By
and
by
I
was
smitten
with
the
silver
fever. "Prospecting parties"
were
leaving
for
the
mountains
every
day,
and
discovering
and
taking
possession
of
rich
silver-bearing
lodes
and
ledges
of
quartz. Plainly
this
was
the
road
to
fortune.
The
great
"Gould
and
Curry"
mine
was
held
at
three
or
four
hundred
dollars
a
foot
when
we
arrived;
but
in
two
months
it
had sprung
up
to
eight
hundred.
The
"Ophir" had been
worth
only
a
mere
trifle, a
year
gone by,
and
now
it
was
selling
at
nearly
four
thousand
dollars
a foot!
Not
a
mine
could
be
named
that
had
not
experienced
an
astonishing
advance
in
value
within
a
short
time. Everybody
was
talking
about
these
marvels.
Go
where
you
would,
you
heard
nothing
else,
from
morning
till
far
into
the
night. Tom So-and-So had
sold
out
of
the
"Amanda Smith"
for
$40,000—hadn't a
cent
when
he
"took up"
the
ledge
six
months
ago. John
Jones
had
sold
half
his
interest
in
the
"Bald
Eagle
and
Mary
Ann"
for
$65,000,
gold
coin,
and
gone
to
the
States
for
his
family.
The
widow
Brewster
had "struck
it
rich"
in
the
"Golden Fleece"
and
sold
ten
feet
for
$18,000—hadn't
money
enough
to
buy
a crape
bonnet
when
Sing-Sing Tommy
killed
her
husband
at
Baldy Johnson's
wake
last
spring.
The
"Last Chance" had found a "clay casing"
and
knew
they
were
"right
on
the
ledge"—consequence, "feet"
that
went
begging
yesterday
were
worth
a
brick
house
apiece to-day,
and
seedy owners
who
could
not
get
trusted
for
a
drink
at
any
bar
in
the
country
yesterday
were
roaring
drunk
on
champagne
to-day
and
had hosts
of
warm
personal
friends
in
a
town
where
they
had forgotten
how
to
bow
or
shake
hands
from
long-continued
want
of
practice.
Johnny
Morgan, a
common
loafer, had gone
to
sleep
in
the
gutter
and
waked
up
worth
a
hundred
thousand
dollars,
in
consequence
of
the
decision
in
the
"Lady
Franklin
and
Rough
and
Ready" lawsuit.
And
so
on—day
in
and
day
out
the
talk
pelted
our
ears
and
the
excitement
waxed
hotter
and
hotter
around
us. I
would
have
been
more
or
less
than
human
if
I had
not
gone
mad
like
the
rest. Cart-loads
of
solid
silver
bricks,
as
large
as
pigs
of
lead,
were
arriving
from
the
mills
every
day,
and
such
sights
as
that
gave
substance
to
the
wild talk
about
me. I
succumbed
and
grew
as
frenzied
as
the
craziest.
Every
few
days
news
would
come
of
the
discovery
of
a bran-new mining region; immediately
the
papers
would
teem
with
accounts
of
its
richness,
and
away
the
surplus
population
would
scamper
to
take
possession.
By
the
time I
was
fairly
inoculated
with
the
disease, "Esmeralda" had
just
had a
run
and
"Humboldt"
was
beginning
to
shriek
for
attention. "Humboldt! Humboldt!"
was
the
new
cry,
and
straightway Humboldt,
the
newest
of
the
new,
the
richest
of
the
rich,
the
most
marvellous
of
the
marvellous discoveries
in
silver-land
was
occupying
two
columns
of
the
public
prints
to
"Esmeralda's" one. I
was
just
on
the
point
of
starting
to
Esmeralda,
but
turned
with
the
tide
and
got
ready
for
Humboldt.
That
the
reader
may
see
what
moved
me,
and
what
would
as
surely
have
moved
him
had
he
been there, I
insert
here
one
of
the
newspaper letters
of
the
day.
It
and
several
other
letters
from
the
same
calm
hand
were
the
main
means
of
converting me. I
shall
not
garble
the
extract,
but
put
it
in
just
as
it
appeared
in
the
Daily
Territorial
Enterprise:
Let
me
state
one
or
two
things
which
will
help
the
reader
to
better
comprehend
certain
items
in
the
above.
At
this
time,
our
near
neighbor,
Gold
Hill,
was
the
most
successful
silver
mining
locality
in
Nevada.
It
was
from
there
that
more
than
half
the
daily
shipments
of
silver
bricks
came. "Very rich" (and scarce)
Gold
Hill
ore
yielded
from
$100
to
$400
to
the
ton;
but
the
usual
yield
was
only
$20
to
$40
per
ton—that
is
to
say,
each
hundred
pounds
of
ore
yielded
from
one
dollar
to
two
dollars.
But
the
reader
will
perceive
by
the
above
extract,
that
in
Humboldt
from
one
fourth
to
nearly
half
the
mass
was
silver!
That
is
to
say,
every
one
hundred
pounds
of
the
ore
had
from
two
hundred
dollars
up
to
about
three
hundred
and
fifty
in
it.
Some
days
later
this
same
correspondent wrote:
This
was
enough.
The
instant
we
had finished
reading
the
above
article,
four
of
us
decided
to
go
to
Humboldt.
We
commenced
getting
ready
at
once.
And
we
also
commenced
upbraiding
ourselves
for
not
deciding
sooner—for
we
were
in
terror
lest
all
the
rich
mines
would
be
found
and
secured
before
we
got there,
and
we
might
have
to
put
up
with
ledges
that
would
not
yield
more
than
two
or
three
hundred
dollars
a ton, maybe.
An
hour
before, I
would
have
felt
opulent
if
I had owned
ten
feet
in
a
Gold
Hill
mine
whose
ore
produced twenty-five
dollars
to
the
ton;
now
I
was
already
annoyed
at
the
prospect
of
having
to
put
up
with
mines
the
poorest
of
which
would
be
a
marvel
in
Gold
Hill.