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tolerate any idol but himself. I'm recovering from my recent attack, so help yourself to the roses as long as they last. Sylvia need never know that they did n't all come from you."

Delicately inferring her wish, Benton answered, regardless of future complications he could not act otherwise: "Sylvia shall never know." He then asked audaciously, "Is Hereford the iconoclast?"

"How did you know?" she asked, surprised in turn.

"I've learned a good many things sub

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ashes of roses, Sylvia turned to Benton inquiringly, her eyes seeking the explanation that her tongue would not solicit.

Looking straight into her eyes, but feeling like a hypocrite, Benton said: "you've known for a long time, Sylvia, that I love you; but you don't know why I have n't told you so-nor can I now explain my silence. I won a case to-day that has caused me much anxiety, for my life's happiness hung upon the issue. The case was settled out of the courts, entirely to my satisfaction, but it involves a secret which I can't disclose, for it is n't m to tell." He hesitated a moment, and then continued: "Professional men must have secrets, even from their wives. Be my wife and I'll swear to you, on my honor, that you'll never regret your confidence. Will you trust me?"

Pride, love, and intensely human curiosity fought for mastery in Sylvia's heart, and Benton, who knew that he was asking a great deal, felt his heart beat uncomfortably fast as he observed the struggle. She had a perfect right to demand an explanation-it was her due; but when he saw pride and curiosity weighing heavily in the balance against love, he threw a kiss into the scales and-love won.

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FAL

STATUES

AIR Statues! blind ye look, but full within
Of vision more than mortal eyes can show;
A race ye seem of some transcendent kin,

Remote from our dim lot of joy and woe.
Yet human hands could frame you, such the power

In man to rise beyond his own weak hour.

Edward Wilbur Mason.

U

REMINISCENCES OF "BIG RAVINE”

BY WILLIAM K. MCGREW

NFORTUNATELY for the interest of the story to those whose literary tastes imperiously demand. a love plot, the element of romance was virtually non-existent among the scenes and events of the early mining days in California. Conditions revealed only the rugged side of the human character. Softness and refinement made sorry presentment in the semi-barbarous apparel of a miner. They had no affinities in the receuil of the reeking saloon, the gambling-den, or the lair of the courtesan. The day's record was made up of commonplace events varying but little in detail. Life, though nomadic, was drearily monotonous. A mere change of locality brought no change in social environment. The history of to-day was printed on types that were set yesterday. A rich strike caused a momentary impulse, and a murder or two more at the gambling-table or in a drunken brawl made but little impression, though assassination for plunder was condignly dealt with. Sunday was observed in a way; it was a busier day among the merchants, saloon-keepers, and gamblers. The honest miner laid aside his pick and shovel, the swish of the rocker and longtom ceased, and the voice of prayer and praise from some quiet quarter mingled faintly with the murmur of traffic, revelry, and vice. Strange medleys, these mining-camps.

Still there was salt in the mixture. A thin moral stream, re-enforced by a pervading instinct of self-preservation, said to lawlessness, "Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther," and an unwritten law gave short shrift to the shedder of innocent blood. Romance found no place in this hard social concrete. One must look to Bret Harte's apocrypha for knightly chivalry among the Sierra in those days. Those still living who made Auburn their base of mining operations in the winter of 1849-50, will recall what was known as "Big Ravine"-a deep hollow between two spurs of the foothills northwest of the town, that had its brief day of prominence among the placers of the

Auburn

middle district of California. was then literally in its swaddling-clothes. Tents and cloth houses of varied construction presented a renaissance of the patriarchal period. Yet there was an assertive arrogance in the assumption, without letters-patent, of the title of "Auburn City," but the "City" being palpably an unearned increment of its nomenclature, soon fell into disuse. The meeting-house was a tent; the residences and stores were all tents; the post-office was a tent; and the courthouse or alcalde's office was a tent.

An imposing shed occupied by the firm of Walkup & Wyman, dealers in general merchandise, enjoyed the distinction of being the only frame structure in the "City."

If all roads did not lead to Auburn, that which did claimed almost a monopoly of the travel from Sacramento,-not that Auburn was the objective point of the entire volume, but it was a distributing center from which the tide trickled away in rivulets to Illinois Town, Murderer's Bar, and other diggings on the north and middle forks of the American River and the rich deposits on Bear River and Clear Creek. Only a comparatively small portion of the stream eddied at the embryo capital of the future Placer County. The human drift represented every nationality and every phase of the human character -good, bad, and indifferent. The bad were very bad-men who farm the soil of iniquity, who sow tares among the wheat, who live by debasing the instincts of their fellows, and prey upon those whom they have disarmed. The penal colonies of European nations gave their contribution of criminal force, and it was a baleful gift. There were a few females, but with very rare exceptions they were sirens who smile only to lure men to destruction, and who take tribute at the gates of death.

It was in February, 1850, that three newcomers pitched their tent in Big Ravine, about three-quarters of a mile below Auburn. They were not partners, in the general sense of the term; they

simply tented and messed together, but worked independently of each other. Tom Newman, the eldest, was an Arkansas lawyer, a hardshell Baptist exhorter, and he had been, at home, a justice of the peace, and at one time a school-teacher. He was altogether a unique character,— about forty years of age, though he looked much older, rather below medium in stature, and correspondingly thin. He was most excruciatingly cross-eyed, and had a squint which when brought into action engaged every muscle of his face and made wrinkles and crow's-feet until they had become fixtures. It was impossible ever to tell which way he was looking, or from his features what mood he was in. You might think he was contemplating the distant hills with a smile on his countenance, while in reality he would be angrily scrutinizing your face. He impressed one with a belief that he was scrupulously honest-with mental reservations. Never was man better cut out for & hypocrite. Tom smiled but never laughed at least, he seemed to smile, and his irrepressible tendency to quote Latin phrases and poetry won for him the credit of being brimful of erudition.

The two other members of the party were young men but little past the age of majority. "Aleck" was from Texas, the son of a planter, and Mac was a Buckeye from Cincinnati.

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A few steps away from their tent was another belonging to a trio from the State of New York,-Jabez Bloss, a homeopathic physician and the son of a physician of the same school, and his young friend Quackenbush, both from Troy, and another young man, whose name might have been Smith or something else, but to all except his two companions he was known only as "Ho-Bab," from Ticonderoga. They also were new arrivals. These two groups formed a little community to themselves.

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Aleck, the Texan, fell early in the struggle; in fact, he took no part in it. His idea of mining was unorthodox,work was not in it. On the morning of the fourth day in the ravine, Aleck's place in the mess was found to be vacant. He had gone, and with him the few little flakes of gold that constituted the acquired wealth of the party. It was, however, nothing to mourn over, for as a help about the camp he was worthless, and the mite of treasure he took was not worth computing. Neither time nor tears were wasted over his absence. Tom moralized a little, and drew a contrast between Texas honesty and the shining qualities of the

Arkansas article.

Mac prospected around and struck an occasional pocket. Jabe, Quackenbush, and Ho-Bab murmured against Providence and pronounced Big Ravine a big swindle, and old Tom was bankrupt in everything except faith in his claim. The sweat of labor streamed down his grizzled cheek as he toiled at the immovable bowlders. During one of these unequal contests between active and passive forces, Jabe came along, and stopped to watch the outcome. Tom straightened up, and, mopping his corrugated face with both hands, stood facing Jabe, but whether he was looking at him or not was a question that could not be determined by the testi

mony of his eyes, which seemed to be at cross-purposes.

"How are you making it Tom?" asked Jabe.

"I'm all right. Perge modo in hac via!" Tom replied.

"There's only one thing that will prevent you from getting it."

"What's that?

"It is n't there."

"Come to our tent to-night and I li show you," said Tom, and he resumed his calisthenics.

That evening Jabe went over to see Tom and hear his report.

"Well, Tom, how much did you pan out to-day?" he inquired.

"Have n't quite reached it yet," said Tom; "but to-morrow will tell a different story.'

"Tom! If hope was gold, you would be a rich pocket."

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"Nil desperandum," Tom shouted. "Nil the Devil!" said Jabe. "Mac is the only one in this crowd that finds any thing. He's like Moses with his rod. Wherever he strikes his pick, gold flies up. Where is he?"

"I don't know. It's getting late, and he has n't come in yet."

"I hope nothing has happened to him. I'll lay a wager that he will bring something with him."

Jabe had hardly uttered these words before Mac was heard up in the pine woods singing,

66

"O California! there's the land for me! I'm going to Sacramento with my washbowl on my knee."

A few moments later the young Cincinnatian arrived carrying his pan half filled with dirt.

"What have you got there Mac?" Jabe asked.

"O! nothing," said Mac, "but some sticks and dirt. I'm going to make a garden and raise cabbages.'

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But Jabe and Tom followed him into the tent and seized the pan.

"G-e-e-ometry!" Jabe shouted, "it's half-and-half-nearly all gold. Raise cabbages! Well, I think so! Where did you get that?"

"None of that now ! said Jabe. "Tomorrow morning you '11 go back there and you'll take me along with you, or there'll be a coroner's inquest in these diggings, and it won't be on my body."

"Very well," Mac said laconically as he took up the frying-pan containing what Tom had left for his supper.

On the following morning while the doves were softly cooing their welcome to Aurora, Jabe, accoutered with pick and pan, was on hand to accompany Mac to the new placer. It was a small area nearly halfway up the mountain that had been either overlooked by prospectors or passed as unpromising. Mac resumed operations in a narrow ditch, not more than eighteen inches wide and half as deep, while Jabe, with an eye to big game, commenced to sink a shaft a few feet away on the level. They worked until about the middle of the day when Mac announced that his claim had "petered out." He had not seen color for an hour, but the contents of his pan spoke well for his success during the former part of the day.

Jabe had sunk a funnel-shaped hole six feet down in the rotten granite bed-rock, firm in the belief that under the rock would be found the main deposit, but the absence of the faintest suggestion of gold, apostatized him from his faith, and leaping out of the excavation he dashed his pick-ax down into the depths, declaring with an expletive that "if Mac should go down there, he would take out a fortune in less than five minutes."

Evening brought the usual re-union at camp. Jabe, Quackenbush, and Ho-Bab were inspired with florid and lurid anathemas for Big Ravine, and hinted at an exodus.

"How long do you propose to worry those poor old bowlders?" said Jabe, addressing the Arkansas sage.

Tom focused his eyes somewhere between the point of his nose and an indefinite point in space, and twisting his whole countenance into a hieroglyphic puzzle, replied, "Until Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below."

"That is to say that remote posterity will carry on the work in honor of the memory of its great projector-old Tom

"O! just up the hill on a little flat. I Newman, from Arkansas," said Jabe. guess I've got it all."

"Remote posterity will be me in this

matter. Qui facit per alium, facit per se," Tom replied.

"Well Tom, you 've got a long lease on this hollow. If the Sheriff or the Devil should ever come to carry you off, you've only to try to look pleasantly at them and they won't stand on the order of their going."

Tom understood Jabe's dark allusion to his facial beauty and said: "Right! I carry exorcism in my face. Conjuro te O sceleratissime, in nomine Dei abire ad tuum locum."

The meeting adjourned.

On a small flat about a third of a mile up the ravine stood a blue tent labeled with a physician's sign-" Dr. Welborn."

The Doctor was from Evansville, Indiana, and contrary to the accepted idea of Hoosier State products, he was a gentleman of refinement-mild-mannered and full of the milk of human kindness, except when the occasion demanded something different; then he filled all require ments not inconsistent with good breeding. He was also a Christian, but one of the

discriminating sort. He had a good practice, and during the intervals between professional calls worked a mining-claim near his tent.

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About this time some "Sydney Ducks from the British convict colony came to Auburn. Their arrival gave a new impetus to crime and lawlessness. Daylight robberies and midnight robberies became frequent.

One day Dr. Welborn returned from visiting a patient and found a hard-looking stranger working his claim. The Doctor kindly admonished him of his mistake and received a brutal answer of defiance. Welborn stepped into his tent and brought out a double-barreled shotgun, and presenting it at the trespasser, with his finger on the trigger said, "Now, I'll give you one minute to climb out of that claim."

The fellow seized a crowbar and made a leap for the Doctor. The report of his gun brought some of the neighboring miners, who recognized the dead man as one of the "Sydney Ducks."

Another one of the gang was a blackvisaged miscreant named Stewart.

A

few days after Dr. Welborn made his approved shot, Stewart entered the store of a Mr. Eccles, one of the leading merchants and postmaster of Auburn, and began to make himself obnoxious. Eccles, who had been a sheriff in Indiana, and was a warm friend of Dr. Welborn, ordered the ruffian to leave. Instead of obeying, Stewart whipped out a pistol and shot Eccles, killing him instantly. The murderer was arrested and taken before the alcalde who released him on ten thousand dollars bail, the sureties being two of Stewart's pals, who simply came forward and swore that they were worth the sum specified. No written bond was required. Such was the judicial acumen of the creature who metaphorically wore the ermine and dispensed justice in Auburn in April,

1850.

After that, Stewart kept himself pretty well out of sight for some time, but still lurked around the environs of Auburn, doubtless intent upon avenging the death of his pal, but Dr. Welborn had in the mean time moved away, on account of the rapidly diminishing population, owing to the exhaustion of the placers.

He

On the evening of the last day in April, a pigmy tent was planted in the narrow interval of space between the two belonging to Mac and the New York boys. The occupant of this low cloth shelter was a vicious-looking individual with a face almost as dark as that of a mulatto. had no mining implements, and he located. no claim. Digging for gold was not his business. It was Stewart, the "Sydney Duck," and murderer of Eccles. What object he had in view was not apparent, but his presence boded no good. That night there was an Indian alarm about a half-mile down the ravine. Mac went to assist in driving off the marauders, leaving Tom alone in the tent. Two buckskin pouches containing several hundred dollars worth of gold-dust and nuggets, belonging exclusively to Mac were among the effects that the pious old Tom was supposed to keep watch and ward over. Tom had nothing of his own except the clothes he wore. Mac had found him and the Texan Aleck at Sacramento in d tress; they had just arrived across the plains by the southern route, and had not

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