s made up
mostly of Georgians. They had their own tastes and prejudices. Soon
after we came to the mountains, at their miners' meeting a man was
convicted for some offence and sentenced to receive thirty lashes from a
heavy horsewhip. The day for the execution of the sentence was regarded
as a kind of holiday and the miners collected from all the country
around. All our men, including Sollitt, went to the whipping. Stubbs and
I stayed at home. We had no relish for that sort of amusement. A thief
was more sure of punishment than a murderer. There was so much property
lying around in cabins unguarded, while the owners were off mining or
prospecting, that stealing could not be tolerated, while the loss of a
man now and then by killing or otherwise did not count for much.

When it was found that the mill could not be run during the winter, we
discharged all the men except the cook, and two others, who were kept to
help do a little mining on two of the claims that we had secured by
trade and purchase. A shaft about three feet by six was sunk in each,
which followed the vein of mineral quartz down to a depth of thirty to
fifty feet. In one, the vein was quite rich in places, but only two or
three inches wide, and it would not pay to work it; but the hope that
kept us, like hundreds of others at work, was, that the vein would widen
out when we got a little deeper and grow richer as it went down. This
hope was never realized. The other shaft was on a lode called the
Keystone, and developed a wide vein of black pyrites of iron that much
resembled that which was being taken out of the best paying mines, and
most of the miners that examined it declared that we had a bonanza. Of
course we were in good spirits, but we did not care to run in debt in
order to take out more mineral than we got in sinking the shaft, of
which there were several cords. I worked a part of each day in the
shafts, with the others, to learn the details, drilling, blasting and
picking out the "pay streak." Then I spent a good deal of time looking
around among other mines, and the mills that were at work, to learn what
I could. Quite a number of other miners were at work in the gulch
sinking shafts on their best claims and taking out ore to be crushed in
the spring. To some of these we furnished provisions to enable them to
keep at work. Most of the roving, restless, fickle people had gone home
in the fall and those who stayed were men of grit and determination.