NUGGETS OF REMINISCENCES FROM AN OLD '49ER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1419, 1 February 1879, Page 32

NUGGETS OF REMINISCENCES FROM AN OLD '49ER.

" Put me down as Holiday, if you have any call to mention me ; then any of tho old boys that may be around yet and see it will know it is me. Holiday was a sort of purser's name, you see, that I wore on the Slope in '49. Mine ? Well, it was then. Must a fellow always wear one suit of clothes ? So, put me down Holiday."

The speaker wa3 a genuine '490r, short of stature, lean of body and limb, wiry and tough, somewhat slow of speech and lowvoiccd, nearly sixty years old, but active as moat men are at half hia age. Will, determination, obstinacy even, one might read in the lines about his thin lips, and that there was "plenty of sand" in his composition none could have doubted who studied his clear, steady, blue eyes. Sailor, diver, explorer, miner, photographer, inventor, and what-not else he had been — one of those versatile beings to whom everything " comes handy," aud who, from the facility with which they can shift about, geem possessed by a restless yearning for a change of base. " Cider only for me. I played the limit on whiskey many a year ago, and quit the game. Ifc has been the ruin of too many good men for me to have much respect for it, and no man's luck will stand good against ifc long. There was that chap Gauley from Boston, fi'instanco He struck the richest claim I ever know'd of my own knowledge. It was in Hawkios' Bar, in the Tuolumae River, in '49. The first day he worked on it he took out forty-eight pounds of golddust. There had been some time a sort of eddy in the stream that had piled the gold in a pocket right there, and it was just hia luck to come along and. pot the whole thing. His claim was only ten feet square ; but Lord ! there was nothiDg like it, on the bar or anywhere eke, for richness. Well, it pretty near turned his head when he took them forty- eight pounds in one day, and he went right up to the place that Jim Hall and Jo Ward weie keeping theu, and invited the whole camp on Murphy's Bir to take a drink. And you bet the invitation was accepted, as likewise the succeedin' one, also given by him to the same general effect, as well as many more a-follo\vin' it ; for, to tell the plain truth, he didn't do much good the rest of that year. It isoemed to him like as if he had more gold than he could ever spend, and he was always insistin' on Murphy's Bar takin' a drink at his expense. And it did look as if he was dead right. Whenever he'd g<?t a little short, all he had to do was to go down to his claim and buck the old rocker a while, and wash out seven or eight pounds of dust, and then back to Jim Hall's he'd po, and it was ' Whoop 'em up boys !' until that lot was all gone. I don't know as he gambled much but he drinked powerful and naturally. What with his bein' always full of liquor and takiu' no rational amusement, h« got all broke up until he got so that he couldn't work his claim any more. Then the Ridley boys worked it for him a while, and I worked for them. That was in '50. It was no Mongol luck of a claim then, I tell you, even if the fat of it had been taken out. We used to get eight and nine pounds of dust every day with a little rocker ; and it kept right along yielding that wsy up Lo the time when the Little Grizzly dam broke up at Jacksonville and swept away everything in the river. I left then, but I've heard since that that littlo ten-foot claim lasted longer than Gauley did. After the flood they pumped ifc out, and seb up a new outfit and went right along; but Gauley couldn't be treated that way, which ib was tho worst for him, and often [I've wondered to myself wV ether that big luck of his wasn't just about thewoisfc he coull have struck.

"TalkiDg about luck, you know it's remarkable luck for a man to beat faro ; but that is a contracb for a boy by the siote of beating monte. Yet I've kuown mnnte to bo beat. Spanish monte, you know, I mean ; not the swindlin' three card business that ihey play on greenhorns and ministers on the Pacific trains. In this game there's a layout of four cards, top and bottom, aud the deal is from the dealer's hand, instead of a box. And there'a no lever-box in the land that comes up for good solid cheatm' to the human hand, r specially when the party that works that hand is a preUy sonojita, with lips tliab always buiile, oyee as bright as diamonds, ami a iiear£ l|ko the devil himself.

And there were lots of that kind of cattle cut there in my time. In fact it seemed to jmoas if Mexican women— the pretty ones at least — were born for no other purpose than lo deal monte. I suppose the ugly ones were good, though, like in all the rest of the world. Saints are seldom much on personal attractions. But I'm a-gettin' off my story, which is about Johnny Green of Albany aud monte. Johnny had used to be a boatman in Albany, and he went out to hunt gold pretty early. In '50 he came down to 'Frieco with somewhere about 15,000d0K, that he'd got up on the Tuolumne. A notion had struck him that he wanted to get back home ; but when he got as far on the way as 'Fiisco he began to think that he hadn't money enough to fix him w ell at home, and maybe he'd run through the 15,000d015. in a short time, aud not have a stake to get back. Whereas, if he had double as much, ifc would fix him for life. So he just made up his mind to double and quit, or lose all and go back to the rockor while he was bandy to it and the walkin' good. He went into a monte game that a big Spanish fellow, whose name I don't remember now, was running, and says he to him : " 'If you've gat the sand to stand earnest amusement, I'll go broke here in a few minutes, or I'll get away with about 15,000 dols. of your money.'

"The Spaniard allowed he was as nervy as anybody else, and he'd give him a rattle for all he wanted. It was all pleasant and jokin' like, especially for the gambler, who thought he bad the doad-wood on Johnny's 15,000i015. ; but as the game was going to be stiff, he began to turn his woman out of the chair and take the deal himself, which was his great mistake. He was afraid she'd weaken and get nervous, whereas he might have known, if he'd had more than greaser sense, that for smooth, smilin', unhesitat'V throat-cutting, a woman can give a man points any time. Wtl', they commenced, betting 5000dols. on the turn of a card— a stake well worth turnin' for. The first bet rathea shocked the Spaniard's nerves, for he didn't really expect to see more than 2000 dok. down at onco, for all Johnny's warnin', and he saw that there were several of Johnny's friends lookin' on, sharp-eyed fellows that knew the points about as well as ho did, and likely to be handy with their weapons. So he was afraid to try gettin' his lace work in, lest, bein' nervous, his fingers might betray him, when he knew it would be all up with him. And he dealt square. la twenty minuto3 Johnny had doubled his 15,000d015. ; and as coon as he did he quit. Nobody knows how much heraighthave won, for the Spaniard bad slathers of money j but just as soon as Johnny got his 30,000d01s he says : "There's my limit, boys, and I'm done." And he took the next steamer for home. " There was lots of money lost out there in them days that wasn't blowed in for whiskey nor bucked against a game. We had no safe-deposit companies and no savings banks — which the latter, run in what seems to be the New York style, as far as I can understand, would have been very unhealthy for the officers and directors, if we'd hid any amongst us. But we didn't. Every man hid his nuggets and his dust just the best way he could. Sometimes it would be in a hole deep under the fire on the earth of his cabin, or some other place in the earth- floor ; sometimes in the ground under a tree in some lonesome, unlikely-looking place ; or maybe in the open a certain number of feet to'rd some p'mt of the compass, from a little innocent looking stick stuck down, or a big stone It wasn't uncommon for them catches to be lost by their real owners and found by other fellows. I know'd of a Frenchman that hid about 9000dols. worth of dust, and went off to the American .'River prospectin', and when he come back, three months after, he couldn't find it. Somebody had kicked out the little stake he had put down to mark it, and he was all at sea. He dug all around where he thought it might be, but never found it, and at last went off heartbroken down to 'Frisco. Then, when he was gone, a smart chap that had been watchin' him set to work and ground-sluiced the whole place for two acreß around, and got the pile. "There was a fellow on the Toulumne where I was by the name of Hannaford, I think, but I can't be certain now, ib was so long ago. Anyhow, we used to call him Bill. He was in with two pards, and they had a good claim and was doin' well, whoa his brother came out. Well, of couvse, Bill couldn't take him in, eeein' as their gang was full, so he advised him to strike out prospectiir for hisself. The young chap didn't take it very kindly, for he was a greenhorn in mmm' ways, and didn't think he stood much show ; still he did the best he could. One day, when he was goin' back to camp deai-beat and disgusted, he s.->t down under a trees to rcsb hisself, and while he sat there the idea come to him: "Why the devil should the gold bo all out in the open, down in the bars, where the sun is hot enough to bliatcr a hair trunk ? Why mightn't it just as well ba in the shade, like under this tree, where a feller conld work in comfort ? And who knows but what ib is ? So in a sort of indifferent way he set hisself to dig a hole, thinkin' to pan out some of the a'ilo, for he was albogether green, you know; but when he got down a bit hia pick struck somethin' of metal, and in a minube or two he had hooked up a tin can with mors'n SOOOdols. in it, in dust and little chunks aucl nuggets of pretty good size. Of course he had sense enough to know that gold didn't come naturally in that way in tin cans, put up like fruit or turkey ; but ho know al?o that out there in them times a man hadn't clear title to any thin' he didn't have his hand on, and ' findin's is keepin's' was the general rule. So he frozo to thab big streak of luck and took ifc into camp with him. Then he whispered to his brother the rich find he hal made, and Bill took a mighty lively interest in it. " ' Whore did you find it ?' says ho. And the young fellow described the place to him as well as he could. 'Why, you unholy young buccaneer,' says Bill, 'that's my cvtch yruhave been a plundcrin', and it's my gold you've got ' Then he went on, before lookin' at the gold, to describe some of the bigojrsb nnggcfcs, to identify it by 'There was a flat one Mgeer'n my tlmmb-uail,' saya he, 'of the shacc of an Irish harp, and anociier like a dumbbell ; two bloba with a thin bib between 'cm, and half an inch

long ; and one like a ham, with a star on one side.'

"And so on. And, sure enough, when they come to look, it was his gold, and, seeing it was his brother's, the young fellow gave ib up. "In '52 there was a big exoitement about Australia,, and a good many of the chaps, thiakin' they'd have a better chance there, the reports bein' so big, struck out from California for the new Australian diggin'a. Among the rest, a prizefighting gang at Murphy's camp, at Calaveras County, made up their mind to go. There was Johnny O'Brien, Sam Banty, Mike McGee, and one they called bir Lisle Cicel — all pretfcy-well known names, that a good many livin' now, East as well as West, will remember— that were goin'. They set a day to Btart, and O'Brien he went to dig up his gold, which he had buried on the ground floor of the cabin, in a certain spot close to the wall. He dug and dug, and it wasn't there. He shouted that he was robbed, and there was a big excitement, but all to no good. There was the hole where he swore he had catched it three months before, and the hole was empty. Johnny was 'most crazy, but had no idea of the thief that robbed bim. It seemed that he would have to give up goin' to Australia, for he couldn't start broke ; but he was a good fellow, and the others^) wouldn't leave him behind, so they chipped in all around enough to give him as much aa any of them had, and that fixed it. But the day they were to start, just as they were desertin' their old cabia, Billy Canfield— you must have heard of him— come over from Coultersville, and when they told him how Johnny had been robbed, 'Robbed be d— d !' says he. He asked about where the gold was buried, and Johnny told him it was in the floor, jusb below a nick he'd made in one of the logs that the cabin waa builfc of. Billy went into the empty cabin and looked around, and says he : "'Where's the nick?' " They got high-toned when their luck was good, and lined their walls with muslin, so the nick waa covered up. " 'Ifc's just there,' says Johnny, pointin 1 to a spot above where he had been diggin'. " Billy said nothin', but ripped down tho muslin, when, lo and behold ! the nick wag a good rive feet from where Johnny had thought it was ; and when they dug down under it they found his gold all right. You see, he had clean disremembered the location of his mark.

"But the queerest thing I ever did know of I was interested in it myself, and it was a real robbery, with no person guilty after all. Two men named Vesey and Kidder - at least them were their names out there-— were working partners with me in a claim at the city of Tuolumne, in Sonora County, in 1854. We were doin' real well, and each of us had his share of several thousand dollarr , in coarse gold and little nuggets, hid away in what he considered a safe place. We lived together in a little cibin next to the United States Hotel, that Greenwood used to keep then, and Vesey thought tho safest place for his pile waß to bury ifc in the dirt-floor under the pork barrel. One day he went to it, to add a good handful to what he already had, and when he come to dig for it he turned as white as a sheet and said to us:

" ' Boys, it's gone. I've been robbed !' " It was mighty unpleasant for us, for wo were the only ones, as we thought, that knew of hia hidin' place, and he might very readily have suspected us. Whether he did or not, I never knew. At all events, he said nothin' of the sort, and went right on with hia work ; but he found some new place for his gold, which he didn't happen to mention to either of ug. The raiay seison came on, and one day, when we were all three in the cabin, unable to work because of the rain, which was pourin' down like all the flumes aloft were turned loose, our littlo adobe chimney got soaked with water and tumbled down. Of course we had to go out with shovels and picks £>nd fix it up the best we could, without regard for the raiu, or else be smoked out of the cabin. I was diggin' up some earth at the corner of the cabin near the chimney, to patch it up, when all of a sudden my eye caught, the gleam of a little yellow nugget. I picked it up, and saw several more. In a minute more we were all three down on onr knees in the mud, forgettin' all about the rain and the chimney, scrapin' n\> the gold and congratulatin' ourselves on having struck the richest kind of a claim. But directly Vesey got some of the nuggets into his hand he knew them, and says he :

" ' Why ! D— nmy eye 3, if ifcisa'fc my own gold !'

"He had recognised the buttons ne had molted down and broken up himself ; and right he was, as he made no manner of doubt. If we'd had any dc.ubts, though, they would soon have been set at rest by our discovery of ho >v he had been robbed. A gopher had burrowed its hole along under the corner of the cabin, and beneath the solid dirt-floor, and accidentally struck his gold, which was put down in a buckskin bag. If it had been a tin can it would have been safe enough, for tho gopher wanted neither tin cans nor gold, but it did want the buckskin-bag? so it gnawed the bag and dragged it aAvay along its burrow, scattering the gold as ifc went, aud that was how we came to strike the trail. We followed up the hole, and recovered within half an ounce at the most, I guess, of all that had been lost ; and I do believe that Kiddcr and me wore d — d sight more glad of it even than Vesey himself was."