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Updated: June 25, 2025
It was lucky they were still able to make a fire. The flames gave them warmth and kept the wolves at bay. But for that and the occasional small game they had been able to shoot, they would have perished long ago, and then the gold-fever would have claimed two victims more.
In such terms does a recent eye-witness describe the splendid prosperity attained within the last two or three decades by that Australia which our fathers thought of chiefly as a kind of far-off rubbish-heap where they could fling out the human garbage of England, to rot or redeem itself as it might, well out of the way of society's fastidious nostril, and which to our childhood was chiefly associated with the wild gold-fever and the wreck and ruin which that fever too often wrought.
The Pike's Peak gold excitement was then at its height, and everybody was rushing to the new gold diggings. I caught the gold-fever myself, and joined a party bound for the new town of Auraria, on Cherry Creek, afterwards called Denver, in honor of the then governor of Kansas.
That, however, will surprise you the less when I pause to declare that I have paid as much as four shillings and sixpence for half a loaf of execrable bread; that my mate and I, between us, seldom took more than a few pennyweights of gold-dust in any one day; and never once struck pick into nugget, big or little, though we had the mortification of inspecting the "mammoth masses" of which we found the papers full on landing, and which had brought the gold-fever to its height during our very voyage.
It was well that this news reached California at that critical time; for so contagious had become the "gold-fever" that everybody was bound to go and try his fortune, and the volunteer regiment of Stevenson's would have deserted en masse, had the men not been assured that they would very soon be entitled to an honorable discharge.
Encountering a heavy gale on the western coast of South America, his vessel was so much disabled as to be compelled to put into the harbour of San Francisco for repairs. Here the first violent attack of the gold-fever had set in.
And whether Buckle's statement is correct or not, this holds: Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" influenced Henry George more profoundly than any other book he had ever read. Henry George was not yet immune from the gold-fever microbe, and several times was lured away into the mountains, "grubstaking" a man with hope plus and secrets as to gold-bearing quartz that would paralyze the world.
"Supposing we wait and see him wash out another pan of dirt," and Thure turned his flushed face and glowing eyes eagerly to Ham. "I never was so much interested in anything in my life." "You shore have got the gold-fever an' got it bad," laughed Ham. "An', I reckon, you're not th' only boy hereabouts that is a-sufferin' with it," and he glanced at Bud's flushed face.
She moved her head in thanks, and he continued: "If in this or any other form of the mad gold-fever I can heap up a little of that cursed I mean blessed dust, you may possibly see me in England. Till then or till death which seems equally likely, I remain, "Your affectionate Uncle, "Brian Locke Harper. "P.S. I send this through Marmaduke Dugdale's late agent in New York.
"Amen," murmured the widow, as Will drained the glass; "I hope they may get plenty of gold without catching the gold-fever, which is just another name for the love of gold, and that, you know, is the root of all evil. But go on telling me about your adventures, Will; I never tire of hearing you relate them."
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