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THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN

Work not begun on the Horatio and Derby—haven't seen it yet. It is still in the snow. Shall begin on it within three or four weeks strike the ledge in July.


Again, later in the month:


I have been at work all day, blasting and digging in one of our new claims, "Dashaway," which I don't think a great deal of, but which I am willing to try. We are down now ten or twelve feet.

It must have been disheartening work, picking away at the flinty ledges. There is no further mention of the "Dashaway," but we hear of the "Flyaway," the "Annipolitan," the "Live Yankee," and of many another, each of which holds out a beacon of hope for a brief moment, then passes from notice forever. Still, he was not discouraged. Once he wrote:


I am a citizen here and I am satisfied, though 'Ratio and I are "strapped" and we haven't three days' rations in the house. I shall work the "Monitor" and the other claims with my own hands.


"The pick and shovel are the only claims I have confidence in now," he wrote, later; "my back is sore and my hands are blistered with handling them to-day."

His letters began to take on a weary tone. Once in midsummer he wrote that it was still snowing up there in the hills, and added, "It always snows here I expect. If we strike it rich, I've lost my guess, that's all." And the final heartsick line, "Don't you

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