as two or three miles
from it, and there are cases of other lodes (three, in all) entirely
distinct, which in some instances approach so close as to be confounded
with it."

There are numerous mines along the whole length of the lode, famous for
having yielded their millions. One quartz ledge is said to have yielded
for a long time, two-thirds gold. They say of the Morgan Mine, at
Carson's Creek near Melones, "It appeared to be rich beyond parallel.
On one occasion $110,000.00 worth of gold was thrown down at a single
blast."

Many expeditions were made in search of the fabled Great Lode but all
attempts were vain.

'The old spread-eagle judge said: "Yes, sir; the Mother Lode dips up in
a bit of a circle with no beginning and no end, in the western foothills
of the Sierra Mountains. Down about Melones, and Sonora, and Angel's
Camp it goes, and through Table Mountain, and under Jackass Hill. It
comes north, and north, past Coloma, and Auburn, to Nevada City and then
it disappears."

I remembered the engineer's statement, but was silent.

"It was the haunt of Harte, and Twain, and Canfield in the north; it was
the bank of such men as Hopkins, Crocker, Huntington and Stanford; the
foundation of one of the greatest states in the Union, the Mother Lode,
the Mother of Gold!"

"Child, my old eyes have watched it spread for nearly ninety years--the
power of gold, and of the men who came to seek it, The influence of gold
controlled by the human intellect. I am old and tired and soon I
shall sleep, but the old see clearly, too clearly, that which they are
leaving, and that to which they pass."

"'Thus, facing the stars, we go out amongst them into darkness'," I
quoted, softly.

"Not to darkness, but to eternal light, to rise again from the Mother
Lode to mingle in the busy lives of men."

"'Who maketh His messengers with two, and three, and four pairs of
wings'."

"Exactly. To be born again, and yet again. The real mother-vein of gold
was imbued in the men shaped by the life of the frontier. It was
the cornerstone of great fortunes, of families, of enterprises, of
achievements which are peculiarly California's own.

"It was the clearing house and open sesame of the vast trade of the
Orient which is just coming into being; the foundation for the bridge
of gold which shall reach across the seas; a fit monument to posterity
which shall be erected with all the lightness and grace and stability
of the present cultured