district. Owners of these various claims, to prospect and develop them,
had dug the side hills of the gulch all over with hundreds of holes from
ten to thirty feet deep, partly through top dirt and partly through
rock. A few would find ore rich enough to excite and encourage all the
rest. More would find rich indications that would stimulate them to work
on as long as they had provisions or credit to enable them to go ahead,
hoping each day for the golden "strike." A large majority of these
prospect holes came to nothing. Many of the miners had claims on several
different lodes, and although they might have faith in their richness,
they wanted to sell part of them to get means to work the rest. We had
plenty of chances to buy for a few hundred dollars in money or trade
mines partly opened, showing narrow streaks of good ore, which,
according to the prevailing belief, would widen out and pay richly as
soon as they were down through the "cap rock."

While work was progressing on the mill I spent considerable time in
looking over these mines, and I went down numerous shafts by means of a
rope and windlass, turned by a lone stranger, who I sometimes feared
might let me drop. I listened to glowing descriptions by the owners,
examined the crevises and pay streaks, and took specimens home to
prospect. This was done by pounding a piece of ore to powder in a little
hand mortar, then putting in a drop of quicksilver to pick up the gold,
and then evaporating that fluid by holding it in an iron ladle over a
fire. The richness of the color left in the cup would indicate the
amount of gold in the quartz.[3] I could soon talk glibly of "blossom
rock," "pay streaks," "cap rock," "wall rock," "rich color," and use the
common terms of miners. I bought two or three mines, traded oxen and
wagons for two or three more, and furnished "grub stakes" to one or two
miners--that is, gave them provisions to live on while they worked their
claims on terms of sharing the results.

[Footnote 3: In testing quartz by specimens,
"greenhorns" were sometimes deceived by "loaded"
quicksilver, that is by that which had some gold in it
and would leave a "color" whenever evaporated. I knew
one miner who worked away in his mine, taking out quartz
all winter, and was in good spirits as he tested a
specimen of his ore every day or two and always found a
rich color. When crushed in the spring his quartz did
not "pay." The bottle of quicksilver he had used all