Fool's Gold

by Steve Stroble

camp: flour, beans, occasional pork or beef, and coffee. Fortunately Yee’s tasty rice dishes and the fish that he caught supplemented the diet. Yee’s huge conically shaped gold sifting pan doubled as a cooking utensil. Ever thorough, Yee used the pan to catch the silt and gravel that exited the sluice to sift through it one last time for any gold that had escaped from the sluice.

  As the snow higher up in the Sierra receded to mere patches, the river slowly grew narrower. This allowed the miners to extend their claims further and further out into the river course that had dried. For most of them the results were no better. For others conditions improved. Such was the case for the company of McBride, Yee, and Thomas. Their ten-foot wide claim happened to parallel a series of boulders in the river. On the upstream side of the rocks they began to find pockets of gold that had been deposited there during previous rainy seasons. By the start of autumn 1849, the three had amassed six pouches of gold, almost a pound and a half. The rest had been spent for supplies. Thanks to the payments he had received for his services rendered as a doctor, McBride also held another 11 bags. As October stretched on toward November McBride called a meeting.

  “Mr. Yee and Mr. Schmidt, I am happy to report that the good Lord has smiled down on us. We have a good enough poke set aside to get us through at least part of the winter.”

  “We will keep working the claim, then?”

  “Well, Thomas, once the rains start and the weather turns cold it’s too risky.” The doctor shook his head as he remembered the previous winter. “Everything turns to mud. The rocks get slippery. If you fall in the water now, it’s slow enough and there are enough miners around to snatch you out. Not so from once it starts raining until next March or April.”

  Thomas scanned the riverbanks. Already fewer miners were working their claims.

  “A lot of the claims are empty of gold so they have already sold out or abandoned their claims. Some companies leave a man or two to guard the claim while the rest head off to Sacramento or San Francisco for the winter. The rains will push more gold down this far from the mountains. Then the miners will be back. So we have to decide whether to sell this claim or stick it out here for the winter.”

  “Sell it?” Thomas could not believe that to be an option.

  “When I got here last spring it was plenty cold. The miners told me they even had a dusting of snow once or twice last winter. If we were staying the winter we’d need to build us a cabin and quick. My skills are for doctoring. Mr. Yee’s are for cooking. I know you can swing an ax, Thomas. But none of us are lumberjacks. It’d be hard since all the nearby timber’s already has been cut for firewood and cabins. Any cabin would have to be right near the claim to do us any good.”

  “Could we find another claim next spring?”

  “Hard to say. By then there’ll be thousands more miners up here. The newest miner up here told me there’s regular transportation running between San Francisco and Sacramento now. They’re bringing in riverboats. The miners are going to come in more and more now. Mark my words.”

  Thomas frowned, which he often did when faced with a decision. “I don’t know what is best.”

  “One other thing. Spending the winter up here in the foothills brings sickness and disease and death to the miners. Even the healthy ones can catch a disease. Being in Sacramento means we would be warmer, drier, and eat a whole lot better. Food there costs less than half of what it does up here. How about a steak or chops or stew at least once in a while?” McBride smacked his lips. “That’s real chow, real eating! The grub up here has gotten mighty old. If we didn’t have Mr. Yee cooking to spice it up, I’d a quit a long time ago.”

  Thomas’ hesitation mattered little. Old enough to be the other two’s father, McBride was much more susceptible to the windy, damp, and at times foggy winters of Northern California. His joints and bones often ached and his lungs grew congested in such a climate. The only relief came from taking frequent hot baths, sitting near a hot woodstove, and imbibing in his favorite Scotch or Irish whiskies. All of those comforts could be found about 50 miles downriver.

  The stagecoaches and ships running between San Francisco and Sacramento had at times helped to push the latter’s population beyond that of the city by the Pacific. Most of the incoming horde dwelled in makeshift tent cities that lay planted around Sacramento’s outskirts. McBride’s plans were to spend the winter in one of the city’s hastily erected hotels, regardless of Yee or Thomas’ decisions.

  If push comes to shove I’ll trade my doctoring to the hotel staff and their families to keep my room.

  Yee was all for selling the claim. He had amassed enough gold to return home. When Thomas still balked, McBride reached a compromise. He presented it hesitantly.

  “Okay. Mr. Yee and I will head down to Sacramento. You stay here until the claim sells and then come and meet us there. Sell the tent and tools, too. That way you can ride Daniel back to civilization and meet us even sooner.”

  “But what if it does not sell?”

  McBride shrugged. “Then it’s yours. You can pay Mr. Yee and me for it out of your share that you earned. If you don’t show up in Sacramento within three weeks, Mr. Yee and I will assume you decided to stay on here. Deal?”

  Thomas was stunned. He easily could remove the “Claim 4 Sale” sign once the other two had left and then continue to milk the claim indefinitely. He knew that McBride understood all of that. And yet, the veteran of three gold strikes trusted him. Thomas felt a strange mixture of pride and opportunity. Pride because no one – be it family, friends, or employers – ever had trusted him to such a degree. And he sensed opportunity because even if the claim were eventually to sell, he secretly planned to continue to work it until such a sale. He had grown envious by always thinking about McBride’s extra gold earned from his doctoring. Thomas was certain that his plan would give him extra bags of gold. Maybe that would sate his envy.

  As McBride and Yee left the next morning, the former gave Thomas final instructions. They had changed from the ones that he had issued yesterday.

  “Try to get $50 for the claim. That’s a fair price. Tell any buyers how the gold gets deposited every year by the boulders, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And if it doesn’t sell in two weeks abandon it. Forget what I said about it being yours. And don’t go looking for another claim!” He wagged his finger in Thomas’ face. “I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about you. I don’t want you to stay here and be catching something that kills you. You better not make your wife a widow. I don’t want your blood on my hands. I already have my wife’s blood on them.”

  “Don’t say that. You tried your best to save her.” Thomas welcomed the change in subject. He was certain that he could pull at least three more ounces of gold from the claim in two weeks. That was better than nothing.

  There were other diehards. One miner put it this way in a letter written to his wife in September 1849:

  I suppose you have read large stories about the mines but they are not half of them true; no two men tell the same story. Some men make $16,000 in one day, but it is only one chance out of a thousand; the average is from ½ to 2 ounces per day…I shall stay up to the mines all winter, if I can make an ounce a day.

  After Yee and McBride had started down the trail, Thomas went to work. It was slow going. First he had to fill the sluice with dirt and then sift through the gravel that lay trapped on its bottom after the water washed the sand and dirt away. Finding a little gold dust after the first such routine convinced him that he was right to continue working the claim. For the next week he kept on working at least ten hours a day. The sun was now coming up much later and going down much earlier than it had during summertime. In the second week it rained daily, sometimes only a brief shower, other times a downpour that lasted for hours. Thomas donned his raincoat and worked.

  Being alone, eating cold food for most meals, and working in poor weather soon gave Thomas a case of what might best be called canyon fever, which was s
imilar to camp fever and cabin fever. Some suffered from camp fever on the long trek west to the goldfields. The close confines with their fellow travelers would wear them down until one day they erupted into a fight or abandoned their wagon train for another. Such behavior was understandable. Back home they had lived in separate residences. Those who were farmers or dwelled in the country had been a good distance from their nearest neighbor. Not so on the prairie, in the mountains, or in the desert as part of a wagon train. Snoring, burping, farting, and drunken ramblings could often disturb sensibilities at night and deprive the offended of much needed sleep. The miners who spent the long cold winter in cabins near their claims could come down with cabin fever. For them it seemed as though the four walls were closing in on them. The only known remedy for cabin fever was time away from the cramped quarters. This was not always possible when cabins became snowbound or the rain lasted for days. Then sick jokes about ending up as the Donner Party had would fray the more fragile one’s nerves even more.

  Thomas’ case of canyon fever involved two stone walls instead of four wooden ones. As each day passed the canyon seemed to grow progressively smaller and the stakes higher and higher. At the same time his lust for gold grew ever larger.