CHAPTER LXXII.

THE COMICAL STORY OF PIKE.

As soon as we were left to ourselves we built a roaring fire, in spite of all Pike’s remonstrances. “It’s jist as good a thing as the Injuns want,” said he. “It’s jist showin’ ’em whar we are. We’ll all lose our skelps afore mornin’.”

When we began to think of supper, we found that we had played a little joke on ourselves, in our hurry to get the other fellows away in order to make sure of Pike. We had nothing in the shape of provision except a few pounds of rice, which happened to be on Tom’s horse. We put some of this into a gold-pan and boiled it, but it was rather poor eating without either butter or salt. As we were sitting about the pan scooping up this rice with knives and wooden paddles, Pike said: “I allers knowed I didn’t like rice as well as I thought I did, and now I’m sure of it.” But we had plenty of tobacco and what we lacked in “grub” we made up in smoke. As soon as it grew dark Pike became very restless.

“What was that?” he would say. “Did you hear the rocks rattle upon the hillside?” and he would peer out into the darkness.

Tom now began to sing as loud as he could roar:

“My name it is Joe Bowers, I’ve got a brother Ike, I come from old Missouri, yes, all the way from Pike.”

“Stop singin’ so loud, Tom,” cried Pike in alarm. “Don’t!” But Tom roared the louder—

“I’ll tell you why I left thar, and how I came to roam, And leave my poor old mammy, so far away from home.”

“Tom! Tom! Good Lord don’t!” begged Pike.

“I used to love a gal thar, they called her Sally Black, I axed her for to marry me, she said it was a whack, But says she to me: ‘Joe Bowers, before we hitch for life, You’d orter have a little home, to keep your little wife.’”

“If you’ve got a little home, Tom,” said Pike, “I wish to God you was now in it!”

“Says I, ‘my dearest Sally, Oh! Sally for your sake, I’ll go to Californy, and try to raise a stake.’”

“That thar’s a fool song,” said Pike, “and nobody but a fool would sing it!”

“But one day I got a letter, from my dear brother Ike, It came from old Missouri, sent all the way from Pike.”

“Whar I wish to the Lord I was now!” groaned Pike.

“It brought the goldarndedst news that ever you did hear, My heart is almost bustin’, so pray excuse this tear, It said my Sal was fickle, that her love for me had fled, That she’d married with a butcher, whose har was orful red.”

“Thar’ll be butchers here ’fore long,” groaned Pike.

“It told me more than that, Oh! it’s enough to make one swear! It said Sally had a baby, and the baby had red hair.”

“Now, cuss yer pictur!” said Pike, “yer done, air yer? I’ll bet thar’ll be red har enough here before mornin’. Your singin’ has played thunder with us, sure as thar’s wool on a nigger, but you’ll not have a bit on the—”

“Top of his head, where the wool had orter be,” roared Tom.

Pike was now at his wits’ end, and went off a rod or two from the fire and sat down by a dark clump of bushes, sullen and thoroughly disgusted. Tom called out to him: “Say, Pike, are you loadin’ that revolver o’ your’n?” but Pike had the sulks and would not condescend to answer. It was soon time to “turn in” for the night, and each man took his blankets and sought the smoothest place to be found. Pike and one of our party known as “Hank,” spread their blankets together at some distance from the fire, which was now quite low, while the rest of us found places for our beds among some willows.

[Illustration: THE STORY OF PIKE AND TOM.]

Pike lay awake a long time listening for Indians, and would rise to his knees at the slightest sound, pulling the blankets off Hank, who was trying to make him lie still, so that he could get to sleep. There was a high hill on the east side of the cañon, covered on the side next to us with shelly slate rock, and whenever a fox, coyote, or even a rat ran over this it caused a great clatter, the scales of slate ringing like pieces of pottery. This was a place fruitful of alarms and caused Pike to be upon his knees about every five minutes, but about midnight he could keep his eyes open no longer. Hank made the signal agreed upon, by holding up his hat, when two of the boys crept cautiously out of the camp with six-shooters in their hands. By following up a little ravine they were able to gain the summit of the slaty hill without making the slightest noise, as there was no loose rock except on the slope. Presently they started down the slope through the loose rock, leaping and making as much noise as though old Winnemucca and half the Piute tribe were coming down the mountain. At the same time they began yelling and firing their revolvers. At the first racket made on the hill Pike was on his feet and came running toward us, who were returning the fire of the supposed Indians, and yelling as we fired, making altogether enough noise for half a dozen small battles. When Pike reached us two or three of our men fell, crying out that they were killed, and at the same time Hank fell and caught him about the legs, crying: “I’m wounded. Carry me off and hide me in the bushes!”

“Let go of me, Hank, there’s five hundred of ’em comin’!”

“I’ll never let go of you,” said Hank. “Carry me off!”

Pike then lifted Hank who was groaning at a terrible rate, and carrying him about two rods, pitched him, neck and heels, into a clump of thorny bushes. This done, Pike rushed down the cañon at the speed of an antelope. Tom rolled on the ground and laughed until he almost smothered himself. “I’m even with Pike on the prickly-pear business!” cried he, as soon as he was able to speak, “he shall never hear the last of this Injun fight!” For my part, now that the fun was all over, I began to feel quite miserable over the whole affair. I feared that in his great fright Pike might dash his brains out against a tree or break his neck among the rocks. I firmly resolved never to take part in another affair of the kind, calling to mind several sham fights and other deviltry in California that had been attended by fatal results to the victims.

In the morning we were ready for a start at sunrise. The first thing I saw was Pike’s hat, lying near the place where he had spread his blankets the night before. The sight gave me quite a shock, as it seemed to be the hat of a dead man. I soon found that the others were beginning to feel much as I did about the matter, for, as Pike’s blankets were being rolled up to be packed on Tom’s horse, one of the boys said: “I hope nothing has happened to Pike.” Another said: “O, he’s all right!” but at the same time it was easy to see that the speaker feared that he was not “all right.”

As we passed down the cañon, I could not help thinking that we should presently find Pike lying wounded or already dead in some rocky pit or pile of boulders near the trail, and most of our party looked quite solemn. The man who carried Pike’s hat looked as though he were in a funeral procession, carrying a portion of the corpse. At length we were through the cañon, and having reached the level plain without finding Pike’s remains, we all felt quite jolly again and immediately set to work and planned another surprise for him, when we should find him. Instead of fording the river, as we had done in going out, we went some two miles further down and crossed at a ferry. We inquired of the colored man in charge if anyone had crossed during the night. He assured us that no one had crossed, as he found the boat tied up on the west bank, as he had left it the evening before.

We now knew that Pike must have crossed at the ford and again began to feel uneasy, fearing that reaching the river in a state of exhaustion, he had plunged in and had been swept under by the current. One of two things was certain: he was either safe across, or was drowned, as the Mississippi itself would not have stayed his flight. On turning into the main street of Chinatown we came suddenly upon a group of men with minie muskets in their hands and in their midst stood Pike, with a handkerchief tied about his head. He had a musket in his hand and was the centre of attraction. We could see that he was telling those about him of the dreadful affair of the previous night. All those surrounding him were listening so intently that we approached without being observed. Pike was just saying: “Yes; Hank may be alive. I carried him about two miles on my back, with the red cusses yellin’ at my heels, then laid him down and kivered him up with brush. But all the rest—” Here Pike turned and saw our party. His jaw dropped, and his eyes almost started from their sockets.

“Well, what of the rest?” said one of his auditors.

“Why, my God! they are all here!” said Pike. “There they all stand!”

The crowd now turned to us, and began to ask: “Who was killed?” “Were there many Indians?” and many other like questions. Not a word of this, however, could we be made to understand. We had seen no Indians; we had never dreamed of any danger from Indians. The whole crowd at once turned to Pike for an explanation. Some of the men hinted that unless he gave a pretty satisfactory explanation of his strange stories he would get into trouble. Pike was thunderstruck and gazed at us with a look of utter helplessness. At last he stammered: “Tom, wasn’t you killed?”

“If I was killed I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

“I thought I saw you fall,” and Pike’s face wore the most puzzled look imaginable. His fingers sought the yellowish tuft of hair on his chin and gazing at one and another of us he sighed: “I don’t understand it all.”

“We none of us understand it,” said one of the crowd, sneeringly.

“All here—all here!” said Pike, his countenance wearing the look of an insane person.

“Pike,” said I, “you must have dreamt all this about Indians.”

Pike’s face brightened for a moment, but soon resumed its old look of despair. “No, no,” said he, “no dream. I saw them all killed.”

“But, Pike, look at us; we are all here—all alive and well!”

Pike looked vacantly about him at the boys, and said: “Yes, I know, but I don’t understand it at all.”

“Well,” said I, “all there is about it is that you were dreaming and suddenly rose up shouting ‘Injuns! Injuns!’ and before we could stop you, you ran away down the cañon.”

“Yes,” said Pike, “it must have been a dream. You are all here—it must have been a dream. But it don’t seem that way at all.”

“Don’t seem what way?”

“Why, the way you tell it.”

“Well, how does it seem. Let us hear you tell it. Let us have your dream.”

“Give us the dream! Let’s have yer dream!” cried the crowd.

“Well, you see I was a layin’ thar in my blankets—But I’ll be dogoned ef I believe I did dream it!” cried Pike. “I can almost hear the guns crack now!”

“Of course you dreamt it. Ain’t we all here?”

“Yes; I know. But how did I act—what did I do?”

“Why, I’ve just told you all you did. You know that after you went to bed you was bouncing up on your knees every five minutes, and at last you bounced up and took to your heels.”

“Yes; I know I was a little oneasy like. I kept a-hearin’ somethin’ rattle up on that hill, so I kinder kept on my guard like.”

“Well, let us have the dream,” all again cried.

“Well,” began Pike, “at first I was a-dreamin’ along kinder nice and easy like, when all at once I heard the rocks clatter—I mean I thought I heard ’em clatter. Then bang, bang! pop, pop! went the guns, and O! sich yells—sich yells! I thought my hair riz straight on end, and I seed more’n five hundred Injuns, all a-hoppin’ down the hill like turkeys. All this time I thought that you fellers was a blazin’ away at about two hundred of ’em that was all round you, and about five hundred on the hill. Then I thought I grabbed up a pick and went right inter the thick of the cusses and fit and fit till I’d wore out the pick, and then fit a long time with the handle. By this time I thought you fellers was all killed and I thought I’d git up and dust. But jist then I thought that Hank got holt round my legs and said he was wounded, and wouldn’t let go of me ’thout I’d carry him off. I thought I tuck him on my back and carried him ’bout four miles, and hid him in some brush. Then I thought I run on and waded across the river—”

“No, no! you didn’t dream that! You did actually wade across the river.”

“Well, then what part of it did I dream? Can anybody tell me that?” and poor Pike looked more puzzled than ever.

“You must have waded the river, you know, or you would not be here.”

“Well, yes; I s’pose I did, but that don’t seem a bit plainer, nor hardly half as plain as the shootin’ and yellin’ part. That was the dogonest plainest dream I ever did hev!”

“Yet, as we are all here, alive and well; it must have been a dream?”

“Oh, yes, it was a dream, sartain and sure, but what gits me was its bein’ so astonishin’ plain—jist the same as bein’ wide awake!”

Pike continued to tell his dream for some years, constantly adding new matter, till at last it was a wonderful yarn. He enlarged greatly on the part he took in the fight, and after wearing out the pick on the skulls of the Indians, wound up by thrusting the handle down the throat of a brave, as his last act before beating a retreat. Tom more than once told him the truth about the whole affair, bringing in half a dozen of the “boys” to corroborate what he said, but not a word of it would Pike believe.

“Do you think,” he would say, “that I was fool enough to believe that sich things actually happened? No, it was all a dream from fust to last, and the biggest and plainest dream I ever had!”

The account I have given of our prospecting trip is a fair sample of all such expeditions—though this trip “panned out” rather more than the usual amount of deviltry. Parties of men frequently travel two or three hundred miles to prospect a certain region, and when they reach it, merely scratch about on the surface for a day or two and if nothing is then found they curse the place and strike out for some other section, when the same surface scratching is repeated. With prospectors the “big thing” is always just ahead, never in the place where they are. Of course good miners are frequently found, but in nine cases out of ten a prospecting trip results about as did the little scout given above.

When we were prospecting there were things worth looking after, but we did not pay any attention to them. We saw in the cañon abundant indications of coal, but we were looking for gold alone. The coal, the croppings of which we saw, is now being extracted by a company and their mine is one of great value. Near where we camped while prospecting in the cañon now stand the steam-hoisting works of the coal company. It may look as though we did very little work for a prospecting party, but I have known a party of men to travel three hundred miles without having washed a pan of dirt; half the time they did not even dismount from their horses when looking at mining ground. Large parties do less work than small ones, as they can never agree in regard to where they are to set in or what is to be done. If one or two men wish to stop and prospect, the others are pretty sure to say: “Confound the place! there is nothing there. I know by the looks of the ground that it is of no account,” and so the whole party moves on, and a _good_ place in which to set to work is never found.

A majority of those who go on prospecting expeditions do not want to find a place where there is going to be much hard work to be done. They prefer rambling through the country and viewing new and curious sights to sinking shafts and running tunnels. If they can’t find gold or silver in rock that shows itself on the surface, they continue to travel. The novelty of delving in the earth for the precious metals has long since passed away in the case of the old miner or prospector. New-comers—known as “pilgrims” or “greenhorns”—are much more likely to do real work when on a prospecting trip than any of the old miners. In the case of the pilgrim there is a fascination in the bare fact that he is digging for silver or gold which drives him on and lends strength to his muscle.

THE GREAT FIRE.

[OCTOBER, 1875.]

Many large fires have at various times swept through Virginia City, but the greatest and most destructive that ever occurred in the town was that of October 26, 1875. At 6 o’clock on the morning of that day a fire started in a little wooden lodging-house on A street, in the western part of the town, which in a few hours destroyed all the buildings standing on an area of ground half a mile square, in the heart of the city. Most of the public buildings and the hoisting-works, and many other buildings of the bonanza mines, were burned. In all, property to the value of over $10,000,000 was swept away. About two thousand buildings were reduced to ruins, and hundreds of persons left homeless and destitute.

The fire started at an hour when few persons were abroad. Only the butchers, bakers, marketmen, and other early risers were astir. The “owls” of the city, birds of prey that haunt the place all night, had disappeared with the grey of dawn and were in their first deep sleep; the time was an hour too early for the change of shifts in the mines, therefore at no other time, day or night, could the streets have been found more completely deserted.

When the first fire-bells rang few persons heeded, even though they heard them. Soon, however, the mournful and long-drawn wail of one steam-whistle after another, in quick succession, was heard to join in sounding the alarm till the fierce clangor of the bells was almost drowned. The bells, loudly as they rang, only said: “There is a fire,” but in the fierce, wild shriek of the whistles there was that which thrilled all, and which said as though with a human voice: “There is a fire, and a great and most dangerous one!” In the sounding of the whistles it was to be noted that there was no hesitation or timidity anywhere shown; each engineer pulled open the valve of his whistle to its full extent, at the first grasp of his hand.

The fire started in the midst of scores of wooden buildings, and seemed to dart above all the surrounding roofs at the first bound. In addition to their being constructed of wood, nearly the whole of the buildings in the neighborhood were lined with cotton cloth, on which was pasted paper, as on a plastered wall. The partitions dividing the room, and the ceilings of all the rooms, were also constructed of muslin and wall-paper. Hardly a drop of rain had fallen during the preceding summer months, and the whole town was as inflammable as scorched flax.

Almost instantly the column of fire that was at first seen to arise began to assume the form of a pyramid. The base of this pyramid rapidly extended into the sides of houses in all directions—the glass falling in showers from the windows to give ingress to the flames—and structure after structure burst out in sheets of fire more rapidly than could be counted or noted down. Shouts of men and women rang through the halls of all the large hotels and lodging-houses in the neighborhood, and loud rappings, to arouse the sleepers, were heard at the doors of rooms. Nearer the scene of the fire, persons of all ages, both sexes, and every condition were fleeing for their lives in all stages of dress and all manner of undress. Many of those nearest the building in which the fire broke out had only time to leap from their beds and rush into the streets, as their houses were wrapped in fire before they were aware of their danger.

At the time the fire burst forth a fierce gale was blowing from the west. This carried great sheets of wall-paper, blazing shingles, and a great shower of fiery missiles of all kinds high into the air and far to the eastward, kindling fresh fires in advance of the main roaring mass of flame. The main body of the fire streamed before the gale as fierce as the flame from a blow-pipe. It stopped for nothing. It was seen resting against the side of a stone or brick building for a minute, then black smoke began to roll up through the roof, and a moment after the smoke became flame—flame that joined the main stream and darted on and through all that stood in its way.

Many of the buildings destroyed were such as had always been thought fire-proof; but they fell before the fire as quickly as though they had been the commonest of wooden structures. There was apparently much fire in the midst of the streets as within the buildings; indeed the whole air seemed on fire. Water thrown into the midst of the flames produced no effect unless, as many thought, it added to their fury and fierceness. Although the firemen were at work with both hand-engines and steamers, while yet but few buildings were involved, the water they threw upon the burning buildings might as well have been as much oil, for any effect it had in checking the flames. The firemen were driven back from every point where they attempted to make a stand, and it soon became evident that no efforts of theirs could check the progress of the fire. It was such a fire as that which swept Chicago and Boston—a fire as fierce and uncontrollable as though belched up from the bottomless pits of the lower regions.

When it was seen that the fire was wholly beyond control, that it must take its own course and burn its way out through the city, the wildest confusion ensued. It was as when a beaten army begins its retreat. All took what they could conveniently carry in their hands, those things they most prized, and fell back out of the track of the fire. Men, women, and children thus leaving their homes, and house after house being thus deserted, a great human wave was pushed back on all sides toward the suburbs of the city. Hundreds moved their goods again and again, each time losing something, until at last they found themselves driven far up on the open face of the mountain, empty-handed, panting for breath, and parched with thirst. While the whole face of the mountain seemed a sea of fire, with great billows tossing to and fro, the sounds that reached the ear were as fearful as the scene spread before the eye. From the armories of the various military companies, from the gunsmith shops and from many of the variety-stores, there came a constant roar of exploding cartridges, guns, pistols, fire-crackers, bombs, rockets, and all manner of fireworks, sounding like the steady discharge of small arms in a great battle. Amid and above all this din were heard the frequent and startling discharges of giant-powder, gunpowder, and Hercules powder, as building after building was blown up in various parts of the town.

As the fire began to approach the great mining-works these heavy reports became more frequent and terrific. The miners carried into buildings, not a few cartridges only of the powerful explosives they were using, but whole boxes of them, and when these were fired they seemed to shake Mount Davidson from base to peak. By the blowing up of buildings, and by almost superhuman exertions at carrying water and wetting the roofs and sides of houses, the progress of the fire was stayed at a few important points, and a great amount of valuable property saved that would otherwise have been destroyed; yet, in the main, the flames held their course through the heart of the town.

Thus in a few short hours was swept away the best part of what at dawn had been a fair city—a city filled with elegant and comfortable homes, handsome and costly public buildings, large stores, packed with all manner of valuable goods, and mills and mining-works the most complete of the kind in the whole world. All these were licked from the face of the mountain, and but a wilderness of toppling walls and smoking ruins showed where they had been.

This great fire was started in a low lodging-house kept by a woman known as “Crazy Kate”—Kate Shea—by the breaking of a coal-oil lamp in a drunken row, as is asserted by those who occupied the adjoining houses.

In its march to the eastward down the slope of the mountain, the Court-house was the first large public building that was destroyed; the building and rooms of the Washoe Club, filled with elegant furniture and costly paintings, was the next to fall. Devouring at a gulp a score of smaller buildings, the International Hotel, the principal hotel of the city and a huge brick structure, filled with stores, saloons, and other places of business on its first floors, was soon reached by the flames and became a volcano of fire. About the same time, further to the southward, the Bank of California, the _Enterprise_ (newspaper) building, and many large brick and stone structures, from three to five stories in height, were vomiting fire from every window and door from roof to basement. Soon Piper’s Opera House, a huge frame building, like some great fire-ship was spreading terror through the neighborhood; while to the right and southward the Methodist, Catholic, and Episcopal Churches were towering pillars of fire, with seas of fire below and about them. To the left and northward the freight and passenger depôts of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad Company, with many smaller buildings, were pouring great streams of fire to the eastward into the hoisting-works of the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, which in turn, with over a million feet of lumber, sent a broad river of flame into and over the big mill of the company—a mill the most costly and complete then in operation in any part of the world. Not only this mill, but also the California stamp mill, near at hand, was here swept away. The buildings of the new “C and C” (California and Consolidated Virginia) shaft were saved through the most strenuous exertions of many miners, and after blowing up many houses.

To the northward at this time, the City Hall and scores of large and costly private residences were wallowing in a lake of flames, which lake overflowing on the east, inundated the several buildings constituting the works of the Ophir Mining Company, sweeping them from the face of the earth. Building after building was hurled hundreds of feet into the air to prevent the fire reaching these works, but nothing stayed its advance. Shattered buildings seemed to burst into flames in mid-air and their wrecks served but as trains laid to lead the fire more surely to the doomed works.

At times great whirlwinds came down the side of the mountain and waltzed about in the midst of the burning buildings, carrying spiral columns of flame and fiery missiles thousands of feet into the air. The tops of some of these pillars of fire were seen by persons fifteen or twenty miles away. An Indian who was on the opposite side of Mount Davidson, and on the west side of Washoe Valley, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, fifteen miles distant, observed one of these whirlwinds of fire, which he said “looked like an augur,” and started for the city to see what had befallen it. Jonah-like he wanted to see whatever trouble there might be in store for the place. He reached the top of Mount Davidson in time to see the churches all aflame. A grand view of the burning town he must have had from the top of the mountain!

At first, while but a few houses were on fire, there was heard some wailing among the half-dressed women and children, but as block after block became involved, the ruin being wrought was on a scale so grand that the excitement and terror of the scene forbade all thought of anything so small that tears could prove a solace for its loss.

When all was over, the people for a time seemed stupefied, or rather drunk, with the excitement of the day, and it was almost night before many of them remembered that they were without homes. All the houses left standing were soon filled; many young men, who could do so, went by rail to neighboring towns, while, for one or two nights, persons camped out on the sides of the hills—the school-houses and other public buildings remaining being filled to overflowing. The next morning after the fire, relief came pouring in from all quarters, for over two thousand buildings were destroyed, and hundreds of people were left homeless and destitute. Carson City sent two or three car-loads of provisions, ready cooked, early the next morning after the fire, to supply the immediate wants of the sufferers, and San Francisco and other towns and cities of California, at once telegraphed money and started clothing, blankets, bedding, and provisions over the Sierras, by express. A Relief Committee was organized in the city, and similar committees in San Francisco and other towns and cities of the Pacific Coast, and soon all the sufferers were made as comfortable as shelter, food, and clothing could make them. All the towns of Nevada and California contributed as generously as though their own people had been in distress, and San Francisco was untiring in her efforts for the relief of the sufferers as though the people of Virginia were her own sons and daughters. But two persons are known to have perished in the flames, though there were scores of narrow escapes. After the fire two or three men were killed by falling walls.

The insurance on the property amounted to $2,500,000, and this, with what many had left in money, stocks, and other kinds of property, joined with stout hearts and unlimited faith in the inexhaustible wealth of the mines, gave all courage to set to work at re-establishing themselves.

To rebuild the town was the one thought of all. The next morning after the fire the work of cooling down and clearing away the ruins of buildings was in progress in hundreds of places; lumber was coming in by rail and was being hauled up on the still smoking ground. From that time forward the work went on almost day and night, and in all kinds of weather. A week after the fire a tornado blew down and demolished a great number of the newly erected and partially completed wooden buildings, but the moment the storm ceased the wrecks were cleared away and building was again resumed. The mining companies whose works were destroyed showed undaunted spirit and indomitable energy. The Consolidated Virginia Mining Company’s hoisting-works and mill, and the California Mining Company’s stamp mill, were a loss of over a million dollars at one fell swoop.

The Consolidated Virginia hoisting work’s assay-office, 1,250,000 feet of lumber and timbers, 800 cords of wood and the stock of mining supplies on hand was a loss of $800,000.

The loss by the burning of the Consolidated Virginia mill was $431,000; battery mill of the California Company, $80,000; hoisting-works and building of the Ophir Company $150,000; a total loss to the bonanza mines of $1,461,000. Large as were the losses of the several mining companies they had hundreds of men at work the day after the fire at clearing away the still burning ruins preparatory to immediate rebuilding. There was not a moment’s hesitation.

In November the Consolidated Virginia Company declared their usual dividend (No. 19), of $10 per share on their capital stock, aggregating $1,080,000; and again in December a dividend (No. 20), amounting to the same great sum was declared. Thus did this Crœsus of mining companies pay out to stockholders the princely sum of $2,160,000 during the time they were engaged in the costly business of rebuilding their works and filling them with expensive machinery. That they could do this must seem incredible to persons unacquainted with the almost inexhaustible deposits of rich ore in the bonanza mines.

The withholding of one of these dividends would have furnished more than enough money to have rebuilt both hoisting-works and mill, but having millions in sight in the lower levels of the mine which could be rapidly taken out when once the works were again running, the company gave the stockholders their regular dividends, just as though nothing had happened. The California Company had both their stamp-mill and their pan-mill almost completed and in a short time, but for the fire, would have been extracting ore. Their pan-mill (an improvement on the big mill of the Consolidated Virginia Company), one of the finest in existence, was saved, being nearly half a mile to the eastward of the mine and the scene of the fire. The shafts of the Ophir and Consolidated Virginia mines were blocked up and filled in with earth about their mouths when it was seen that the buildings covering them were doomed to destruction, yet the fire worked its way some distance down the latter and was with difficulty extinguished. Had the fire reached the immense masses of timbers in the underground works it would perhaps have gone through the whole of the mines on the northern part of the Comstock range, when the loss would have been many times greater than that of all that was destroyed on the surface, counting in all that was swept away in the town as well as on and about the mines.

In San Francisco the wildest excitement prevailed on California Street and, indeed, in all parts of the city as soon as it become generally known that a great fire was raging in Virginia City, and that the mining-works were in danger. Those who first received news of the fire did not make it public, but began selling their stocks on the street. Ophir, which closed at $52.75 on Monday evening, October 25, was offered, Tuesday morning, October 26, at $50, and considerable amounts of the stock were sold at this figure. As the news spread all stocks fell, and before the panic ended Ophir sold as low as $36 per share, but before night rallied to $41. Thousands upon thousands of shares of stocks were sold on California Street (the grand rallying place for dealers in stocks) before the Stock-Boards opened, the street being a surging mass of pale-faced and excited humanity. In the San Francisco Board, when the calling of the list of stocks began the place instantly became a perfect bedlam.

In the evening, when the full extent of the damage done by the fire had reached San Francisco, the people became quiet and began to gain courage. They reasoned that although the surface-works of the leading companies had been destroyed the mines were still there and as rich as the day before the fire; that the resumption of the extraction of ore was only a matter of time and all would be going on as usual in from forty to sixty days. Finally all retired for the night, greatly reassured, and the terrible panic was over. The people of San Francisco were correct in their estimate of the energy of the men who were at the head of the affairs of the mining companies—Col. James G. Fair and John Mackey, of the Consolidated Virginia and California, and Capt. S. T. Curtis, of the Ophir. In less than thirty days new buildings stood in the place of those that had been burned, both at the Consolidated Virginia and Ophir mines; and on Thanksgiving Day, just thirty days after the fire, the hoisting engine of the latter was started up amid the rejoicings of some hundreds of persons who had collected at the works, and (merely to be able to say that it was done) a few car-loads of ore were hoisted from the 1,300 foot level, though the business of regularly hoisting ore was not resumed until after the starting of the large pump and the proper draining of the mine, some time afterwards.

Before the expiration of the sixty days allowed (by close calculators at the time of the fire) for the rebuilding of the Consolidated Virginia hoisting-works, they were not only put up in better style in all respects than before the fire, but they were again taking out ore at the rate of over $1,500,000 per month. The Ophir Company were also soon after hoisting ore as before the fire, and ere long the work of extracting the vast stores of immensely rich ore (hitherto untouched) standing in great squares in the mine of the California Company was begun, giving full employment to the splendid mill of that company and, with the yield from the Consolidated Virginia, adding $3,000,000 per month to the hard-money wealth of the world.

In order to guard against a recurrence of such a calamity as that described in this chapter, the people of Virginia City at once set about the construction of a series of large reservoirs upon the side of the mountain above their town which, with a proper system of mains and hydrants, should afford them better protection against fire than they had ever before enjoyed. In sixty days after the fire the principal streets running through the burnt districts were again lined with business houses, the majority of which were of a better class than those destroyed, and dwellings once more covered what a few weeks before a good deal resembled the bottomless pit. The gap left in the city by the fire was again filled, and was not readily distinguished by strangers, except by its striking resemblance to a new patch placed on a pair of old pantaloons.

But for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad all this work could not have been done in a year. Indeed it would have taken the whole winter, with all the teams that could be pressed into the service, to have hauled from the mills in the mountains sufficient lumber to rebuild the mining-works alone. Nearly all of those whose homes were destroyed would have been obliged to seek shelter in California, and it would have been a difficult matter to bring in enough provisions and other supplies to comfortably keep such as remained in those parts of the city left intact.

The Railroad Company not only poured into the city an unbroken stream of lumber, timbers, and supplies of all kinds for the use of the mining companies and citizens, but at the same time did a vast amount of work for themselves. Their depôt buildings, trestle-work, bridges, switches, the timbers of a tunnel, track, and, in short, all of their improvements in the city were destroyed. All these were replaced and at the same time all the other work done. Trains ran day and night—as many as forty-five trains passing over this road some days—and thus was the great work of rebuilding so speedily accomplished that a new town seemed to spring up out of the ground.

THE END.

APPENDIX. MEXICAN MINING TERMS.

_Agua_—Water. _Acciones_—Shares in a mine. _Ahogar_—To gouge out a mine by working narrow and only in rich places. _Ademada_—Timbered. _Abonar_—To pay a debt by instalments. _Azogue_—Quicksilver. _Aire_—Air. _Bonanza_—A large and rich body of ore—prosperity. _Borrâsca_—Barren rock—bad luck—adversity. _Bartolina_—A chamber cut out in a mine in which to keep tools and stores. _Barranca_—A precipice. _Barretero_—A miner. _Barrena_—A drill. _Batea_—A wooden bowl used in washing auriferous earth. _Buena saca_—Doing well. _Contro-pozo_—An “upraise” to meet a winze. _Contra Mina_—An underground connection. _Charqueo interior_—To lead water to a drain. _Cavallo_—A “horse”—a block of barren rock in the midst of a body of ore. _Cinta_—A streak of ore. _Chorrerra_—A cave—the caving in of a mine. _Cavassos_—Borings—drillings. _Cavasal_—A cross-piece—timber. _Calabrote_—A large rope. _Cabreste_—A hair rope—a line. _Canada_—A deep ravine, gulch. _Cuarzo_—Quartz. _Cascajo_—Gravel. _De Cielo_—The roof—working overhead. _De Pied_ or _a Pique_—Beneath the floor—sinking, or working down. _Derotada_—Gutted, spoiled and abandoned. _Dispacho_ or _Dispensa_—An ore-house. _Destajo_—A contract. _El Cordon_—A ridge or spur of a mountain. _El Creston_—A crest or outcropping. _El Rumbo_—The course. _El Manto_—(mantada)—A flat deposit. _Escabar_—To strip a claim on the surface merely. _El Tajo abierto_—An open cut. _El Socabon_—An adit. _El Tiro general_—The main shaft. _El Crucero_—A cross-cut. _El Fronton_—An ore breast. _El Alto_—The hanging wall. _El Abajo_—The foot wall. _El Patio_—The level space at the mouth of a mine or tunnel. _Echardero_—A platform for weighing, sorting, or packing ore on. A Patio of a mine. _En Frutos_—In ore. _En Borra_ (_Emborrescade_, _Borrasca_)—Not in pay ore—“petered out”—applied to the barrenness of veins, not to dead work, as a tunnel run to reach a vein. _Fundido_—Filled with water. _Fueros_—Special privileges. _Guardas de Labor_—Roof and walls of a mine in general. _Grantio_—Granite. _Hilos_—Threads of ore. _Hundido_—A settling or sinking. _Las Sierras_—Mountains or mountain ranges. _La Guia_—A guide, or the float rock. _La Recuesta_—The dip. _Las Medias_—The boundary lines of a claim as marked by _Las Escatas_, stakes, or _Estacada_, staked off. _Las Guardas Rayas_—Monuments of wood or stone. _La Demasia_ or _Hueco_—The unclaimed ground between two claims. _La Bocca-vieja_—The mouth—the old mouth. _La Obra_—The tunnel—the work. _La Lumbrera_—The air shaft. _Las Canones_—The drifts. _La Cata_—A small pit—a “coyote hole.” _La Tabla_—A stope. _La Patia_—A narrow footpath in a mine. _Las Respaldas_—The walls of a mine. _Los Caminos_—The travelled roads in a mine of any kind. _Los Planes_—The deepest workings or bottom of a mine. _Los Pilares_—The pillars of a mine—place of timbers—to “_dispilar_” a mine is to dig down the pillars. _Las Desagues_—The drains of a mine. _Las Escaleras_—The notched stepping poles or ladders in a mine. _La Tronada_—The rocks thrown down by a blast. _Los Llavis_—Beams, timbers. _Latones_—Small poles. _La Quebrada_—A ravine. _Maderas_—All kinds of wood used in a mine for any purpose. _Mecati_—A small line. _Minero_—A miner. _Nivel_—A level. _Obsa muerta_—Dead work. _Orcones_—Forked poles. _Oro_—Gold. _Oro en polvo_—Gold dust. _Oro en pasta_, _bruto_ or _virgen_—Gold bullion. _Presa_—A dam. _Pileta_—A sump or tank. _Paradera_—Sluice-gates. _Pico_—A pick. _Pala_—A shovel. _Polvora_—Powder. _Plata_—Silver. _Plata virgen_ or _brulo_—A rude mass of silver—native silver. _Pizarra_—Slate rock. _Puertas_—When a vein pinches—“cap rock.” _Pied direcho_—A stud. _Pedregal_—A stony place. _Roca_—A rock. _Risco_—A steep rock. _Reata_—A rope for tying mules or horses. _Suffocante_—Hot, bad air. _Terrero_—A pile of waste rock. _Un Mineral_—A mining district. _Una Veta_—A lode or ledge—a true fissure vein. _Una Veta tapada_—A “blind” ledge or lode—a lode that is covered with soil. _Una Vena_—A vein—a narrow seam or streak. _Una Pertinencia_—A claim on a lode. (By the Mexican mining law it is _200 Varas ie Medin_—200 yards running measure. A _vara_ is 33 inches.) _Un Pozo_—A shaft, pit, or winze. _Un Labor_—Any part of a mine from which ore is being extracted. _Un Claro_—Any worked out portion of a mine. _Un Tapextle_—A landing or platform in a shaft—a gallery. _Un Quarton_—A slip or “fault” which cuts off the ore. _Un Clavo_—A chimney of ore. _Un Amparo_—A permit from the Government to quit work on a mine for any time beyond the customary four months in each year. _Un Ojo_—A “pocket.” _Una Bonanza_—A big rich strike. _Una Caida_—A fall—a slide. _Un Barreno_—A drill-hole. _Un Cohete_—A blast. _Un Tequio_—A task—each cleaner’s pile of ore. _Una Adema_—A set of timbers. _Un Malacate_—A horse whim. _Una Manesuela_, _Argans_, _Hicho bueno_—A windlass. _Una Soga_—A native rope. _Un Negocio_—An enterprise, transaction, or business. _Veta Cata_—A new vein. _Vapor_—Foul air. _Ventilacion_—Ventilation. _Ventilar_—To Ventilate.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

The list of illustrations, though numbered consecutively, are somewhat disordered.

Illustration #43 (“Rhode Island Mill, Gold Hill”) at p. 222 is listed _after_ #42 (“Wood and Water”) on p. 227. Illustration #44 (“Resicence of Hon. J. P Jones”), also referring to p. 222 is simply missing. Illustration #46 (“Lumbering on Lake Tahoe”) consists of two drawings with the first “Log Riding:” not appearing in the list. Illustration #80 (“The Hottest Place”) appears at p. 449, not p. 459.

In the Table of Contents,