Joe's Luck; Or, Always Wide Awake, Jr. Horatio Alger [mobi reader TXT] 📗

so hungry but you can joke, Joshua."

"It's no joke," returned Mr. Bickford. "If we don't raise a supply of provisions soon, I shall have to attend my own funeral. My mind keeps running on them johnny-cakes."

They rode on rather soberly, for the exercise and the fresh morning air increased their appetites, which were keen when they started.

Mr. Bickford no longer felt like joking, and Joe at every step looked anxiously around him, in the hope of espying relief.

On a sudden, Mr. Bickford rose in his Stirrups and exclaimed in a tone of excitement:

"I see a cabin!"

"Where?"

"Yonder," said the Yankee, pointing to a one-story shanty, perhaps a quarter of a mile away.

"Is it inhabited, I wonder?"

"I don't know. Let us go and see."

The two spurred their horses, and at length reached the rude building which had inspired them with hope. The door was open, but no one was visible.

Joshua was off his horse in a twinkling and peered in.

"Hooray!" he shouted in rejoicing accents. "Breakfast's ready."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I've found something to eat."

On a rude table was an earthen platter full of boiled rice and a stale loaf beside it.

"Pitch in, Joe," said Joshua. "I'm as hungry as a wolf."

"This food belongs to somebody. I suppose we have no right to it."

"Right be hanged. A starving man has a right to eat whatever he can find."

"Suppose it belongs to a fire-eater, or a man from Pike County?"

"We'll eat first and fight afterward."

Joe did not feel like arguing the matter. There was an advocate within him which forcibly emphasized Joshua's arguments, and he joined in the banquet.

"This bread is dry as a chip," said Mr. Bickford. "But no matter. I never thought dry bread would taste so good. I always thought rice was mean vittles, but it goes to the right place just now."

"I wonder if any one will have to go hungry on our account?" said Joe.

"I hope not, but I can't help it," returned Mr. Bickford.
"Necessity's the fust law of nature, Joe. I feel twice as strong as
I did twenty minutes ago."

"There's nothing like a full stomach, Joshua. I wonder to whom we are indebted for this repast?"

Joe was not long in having his query answered. An exclamation, as of one startled, called the attention of the two friends to the doorway, where, with a terrified face, stood a Chinaman, his broad face indicating alarm.

"It's a heathen Chinee, by gosh!" exclaimed Joshua.

Even at that time Chinese immigrants had begun to arrive in San
Francisco, and the sight was not wholly new either to Joshua or Joe.

"Good morning, John," said our young hero pleasantly.

"Good morning, heathen," said Mr. Bickford. "We thought we'd come round and make you a mornin' call. Is your family well?"

The Chinaman was reassured by the friendly tone of his visitors, and ventured to step in. He at once saw that the food which he had prepared for himself had disappeared.

"Melican man eat John's dinner," he remarked in a tone of disappointment.

"So we have, John," said Mr. Bickford. "The fact is, we were hungry—hadn't had any breakfast."

"Suppose Melican man eat—he pay," said the Chinaman.

"That's all right," said Joe; "we are willing to pay. How much do you want?"

The Chinaman named his price, which was not unreasonable, and it was cheerfully paid.

"Have you got some more bread and rice, John?" asked Mr. Bickford.
"We'd like to buy some and take it along."

They succeeded in purchasing a small supply—enough with economy to last a day or two. This was felt as a decided relief. In two days they might fall in with another party of miners or come across a settlement.

They ascertained on inquiry that the Chinaman and another of his nationality had come out like themselves to search for gold. They had a claim at a short distance from which they had obtained a small supply of gold. The cabin they had found in its present condition. It had been erected and deserted the previous year by a party of white miners, who were not so easily satisfied as the two Chinamen.

"Well," said Joshua, after they had started on their way, "that's the first time I ever dined at a Chinee hotel."

"We were lucky in coming across it," said Joe.

"The poor fellow looked frightened when he saw us gobblin' up his provisions," said Mr. Bickford, laughing at the recollection.

"But we left him pretty well satisfied. We didn't treat him as the gentleman from Pike treated us."

"No—I wouldn't be so mean as that darned skunk. It makes me mad whenever I look at this consumptive boss he's left behind."

"You didn't make much out of that horse trade, Mr. Bickford."

"I didn't, but I'll get even with him some time if we ever meet again."

"Do you know where he was bound?"

"No—he didn't say."

"I dare say it'll all come right in the end. At any rate, we shan't starve for the next forty-eight hours."

So in better spirits the two companions kept on their way.

CHAPTER XXX ON THE YUBA RIVER

On the following day Joe and his comrade fell in with a party of men who, like themselves, were on their way to the Yuba River. They were permitted to join them, and made an arrangement for a share of the provisions. This removed all anxiety and insured their reaching their destination without further adventure.

The banks of the Yuba presented a busy and picturesque appearance. On the banks was a line of men roughly clad, earnestly engaged in scooping out gravel and pouring it into a rough cradle, called a rocker. This was rocked from side to side until the particles of gold, if there were any, settled at the bottom and were picked out and gathered into bags. At the present time there are improved methods of separating gold from the earth, but the rocker is still employed by Chinese miners.

In the background were tents and rude cabins, and there was the unfailing accessory of a large mining camp, the gambling tent, where the banker, like a wily spider, lay in wait to appropriate the hard-earned dust of the successful miner.

Joe and his friend took their station a few rods from the river and gazed at the scene before them.

"Well, Mr. Bickford," said Joe, "the time has come when we are to try our luck."

"Yes," said Joshua. "Looks curious, doesn't it? If I didn't know, I'd think them chaps fools, stoopin' over there and siftin' mud. It 'minds me of when I was a boy and used to make dirt pies."

"Suppose we take a day and look round a little. Then we can find out about how things are done, and work to better advantage."

"Just as you say, Joe, I must go to work soon, for I hain't nary red."

"I'll stand by you, Mr. Bickford."

"You're a fust-rate feller, Joe. You seem to know just what to do."

"It isn't so long since I was a greenhorn and allowed myself to be taken in by Hogan."

"You've cut your eye-teeth since then."

"I have had some experience of the world, but I may get taken in again."

Joe and his friend found the miners social and very ready to give them information.

"How much do I make a day?" said one in answer to a question from Joshua. "Well, it varies. Sometimes I make ten dollars, and from that all the way up to twenty-five. Once I found a piece worth fifty dollars. I was in luck then."

"I should say you were," said Mr. Bickford. "The idea of findin' fifty dollars in the river. It looks kind of strange, don't it, Joe?"

"Are any larger pieces ever found here?" asked Joe.

"Sometimes."

"I have seen larger nuggets on exhibition in San Francisco, worth several hundred dollars. Are any such to be found here?"

"Generally they come from the dry diggings. We don't often find such specimens in the river washings. But these are more reliable."

"Can a man save money here?"

"If he'll be careful of what he gets. But much of our dust goes there."

He pointed, as he spoke, to a small cabin, used as a store and gambling den at one and the same time. There in the evening the miners collected, and by faro, poker, or monte managed to lose all that they had washed out during the day.

"That's the curse of our mining settlement," said their informant. "But for the temptations which the gaming-house offers, many whom you see working here would now be on their way home with a comfortable provision for their families. I never go there, but then I am in the minority."

"What did you used to do when you was to hum?" inquired Joshua, who was by nature curious and had no scruples about gratifying his curiosity.

"I used to keep school winters. In the spring and summer I assisted my father on his farm down in Maine."

"You don't say you're from Maine? Why, I'm from Maine myself," remarked Joshua.

"Indeed! Whereabouts in Maine did you live?"

"Pumpkin Hollow."

"I kept school in Pumpkin Hollow one winter."

"You don't say so? What is your name?" inquired Joshua earnestly.

"John Kellogg."

"I thought so!" exclaimed Mr. Bickford, excited.

"Why, I used to go to school to you, Mr. Kellogg."

"It is nine years ago, and you must have changed so much that I cannot call you to mind."

"Don't you remember a tall, slab-sided youngster of thirteen, that used to stick pins into your chair for you to set on?"

Kellogg smiled.

"Surely you are not Joshua Bickford?" he said.

"Yes, I am. I am that same identical chap."

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Bickford," said his old school-teacher, grasping Joshua's hand cordially.

"It seems kinder queer for you to call me Mr. Bickford."

"I wasn't so ceremonious in the old times," said Kellogg.

"No, I guess not. You'd say, 'Come here, Joshua,' and you'd jerk me out of my seat by the collar. 'Did you stick that pin in my chair?' That's the way you used to talk. And then you'd give me an all-fired lickin'."

Overcome by the mirthful recollections, Joshua burst into an explosive fit of laughter, in which presently he was joined by Joe and his old teacher.

"I hope you've forgiven me for those whippings, Mr. Bickford."

"They were jest what I needed, Mr. Kellogg. I was a lazy young rascal, as full of mischief as a nut is of meat. You tanned my hide well."

"You don't seem to be any the worse for it now."

"I guess not. I'm pretty tough. I say, Mr. Kellogg," continued Joshua, with a grin, "you'd find it a harder job to give me a lickin' now than you did then."

"I wouldn't undertake it now. I am afraid you could handle me."

"It seems cur'us, don't it, Joe?" said Joshua. "When Mr. Kellogg used to haul me round the schoolroom, it didn't seem as if I could ever be a match for him."

"We change with the passing years," said Kellogg, in a moralizing tone, which recalled his former vocation. "Now you are a man, and we meet here on the other side of the continent, on the banks of the Yuba River. I hope we are destined to be successful."

"I hope so, too," said Joshua, "for I'm reg'larly cleaned out."

"If I can help you any in the sway of information, I shall be glad to do so."

Joe and Bickford took him at his word and made many inquiries, eliciting important information.

The next day they took their places farther down the river and commenced work.

Their inexperience at first put them at a disadvantage, They were awkward and unskilful, as might have been expected. Still, at the end of the first day each had made about five dollars.

"That's something," said Joe.

"If I could have