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Page 85 text:
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Tales of Town and Trail ss is ss Billy, here's a vein of quartz, there is room enough to find it. Take your pick and start in by digging out those blocks of quartz. As you dig them out break them with your sledge hammer into pieces about the size of a walnutg while doing this keep a sharp eye out for the gold that might be in them. Put some of the broken rock into your pan and wash it in the ditch. If you fail to get a color in your first pan, don't let it discourage you, get another pan'. By noon I had pounded out quite a bit of rock and washed about a half dozen pans and all I had to show for my work was sore muscles, blistered hands and my fingers all cut by the rock. When I reached the cabin, covered with dirt and reeking with sweat, Dick greeted me With, 'What luck?' Showing him my hands, I told him of my half day's labor. 'You certainly have got your hands into a pretty fix. Wash the dirt out of the cuts and I'l1 put something on them'. I rested until the next morning and when I went to work I wore a pair of gloves. When I reached the claim I hit the rocks just hard enough to crack them. I had been working about an hour when I pried out an extra large one, and, coming down on it with a mighty whack, it came apart with a sort of whine and there it lay before me, held together by strands of coarse gold. I was so excited that I picked up that boulder and carried it the Five miles to the cabin. When I burst in at the door, I startled Dick out of a nap by yelling at him, 'Hey, pardner, how's this for a prospect? When Dick's eyes caught the gleam of the yellow metal his excitement nearly equaled mine. My 'clean up' from this rock amounted to a little over seven hun- dred dollars. I found nothing for three months, so I finally aban- doned the Van Houghten and moved to another locality on the Hill, and at jim's suggestion went to tracing gold on the surface. jim gave me instructions on how to look for gold on the surface and then left for Sonora. At about three in the afternoon I got a few colors and decided to wait until Jim got back to help me with what I thought was a real discovery. When jim saw what I had called gold he exploded with, 'Well, I'll be darned! Three Hy specks', and with- out another word walked away. Thus went my discovery . One might conclude that experiences similar to that of Mr. Gillis are common to pocket miners. -VEOLA THORPE '34. -M39 19-M 1...
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Page 84 text:
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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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