than this, looking around isn't going to dig out any gold. Shoulder your tools and come on and I will show you a place to work', and turning to Stoker he said with a grin, 'I'm going to break him in on the Van Houghten'. U 'Well, Mr. Gillis', said Dick to me, 'there is a lot of quartz on the Van Houghten and, as gold pockets are found in quartz, perhaps you may find one there'. With these words jim and I started for the place of my future mining operations. Arriving on the ground Jim said to me, 'Now, ...gf 38 lg..-
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