Digging for Gold, Robert Michael Ballantyne [autobiographies to read TXT] 📗

cheer them, if possible, with a sight of it. Douglas was just passing away. He heard his comrade's hearty remarks, and looked upon the mass of precious metal.

"Joe," he whispered faintly, "Wisdom is more to be desired than gold; `The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.'"

He never spoke again, and died within an hour after that.

At last Frank began to mend, and soon found himself strong enough to travel, he therefore made arrangements to leave Bigbear Gully with his inseparable friend Joe. Meyer, being a very strong man, and in robust health, determined to remain and work out their claim, which still yielded abundance of gold.

"Meyer," said Frank, the evening before his departure, "I'm very sorry that we are obliged to leave you."

"Ya, das ist mos' miserable," said the poor German, looking disconsolate.

"But you see," continued Frank, "that my remaining, in my present state of health, is out of the question. Now, Joe and I have been talking over our affairs. We intend to purchase three mules and set off under the guidance of a half-caste Californian, to visit different parts of this country. We will continue our journey as long as our gold lasts, and then return to San Francisco and take passage for England,--for we have both come to the unalterable determination that we won't try to make our fortunes by gold-digging. We have sufficient dust to give us a long trip and pay our passage to England, without making use of that big nugget found by Joe, which is worth at least 200 pounds; so we have determined to leave it in possession of Jeffson, to be used by you if luck should ever take a wrong turn--as it will sometimes do--and you should chance to get into difficulties. Of course if you continue prosperous, we will reclaim our share of it on our return hither."

"Ah, you is too goot," cried the warm-hearted German, seizing Frank's hand and wringing it, "bot I vill nevair use de nuggut--nevair! You sall find him here sartainly ven you do com bak."

"Well, I hope so, for your own sake," said Frank, "because that will show you have been successful. But if you get into low water, and do not use it, believe me I shall feel very much aggrieved."

Next day about noon, our hero and Joe, with Junk, their vaquero, mounted their mules and rode away.

"A new style o' cruisin' this," said Joe Graddy, one fine day, as they pulled up under the shade of a large tree, at a spot where the scenery was so magnificent that Frank resolved to rest and sketch it.

"New, indeed, and splendid too," he exclaimed enthusiastically, leaping off his mule. "You can go shoot squirrels or bears if you like, Joe, but here I remain for the next three or four hours."

As Frank had been in the habit of treating his friend thus almost every day since starting on their tour, he was quite prepared for it; smiled knowingly, ordered the vaquero to tether the mules and accompany him into the forest, and then, taking his bearings with a small pocket-compass, and critically inspecting the sun, and a huge pinchbeck watch which was the faithful companion of his wanderings, he shouldered his gun and went off, leaving the enthusiastic painter to revel in the glories of the landscape.

And truly magnificent the scenery was. They had wandered by that time far from the diggings, and were involved in all the grandeur of the primeval wilderness. Stupendous mountains, capped with snow, surrounded the beautiful valley through which they were travelling, and herbage of the richest description clothed the ground, while some of the trees were so large that many of the giant oaks of old England would have appeared small beside them. Some of the precipices of the valley were fully three thousand feet high, without a break from top to bottom, and the mountain-ranges in the background must have been at least as high again. Large tracts of the low grounds were covered with wild oats and rich grasses; affording excellent pasturage to the deer, which could be seen roving about in herds. Lakes of various sizes were alive with waterfowl, whose shrill and plaintive cries filled the air with wild melody. A noble river coursed throughout the entire length of the valley, and its banks were clothed with oaks, cypresses, and chestnuts, while, up on the mountain sides, firs of truly gigantic size reared their straight stems above the surrounding trees with an air of towering magnificence, which gave them indisputable right to be considered the aristocracy of those grand solitudes.

Of these firs Frank observed one so magnificent that, although anxious to begin work without delay, he could not resist the desire to examine it closely. Laying down his book and pencil he ran towards it, and stood for some time in silent amazement, feeling that he was indeed in the presence of the Queen of the Forest. It was a pine which towered to a height of certainly not less than three hundred and sixty feet, and, after careful measurement, was found to be ninety-three feet in circumference. In regarding this tree as the Queen, Frank was doubly correct, for the natives styled it the "Mother of the Forest." The bark of it, to the height of a hundred and sixteen feet, was, in after years, carried to England, and built up in its original form in the Crystal Palace of Sydenham. It was unfortunately destroyed in the great fire which a few years ago consumed a large part of that magnificent building.

But this was not the only wonderful sight that was seen that day. After Frank had finished his drawing, and added it to a portfolio which was already well filled, he fired a shot to recall his nautical comrade and the vaquero. They soon rejoined him, and, continuing their journey, came to a waterfall which, in some respects, excelled that of the far-famed Niagara itself.

It had sounded like murmuring thunder in their ears the greater part of that day, and as they approached it the voice of its roar became so deafening that they were prepared for something unusually grand, but not for the stupendous sight and sound that burst upon them when, on turning round the base of a towering precipice, they came suddenly in full view of one of the most wonderful of the Creator's works in that land.

A succession of wall-like mountains rose in two tiers before them into the clouds. Some of the lower clouds floated far below the highest peaks. From the summit of the highest range, a river, equal to the Thames at Richmond, dropt sheer down a precipice of more than two thousand feet. Here it met the summit of the lower mountain-range, on which it burst with a deep-toned sullen roar, comparable only to eternal thunder. A white cloud of spray received the falling river in its soft embrace, and sent it forth again, turbulent and foam-bespeckled, towards its second leap,--another thousand feet,--into the plain below. The entire height of this fall was above three thousand feet!

Our hero was of course anxious to make a careful drawing of it, but having already exhausted the greater part of the day, he was fain to content himself with a sketch, after making which they pushed rapidly forward, and encamped for the night, still within sight and sound of the mighty fall.

"D'you know, Joe," said Frank, leaning back against a tree stem, as he gazed meditatively into into the fire after supper was concluded, "it has often struck me that men are very foolish for not taking full possession of the splendid world, in which they have been placed."

Frank paused a few moments, but the observation not being sufficiently definite for Joe, who was deep in the enjoyment of his first pipe, no reply was made beyond an interjectional "h'm."

"Just look around you," pursued Frank, waving his hand towards the landscape, "at this magnificent country; what timber, what soil, what an amount of game, what lakes, what rivers, what facilities for farming, manufacturing, fishing,--everything, in fact, that is calculated to gladden the heart of man."

"Includin' gold," suggested Joe.

"Including gold," assented Frank; and there it all lies--has lain since creation--hundreds of thousands of acres of splendid land _unoccupied_.

"Ha! there's a screw loose somewhere," said Joe, taking the pipe from his lips and looking at it earnestly, as if the remark were addressed to it, "somethin' out o' j'int--a plank started, so to speak--cer'nly."

"No doubt of it," said Frank; "and the broad acres which we now look upon, as well as those over which we have lately travelled, are as nothing compared with the other waste but fertile lands in America, on which hundreds of thousands of the human race might live happily. Yet, strange to say, men seem to prefer congregating together in little worlds of brick, stone, and mortar, living tier upon tier above each other's heads, breathing noxious gases instead of the scent of flowers, treading upon mud, stone, and dust, instead of green grass, and dwelling under a sky of smoke instead of bright blue ether--and this, too, in the face of the Bible command to `go forth and replenish the earth.'"

"Yes, there's great room," said Joe, "for the settin' up of a gin'ral enlightenment an' universal emigration society, but I raither think it wouldn't pay."

"I know it wouldn't, but why not?" demanded Frank.

"Ah, why not?" repeated Joe.

As neither of them appeared to be able to answer the question, they both remained for some time in a profound reverie, Frank gazing as he was wont to do into the fire, and Joe staring through smoke of his own creation at the vaquero, who reclined on the opposite side of the fire enjoying the tobacco to the full by letting it puff slowly out at his nose as well as his mouth.

"Joe," said Frank.

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Joe with nautical promptitude.

"I have been thinking a good deal about our affairs of late, and have come to the conclusion that the sooner we go home the better."

"My notions pre-cisely."

"Moreover," continued Frank, "I think that we have come far enough in this direction, and that it would be a good plan to return to Bigbear Gully by a different route from that by which we came here, and thus have an opportunity of seeing some of the other parts of the diggings. What say you to that?"

"I'm agreeable," answered Joe.

"Well then, shall we decide to commence our return journey to-morrow?"

"By all means. Down wi' the helm, 'bout ship an' lay our course on another tack by daylight," said Joe, shaking the ashes out of his pipe with the slow unwilling air of a man who knows that he has had enough but is loath to give up; "I always like to set sail by daylight. It makes one feel up to the mark so to speak, as if one had lost none of the day, and I suppose," he added with a sigh which resolved itself into a yawn, "that if we means to start so bright an' early the sooner we tumble in the better."

"True," said Frank, whose mouth irresistibly followed the example of Joe's, "I think it will be as well to turn in."

There was a quiet, easy-going lowness in the speech and motions