yond the town, followed by a concourse of eager ex-
pectants. Arrived on the spot, after certain incanta-
tory preliminaries which would have put to blush a
Kadiak Shaman, he began to grope about as if in
darkness, then suddenly starting up he struck out a
zigzag course as if following a vein. Round the spur
of the hill and down the opposite slope, over claims
and through gardens the talisman-directed Texan
went, while the crowd rushed for pick and shovel
with which to mark out the line and unearth the
treasure. Down they went, digging with a will, five,
ten, fifteen feet, and no vein was struck. Deeper said
the sage, and a crevice twenty-five feet in depth,
which let the sunlight strike subterranean waters, was
opened without result. A sense of swindle began to
steal over those diggers and they went for the Texan
goldometer man. But the end was not yet. Select-
ing one from their number he seated him on an empty
whiskey keg, and began to mesmerize him and breathe
into him the spirit of prophecy. Shortly the spirit-
ualized miner began to talk, and he informed his eager
listeners that gold was surely there, but that it lay ten
feet deeper than they had yet dug. Satisfied by this
voice from another world, they continued their work,
but now with much greater difficulty, for besides be-
ing obliged to hoist their dirt thtjy must pump out the
water which constantly flowed in upon them, so that
before they had reached the required depth the
Texan had ample time to make his escape.
It was in the winter of 1849-50. Two men whose claims had yielded, every working-day during the winter not less than $140, and from that to $320, abandoned it early in the spring in order to hunt for something better. After a dangerous and fatiguing tramp over the yet covered snow-ridges, spending sev- eral months turninof the channel of a stream which yielded nothing, they turned their faces backward and entered the nearest mining camp, without a dollar, and with nothing that would bu}^ bread, unless it was a
