For Sale, the Golden Queen
This is the story of the great Golden Queen deal, as Hy Smith told it,after recovering his sanity:
Aggy and me were snug up against it. One undeserved misfortune afteranother had come along and swatted us, till it looked as though we'dhave to work for a living. But we plugged along at the Golden Queen,taking out about thirty cents a day--coarse, gold, fortunately--and atlast we had 'bout an ounce and a half. Then says Aggy:
"We could sell this mine, Hy, if we only put our profits in the rightplace."
"Yes," says I. "This is a likely outfit around here to stick agravel-bank on, ain't it? Good old Alder Gulch people, and folks fromdown Arizony way, and the like of that! Suppose you tried it on UnclePeters, for instance--d'ye know what he'd say? Well, this 'ud be aboutthe size of it: 'Unh, unh! Oh, man! Oh, dear me! That ain't no wayto salt a mine, Ag! No, no! You'd oughter done this, and that--that'sthe way we used to do in Californy--nice weather, ain't it? No,thanks--I don't care to buy no placer mines--lots of country left yetfor the taking up of it--it's a mighty good mine, I admit--you'd betterkeep it.' That's what he'd say."
Ag combed his whiskers with his fingers. "I don't think we could closeout to Uncle Peters," says he.
"And if you tried some of the rest of 'em, they'd walk on your framefor insulting their intelligence. Perhaps you was thinking of invitingPioche Bill Williams up to take a look at the ground?"
"Well, no," says Aggy, slowly. "I don't think I'd care to irritateBill--he's mighty careless with firearms."
"I should remark. I ain't a cautious man myself in some ways, and I'vemet a stack of fellers that was real liberal in their idees, but for aman that takes no kind of interest in what comes afterward, give mePioche Bill. Oh, no, Aggy, we don't sell any placer mines in theseparts."
"I tell you what," says Ag. "Let's go up to town. Stands to reasonthere must be a mut or two up there--somebody just dying to go out andhaul wealth out of the soil."
"We're a good advertisement for the business. We look horribleprosperous, don't we?" says I.
The main deck of Ag's pants was made of a flour sack. I had a prettydecent pair, but my coat was one-half horse blanket and the other halfodds and ends. Ag had a long-tailed coat he used to wear when he wasdoing civil engineering jobs.
"We could fix one man out fairly well," says he.
"Yes; and the other would look like the losing side of a scarecrowrevolution."
"Wait a minute," says he, "I'm thinking." So he sat and twisted hiswhiskers and whistled through his teeth.
"I've got it!" says he. "The whole business right down to the dot!Darned if it ain't the best scheme I ever lit on! Here's what happenedto us: We're two honest prospectors that have been gophering aroundthis country for years, never touching a colour, grub running low,and--well, there ain't any use bothering with that part now. I canthink it up when the time comes. Here's the cream of the plant. We'vehad such a darn hard time of it that when at last, under theextraordinary circumstances which I have recounted before, we light onthe almost undiluted gold of the Golden Queen, your mind is so weakenedthat you can't stand the strain of prosperity. You're haunted withdelusions that you're still a poor man, and I can't keep any decentclothes on you--fast as I buy 'em you tear 'em up. Now I'm willing tosell the Golden Queen for the merely nominal sum of--what shall westrike 'em for? Five hundred? For five hundred dollars, then, so Ican get out of this country to some place where my poor pardner willreceive good medical treatment."
"And I'm the goat?" says I. "Well, I expected that. But do you expectanybody's going to swallow that guff? It's good. Ag, it would do finein a newspaper, but can you find a man to trade five hundred hard irondollars for it?"
Aggy drew himself up mighty proud. "I'll tell you what I've done in myday," says he, "I've made an intelligent man believe that the firststory I told him wasn't so. Can you beat it?"
"I know you, Ag," says I. Then we had to slide down and see if wecould get a small loan off Uncle Peters, for we didn't have enough dustto finance salting our sand-bank and pay for a trip to town, too. Agwould have it that we must do our turn for the old man. "It'll amusehim," says he, "and he's more likely to come forward." Truth of thematter was, when Aggy got one of his fine idees, he had to let theneighbourhood in.
Well, sir, Uncle Peters was that pleased he forked over a cartridgefulwithout weighing it. My play was to look melancholy, and tear a slitin my clothes once in a while. I had to just make believe that partwhen we was rehearsing for the old man, as there wasn't enough materialto be extravagant with.
So up to town we goes, and if you ever see a picture of hard luck ontwo feet, it was me.
"I'm going to strike for a gambling joint," says Ag. "You take atin-horn gam, and he knows everything, and that's just the kind of manI'm looking for."
So when we hit town, Ag sails into the Palace Dance Emporium, wherethey had the games running in the middle of the place between the lunchcounter and the bar. He had nerve, had Agamemnon G. Jones.
"Hy," says he, "you'll have to watch the play a little. Mebbe you'dought to change some, just as it happens. I'll have to do my lyingaccording to the way the circumstances fall, so keep your eye peeled,and whatever you do, do it from the bottom of your heart. I can fix itso long as you don't queer me by shacking along too easy."
So saying he fixes the new necktie he'd bought down at the corner,tilts the new hat a little, and braces ahead. He could look moredressed up on 20 cents' worth of new clothes than some men could with awhole store behind 'em.
When we got into the place the folks gazed at us. Aggy was leading meby the hand.
"There," says he, very gentle. "Now sit down, and I'll tell you astory by and by."
I tore a hole in the coat, and mumbled to myself, and sat downaccording to directions.
Then Aggy walks up to where the stud-poker game was blooming.
"Gentlemen," says he, making them a bow, "I trust it won'tinconvenience you any to have my poor unfortunate pardner in your midstfor awhile? I can't desert him, and I do like to play a little cardsnow and then."
"What's the matter with him?" asks the dealer.
Ag taps his head.
"Violent?" asks the dealer.
Now, Ag didn't know just how he wanted to have it, so he didn't commithimself to nothing.
"Oh, I can always handle him," says he.
"Well, come right in," says the dealer. "They're only a dollar astack."
"Well," says Ag, "I'll just invest in $10 worth to pass away thetime--you take dust, don't you?"
"I used to say I wouldn't take anybody's dust," says the dealer, beingfunny with such a good customer, "but since I've struck this countryI've found I've gotter."
Ag pulls out the old buckskin sack, that would hold enough to supportquite a family through the winter. It was stuffed with gravel stones.
"Oh, here!" says he, whilst he was fumbling with the strings. "No useto open that--I've got another package--what you might call smallchange." Then he digs up Uncle Peters' cartridge shell.
I want to tell you I had my own troubles keeping my face together whileAg was doing his work. You never see any such good-natured,old-fashioned patriarch as he was. When they beat him out of a handhe'd laugh fit to kill himself.
"You're welcome, boys!" he'd say. "There's plenty more of it."
At the same time, you wouldn't live high on all you could make out ofAggy on a stud-poker game. He was playing 'em right down to cases, yetthe way he talked, he seemed like the most liberal cuss that ever threwgood money away. Of course, they had to ask him about his pardner andthe rest of it whilst the cards were being shuffled, and a fewinquiring remarks drew the whole sad story out of Ag.
"It's mighty tough," says he; "Hy's a fine-looking feller, when he'sdressed decent; but the sight of new clothes on himself makes himfurious; he foams and rips till he's tore them to gun-wadding."
"Where did you say this here c
laim of yours was?" asks the dealer.
"Up on Silver Creek--just below Murphy's butte," answers Ag politely.
Then that dealer put in a lot of foxy questions making poor, innocent,unsuspecting Aggy give himself dead away. He told how there wasn'ttime to look for a buyer that would pay the proper price and hewouldn't know where to look anyhow, so he'd have to take the first manthat offered, even if he didn't get no more than five hundred for theclaim.
The dealer breathed hard and fairly shuffled the spots off the cards.
"Now," says he, "I sympathise with you--I understand just how you feelabout your pardner. I'm the same kind of man myself, that way. If Ihad a pardner in difficulties, I wouldn't mind what I lost on it solong's I could fix him up."
Here's where I nearly choked to death, for if any man could get theprice of a meal off that tinhorn, without sitting on his chest andfeeding him the end of a six-shooter, his face was one of the meanesttricks a deserving man ever had sprung on him.
"So if I was you," continued the dealer, "I'd get him out of thiscountry quick, and as for your claim, why, I don't mind if I held youout on that myself," says he. "I don't want no mines; I wouldn'tbother with it, only I see you're a good, kind-hearted man, and it's mymotto that such people ought to be encouraged. Now, what do you say ifwe start for a look at the territory this afternoon? Nothing likedoing things up while you are at it." Aggy kind of scratched his headas if this hurry surprised him. "I didn't just think of letting it goso sudden," said he. "You know I'm kind of attached to the place."
"That's all foolishness," says the dealer. "Your poor pardner therewants attention--you can see that--and I don't believe you're the sortof man to let him go on suffering when there ain't no need of it."
"No," says Aggy, thoughtfully, "that's so."
"And would you mind," says the dealer, his hand fairly trembling to gethold of it, "just letting me have a squint at that gunny-sack full ofdust you have in your clothes?" I didn't require any hint from Ag thatit was my place to be violent. With one loud holler I landed on my earon the floor and kicked the poker table on top of the dealer. More'n ahalf-dozen men hopped on to me, and we had it for fair all over theplace. I gave 'em the worth of their time before they got me in thecorner.
"Whew!" says Aggy, wiping his brow, "this is the worst attack he's hadyet."
"Just what I was telling you," says the dealer, very confidential andearnest. "You want to get him away from here quick--I've had someexperience in those kinds of cases, and when I see your friend's face,I knew you wanted to get a move on."
"It's dreadful, ain't it?" says Ag. "I believe you're in the rightabout it--but, say, I feel that I'd ought to pay for the lamp hebusted."
"Not at all," says the dealer, as generous as could be. "Not at all!That's an accident might have happened to any gentleman. Now, I'lljust take a friend along, and we'll sail right out to your place. Canyou drive there?"
"Oh, yes!" said Aggy. "The roads ain't anything extra, but you canmake it all right."
So away goes the four of us that afternoon. Ag and me, we felt learyof the fourth man at first. He let on to be considerable of a miner,but after a bit we sized him up.
"Did you ever," says Aggy whilst they was talking this and that aboutmines, "did you ever run your pay dirt through a ground-sluice rockerthat was fitted up with double amalgam plates, top and bottom, and hadthe apron sewed on to a puddle board that slanted up, instead of down?"
"Why, sure!" says that feller, judging from Aggy's tone of voice thatthis was the proper thing to do. "We didn't use to handle our dirt noother way out in Uckle-Chuckle county."
"Is that so?" cries Aggy, very much surprised. "Well, do you know thatvery few people do?"
"It makes me tired," answers the man in a knowing way, "to think of theway some folks mines. Now that you've called my attention to it, Idon't recollect that I've heard of anybody using a ground-sluice rockerthe way you speak of, since I left old Uckle-Chuckle county." And hereI got a little violent again, because I can't conceal my feelings aswell as Ag. I had to have several attacks on the way out when Ag wasbrought to close quarters, but we did pretty well on the trip.
"Well, gentlemen, there's the Golden Queen!" says Aggy when we turnedthe bend in the creek. "Seems funny that such an uninteresting-lookingheap of rocks and stuff as that should be a gold mine, don't it?"
He sees by their faces that they was a little disappointed and thathe'd better get in his crack first. Then the question come up of howwe was to get them fellers to dig where we wanted 'em to withoutletting 'em see we wanted 'em to. But, Ag, he was able for it.
"Gentlemen," says he, "just stick your pick in anywhere's--one place isjust as good as another. [That was the gospel truth.] But if you don'tknow just where to start suppose we try an old miner's trick, that Mr.Johnson there, I make no doubt, has done a hundred times."
Johnson, he smiled hearty. "Yes, yes! That old game!" says he. "I'dnearly forgot all about it--let's see--how is it you do it?"
"First you throw up a rock," says Ag.
"Oh, now I remember! Sure!" says Johnson. "You throw up a rock----"He stopped, smiling feeble and uncertain, waiting to hear the rest ofit.
"Suppose we let Mr. Daggett [that was the tinhorn] do the throwing?"says Aggy. "He's a new chum, and we fellers always feel they have theluck. You may think this is all foolish superstition," says he,turning to the gambler, "but I tell you, honest, there's a good deal init," and that was the second true thing Ag said that day.
Daggett, he threw up the rock.
"Now, go and stand over it," says Ag. Daggett's goes over according,but he ain't pointed in the right direction.
"Now, you turn around three times."
But after he done it we weren't no better oft than before, for thechump landed just as he had started.
Ag surveyed the ground.
"Now, you walk backward three steps, then four to the left, then backfive more--ain't that it?" turning to Johnson.
"That's it!" says Johnson, slapping his leg. "That's her! The sameold game! Lord! how it all comes back to a feller!"
"And just where you land, you dig," finishes Ag, handing Daggett's pick.
Daggett sinks the pick to the eye the first crack.
"Gosh!" says he. "Seems kind of soft here!"
"Is that so?" cried Aggy, highly excited. "Then you've struck gold forsure!" Having put it there himself he felt reasonably certain about it.
Well, they scraped up the bedrock, and Aggy offered to let Johnson panit, but Johnson said he'd had to quit mining because his hands got sosore swinging a pan, so Daggett he kind of scrambled the dirt out aftera fashion, and there at the bottom was our ounce and a half of gold!Well, I want to tell you there was some movement around there. Weweren't in the same fix of a friend of mine who loaded a pan for atenderfoot with four solid ounces, and when he slid the water around onthat nice little yeller new moon in the corner of the pan, "Humph!"says the tenderfoot, "don't you get any more gold than that out of somuch dirt?"
Four ounces to the pan only means about a hundred thousand dollars aday income.
"Gooramighty!" says my friend, plumb disgusted. "I'd have had toborrow all the dust there is on the creek to satisfy you--did you thinkit was all gold?"
It broke my heart to see the way that man Daggett washed the fine goldinto the creek, but he was familiar enough with handling the dust toknow that an ounce was good money, even if it did look small. Heturned pale, and begun to dig for dear life. There was no prying himloose. Well, that's a point Aggy hadn't counted on. He managed toslide over near me.
"For heaven's sake, Hy!" he whispers, "fly down to Uncle Peters' andget some more dust or we're ruined! I'll put it in the pan somehow, ifyou'll only get it here! Hold the old man up if you have to--but getthat dust!"
I begun to holler very melancholy, and prance around. By and by Ipulled my freight loose and careless down creek.
"Say!" says Johnson, "there g
oes your friend, Mr. Jones! Shall I ketchhim?"
"Oh, no," says Aggy. "Let him alone--he's used to it aroundhere--he'll be back right away again."
When I got out of sight I humped for Uncle Peters.
"Sure!" says the old man, when I told him our troubles. "Take thewhole blasted clean-up, Hy. We honest men has got to stand by each andone another--don't let that rascally tinhorn escape."
So I grabbed Uncle Peters' hard-earned savings and hustled back again.
As soon as I got in good view of the outfit, I knew something waswrong, by the look of Ag's face; but what it was got me, for there wasboth them fellers in the hole now, digging dirt like all possessed.Daggett had busted his supenders, and the other lad's coat was rippedup the back; but they didn't care; they were mauling the fair face ofnature like genuine lunatics, and cussing and swearing in their hurry.
"Well, what's the matter with Ag?" thinks I. "Them fellers ain't goton yet, that's certain," but he looked as if he'd swallowed a stroke oflightning the wrong way. Never see a man--particular a man with Aggy'snerve--look so much like two cents on the dollar. I didn't have to becautious in my approach; our friends were too busy to notice me.
"What the devil's loose, Ag?" says I.
"Oh, nothing!" says he. "Nothing much! They're taking it out by thehatful, that's all. Look!"
I looked, and sure enough! There was the pan with a small-sizedshovelful of yaller-boys in it--pieces that would weigh up to $10 someof them. I couldn't believe my eyes.
"Where'd they get it?" says I.
"Out of the claim," says Aggy.
I nearly fell dead. "Out of the claim!" I yelled in a whisper. "Goon! Your whiskers are growing in!"
"Straight goods," says Ag, "and I had to stand here and see them do it!The Golden Queen is all my fancy painted her. The second pass thatice-pick-faced mut made he brought up a chunk as big as a biscuit. 'Isthat gold?' says he. 'Oh, yes!' says I. 'That's gold!' The truthcome out of me before I thought--it knocked me to see that chunk.First time I ever made such a break--well--well. Why didn't it occurto me to try the taste of that piece of ground before I put in myflavouring? I was so d--d sure there wasn't $13 worth of metal in thewhole twenty acres! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! To sprinkle a pocket that'snear half gold with a little old pinch of dust, is one of themridiculous and extravagant excesses my friend Shakespeare mentions! Ifthere was a lily around here, I'd paint it, so's to go the whole hog."
"What in the name of all the Mormon gods are we going to do?" says I.
"Leave me think," he answers. And again he pulls his whiskers andwhistles through his teeth.
There came a horrible yell from the hole. Daggett held up what seemedlike a yaller potato. "Hooray!" says he. "Ain't that a humming bird?"
"You want to think quick," says I. "I feel something like murderrising in my veins."
"By gosh!" says Ag, snapping his fingers. "I've got her! Come to, youson-of-a-gun. Come to!"
"How's that?" I asked, not just tumbling exactly.
"Come to!" says Ag. "Regain your scattered intelligence! How inblazes can I sell, then, without your consent?"
"Right you are! I'm off!" says I. And with that I cut loose.
"Help!" howls Aggy; "help!"
The two fellers were too busy to want to stop, but after I sent a braceof rocks in their direction, they concluded it might be as well toquiet me first. Lord! How I did carry on! I gave Ag the wink andpulled for the creek, and it was not long before, with Aggy's help, inwe all three went, kersock.
They pulled me out and laid me on the bank, insensible.
"He's dead, I reckon," says Daggett.
"No," says Aggy, "I can feel his pulse beat, but it does seem to methere's a different look in his face somehow."
Then I opened my eyes.
"Why, Agamemnon," says I, "what am I doing here?"
"Hush!" says he, "you ain't been well."
"Dear me! You don't say!" And I rubbed my forehead with my hand.
"But I feel all right now--have I been this way long?"
"Nigh on to six months, Hy, old horse; ever since we hit it so rich onour claim--don't you remember about that?"
"Certainly," says I. "It seems like yesterday; it's as clear--but whoare these people?"
Ag let on to be very much embarrassed. "Well," says he,"why--hunh--why--to tell you the truth, I thought I ought to get youout of the country, to where you could see an expensive doctor, andthese are some folks I brought down to buy the claim--you being sick,you know!"
"Buy the claim!" I hollers, jumping up. "Buy the claim? What's thisyou're giving me? After all my toils and hardships and one thing andanother, to sell the Golden Queen? Well, I want you to understand thatnobody buys this claim, except across my dead body," says I.
Aggy, he looks completely dumfounded. "My! This puts me in an awkwardfix," he says. "Gentlemen, you see how I'm up against it? I can'tsell without my partner's consent, now he's in his right mind; and, asfar as that goes, the only reason I wanted to sell is removed. Thedicker's off, that's the long and short of it."
Oh, how pleased that tinhorn looked! He swallowed three times and gotred in the face before he answered a word.
"This may be all right, but it looks mighty queer to me," he growls.
"The ways of Providence is past understanding," says Aggy, taking offhis hat. "To our poor human minds it does seem queer, no doubt. Now,Mr. Daggett," he continued, waving his arm in that broad-minded stylehe had, "I'm sorry things has come out this way for your sake, althougha man that has such a sympathising nature as you will soon forget hisown disappointment in the general joy that envelopes this camp. And toshow you there's nothing small about me, you can have any one of thosechunks you dug out this afternoon that don't weigh over two dollars."
Daggett sent the chunk to a place where it would melt quick, andexpressed a hope we'd follow it. With that he hopped into his go-cartand pulled for town, larruping the poor horse sinful. We had thepleasure of seeing the animile turn the outfit into the gully in returnfor the compliment. They scrambled in again and disappeared from view.Then Aggy reached out his hand to me.
"Don't tell me nothing but the plain truth, old man," says he; "I can'tbear nothing except the plainest kind of truth, but on your sacred wordof honour, ain't your uncle Ag a corker?"
"Aggy," says I, "I ain't up to the occasion. There ain't a man onearth could do credit to your qualities but yourself."
Then we shook hands mighty hearty.
Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters Page 7
