would be complete, the camp deserted, and the whole
population gone chasing after W.

The tradition was that in the early immigration, more than twenty years
ago, three young Germans, brothers, who had survived an Indian massacre
on the Plains, wandered on foot through the deserts, avoiding all trails
and roads, and simply holding a westerly direction and hoping to find
California before they starved, or died of fatigue. And in a gorge in
the mountains they sat down to rest one day, when one of them noticed a
curious vein of cement running along the ground, shot full of lumps of
dull yellow metal. They saw that it was gold, and that here was a
fortune to be acquired in a single day. The vein was about as wide as a
curbstone, and fully two thirds of it was pure gold. Every pound of the
wonderful cement was worth well-nigh $200.

Each of the brothers loaded himself with about twenty-five pounds of it,
and then they covered up all traces of the vein, made a rude drawing of
the locality and the principal landmarks in the vicinity, and started
westward again. But troubles thickened about them. In their wanderings
one brother fell and broke his leg, and the others were obliged to go on
and leave him to die in the wilderness. Another, worn out and starving,
gave up by and by, and laid down to die, but after two or three weeks of
incredible hardships, the third reached the settlements of California
exhausted, sick, and his mind deranged by his sufferings. He had thrown
away all his cement but a few fragments, but these were sufficient to set
everybody wild with excitement. However, he had had enough of the cement
country, and nothing could induce him to lead a party thither. He was
entirely content to work on a farm for wages. But he gave Whiteman his
map, and described the cement region as well as he could and thus
transferred the curse to that gentleman--for when I had my one accidental
glimpse of Mr. W. in Esmeralda he had been hunting for the lost mine, in
hunger and thirst, poverty and sickness, for twelve or thirteen years.
Some people believed he had found it, but most people believed he had
not. I saw a piece of cement as large as my fist which was said to have
been given to Whiteman by the young German, and it was of a seductive
nature. Lumps of virgin gold were as thick in it as raisins in a slice
of fruit cake. The privilege of working such a mine one week would be
sufficient for a man of reasonable de