tury.

I wonder if the glad, gay world knows where it gets its gold? Does that
fair woman, or well-clad, well-fed man, know anything about the life of
the gold-hunter? When the gold is brought to the light and given to the
commerce of the world, we see it shining in the sun. It is now a part of
the wealth of the nation. But do not forget that every piece of gold you
touch or see, or stand credited with at your bank, cost some brave man
blood, life!

This old Forty-nine, years before, when the camp was young, had found a
piece of gold-bearing quartz in a ledge on the top of a high, sharp
ridge, that pointed down into the canyon. This was before quartz mining
had been thought of. But the shrewd, thoughtful man saw that from this
source came all the gold in the placer. He could see that it was from
this vein that all the fine gold in the camp had been fed. He resolved
to strike at the fountain head. It was by accident he had made his
discovery. The high, sharp and narrow ridge was densely timbered, and
now that the miners had settled in the canyon below, the annual fires
would not be allowed to sweep over the country, and the woods would soon
be almost impenetrable. So argued Forty-nine. For all his mind was bent
on keeping his secret till he could pierce the mountains from the
canyon-level below, and strike the ledge in the heart of the great
high-backed ridge, where he felt certain the gold must lay in great
heaps and flakes and wedges. And so it was with a full heart and a
strong arm that he had begun his low, dark tunnel--all alone at the
bottom of the ridge.

He had begun his tunnel in a secluded place, under a tuft of dense wood,
on the steep hillside. He made the mouth of the tunnel very low and
narrow. At first he wheeled out the dirt in his wheelbarrow only when
the water in the canyon was high enough to carry off the earth which he
excavated. He worked very hard and kept very sober for a long time. Day
after day he expected to strike the ledge.

But day after day, week after week, month after month, stole away
between his fingers, and still no sign of the ledge. A year went by.
Then he struck a hard wall of granite. This required drills,
fuse-powder, and all the appliance of the quarry. He had to stop work
now and then and wash in the fast failing placers, to get money enough
to continue his tunnel. Besides, he now could make only a few inches
headway each week. Sometimes he would be a whole month making the