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Updated: May 29, 2025
An' a jail in these diggin's, my beauties, is a thing that ain't no joke, 'cause they shets you up below ground where ye has only your natural frien's the rats fer playmates, rats as big as dogs an' hungry as sharks, as ye might say. Sometimes the cap'n of these here ports fergits ye 'specially if they's frien's er mine.
"Now, Fred," returned the other impatiently, "don't bore me with your religious notions. Religion is all very well in the old country, but it won't work at all here at the diggin's." "My experience has proved the contrary," returned Westly, "for religion or, rather, God has saved me from drink and gaming." "If it be God who has saved you, why has He not saved me?" demanded Brixton.
He reported that he had engaged passage on a sail-boat, the Mary Ann, for the town of Sacramento, 120 miles north up the Sacramento River. "That is," he added, "if you want to try the American River country, where the first diggin's are. The fare is thirty dollars, and I paid ten dollars apiece down, to hold our places till two o'clock." "All right," approved Mr. Adams. "We'll go. Now let's eat.
"Then I won't go with 'e, sir, that's all about it," said Joe firmly. "Very well, please yourself," said Frank, with a laugh; "but if painting is so hopeless, what would you advise?" "The diggin's," answered Joe. "I thought so," said Frank, shaking his head. "Most men out of work rush to the diggings.
"What's there?" "It's dry diggin's, mostly, but it's more of a quartz country than this. We're on the track of a big quartz claim. You remember that sick man I found in St. Louis?" Billy nodded. "Well, he told us about a claim of his; he sort of gave it to dad and me. We aren't telling anybody else, but now you're a partner, I can tell you that much." "Jiminy!" exclaimed Billy. "Hope we find it."
"Lord! we have done an awful lot of fool work fer nuthin'! We've tackled tunnels and shafts, and several games like this, and pretty near died a dozen different styles all uneasy kinds of dyin' and we've lived when it was a darn sight uneasier than croakin', and kept on tryin' out new diggin's, and kept on bein' busted all the time. 'Nuff to make a lemon laugh, the fun we've had.
"Not a bad fortune for an old bachelor, eh? Then," he continued, after a moment's pause, "when I was wrecked, two years ago in Australia, I took a fancy to have a look at the gold diggin's, so off I went to Bendigo, and I set to work diggin' for the mere fun o' the thing, and the very first day I turned up a nugget as big as my fist and two of the same sort the day after, an' then a lot o' little ones; in fact I had got hold of a first-rate claim, an' when I had dug away for a month or so I put it all in a big chest, sold the claim, and came straight home, bringin' the chest with me.
I was on it but I didn't exactly see it, 'cause it was dark at the time." "Was it near a peak that looked like a stone head?" asked Tom. "It were, stranger, but I didn't take much notice of it. Me and my partner got out of them diggin's next day, and I never went back.
"And suppose," answered Ned, with a smile "suppose that I refused to fight, what then?" "Why, then, you'd be called a coward all over the diggin's, and you'd have to fight to clear your character." "And suppose I didn't care a straw for being called a coward, and wouldn't attempt to clear my character?" "Why, then, I guess, I'd have to kick you in public till you were obligated to fight."
"Next I move it be the sense of this here camp," continued the chairman, "that in consideration of this gentleman an' party havin' sartin rights o' rediscivvery in the Golden West claim, an' havin' sort o' defeated themselves 'cause they were kind to a young feller down at Panama, an' havin' acted mighty white since they've been in these diggin's, they be allowed next ch'ice o' claims, to the extent o' one hundred an' fifty feet along the main lode, on both side o' the Golden West, bein' 300 feet o' claims in all."
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