How Bill Was Mistaken [pp. 357-364]

HOW BILL WAS MISTAKEN. z
"This night of calm repose in the
gorgeous bridal - chamber of our first
parents."
"There you go agin! Looney as a
new convert at a camp-meetin'."
"No, William, not looney. It is a
beautiful thought, that Adam and Eve,
in the incomparable purity of the first,
new love that blessed the world, should
have rested thus upon the young earth,
under the royal drapery of all the night."
"Yes. A-shiverin' in the wind, with out Mission blankets, and no shirts on,
like two Shoshones in a wickiu15! You
can't come any of that on me. I had a
pard once, in California, that used to
read a lot of that every night, out of a
book he called A~illon."
"Who was Milton? Do you know,
Bill?"
"Yes!"- without variety of accent.
"He was a looney old psalm - singer,
and said that the devil invented silver
and gold mining in the back territory of
hell and erebust, wherever that is."
"Do you remember the lines, Will iam?"
"No, I don't. Somethin' about the
devil and his crew working three shifts
a day into a hill."
I recited:
"By him first
Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
Ransack'd the cenrtre, and with impious hands
Rifled the bowels of their mother earth
For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew
Open'd into the hill a spacious wound,
And digg'd out ribs of gold. Let none admire
That riches grow in hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane."
"That's like it," said Bill. "But old
Milton didn't know much more about
mining than Moses did about making
time across deserts. Gold may come
out in ribs in hell-I don't know; I never mined in them diggins-but it comes
in lumps and dust on this coast. That's
how the fact is; but the poetry is
well, d-n the poetry! I'm a-goin' to
sleep." He turned over on his side,
VOL. I3. - 24.
drew the end of a blanket over his head,
and said no more.
I had left one of the older settled
mining-towns to inspect a ledge belong ing to my present companion and com pany, and also to find whatever other
prospects there might be open to loca tion and possession. This statement
will account for my present journey.
Wilson & Co. were to put their mines
into my hands, to be sold by me to oth er and wealthier parties, if I liked the
property.
On the morrow there was before me
part of a day's ride, previous to reaching
Wilson & Co.'s camp; and after arriv ing at that point, there was the climbing,
on foot, of mountains of rock, naked to
the hot noonday sun, except in those
favored spots where struggling, strag gling trees sucked a scanty and scrubby
life through their bruised roots in the
stony soil. I tried to forecast the future,
even for a day; but gave it up, and pass ed into sleep with as full a confidence in
the unknown as I could have felt in the
positively ascertained. Do we not, no
matter what may be the tone of our faith,
rely more implicitly upon the wide un known than upon the known or knowa ble?
I need not trouble the reader with the
result of my speculations and climbings
with Bill Wilson. We did not find that
"staving mine;" but we got through
our business, and returned to town:
stopping, however, on the way back, to
visit what Bill called the "craziest camp
in Nevada."
After going through a narrow, steep
cafion, we climbed a crooked, rocky trail,
and stood upon the dump, near which
the club-footed mule was slowly limping around the shallow circular pit of
an arastra, dragging after him a short
beam, fastened at the farther end to a
revolving centre-post in the middle of
the pit; and this beam, in turn, dragged
a heavy stone round and round, through
1874.]
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