carry him to San Francisco for $700, liired himself as
butcher to the steward of the same steamer for $100
the passage, bought a pick in San Francisco, and fol-
lowed the crowd to the mines, turned up gold the first
blow he struck, took out $9,000 in the course of a
few days, sold his claim for $2,000, and returned
home to marry Hannah and set his traps for a
deaconship.
Probably there never existed a community more prodigal in their generosity, and more munificent in their charities than the fortune-hunters of California, It is nothing new, it is nothing paradoxical, to see lavish expenditures attending successful ventures ; and often it is that the more men risk for money the freer they will spend it. With Spanish conquerors human life was held in low esteem as compared with gold, which once obtained was flung about as a thing of little value. Winning gold with sword, shovel, or cards, does not breed economy.
Few camps at the first were without their quarrel- some cut-throats, who, like Achilles, preferred an early death with glory to a long and quiet fameless life. It was the assassin's paradise. In the faces of some were painted the colors of debauchery. Rude- ness was their rule of courtesy.
The sun contains neither gold, silver, tin, lead, nor mercury, and yet the lusty diggers loved the sun. They slept on the gently sloping hill-side, or down in the dry beds of the rivers, roofed only by the timbered banks, and lighted only by the dim cathedral light of the stars, which slid their rays through the rents in the foliage overhead. Chaste as Diana, the yellow metal seemed to possess her power, and turn intrud- ing Acteons into stags. Boys still in feeling, their locks began to silver, and soon they were old men.
As regards gold, for which these men had come so far, and toiled so hard, and sacrificed so much ; gold, for which loved ones far away were even
