_ CHAPTER XXX. ON THE YUBA RIVER
On the following day Joe and his comrade fell in with a party of men who, like themselves, were on their way to the Yuba River. They were permitted to join them, and made an arrangement for a share of the provisions. This removed all anxiety and insured their reaching their destination without further adventure.
The banks of the Yuba presented a busy and picturesque appearance. On the banks was a line of men roughly clad, earnestly engaged in scooping out gravel and pouring it into a rough cradle, called a rocker. This was rocked from side to side until the particles of gold, if there were any, settled at the bottom and were picked out and gathered into bags. At the present time there are improved methods of separating gold from the earth, but the rocker is still employed by Chinese miners.
In the background were tents and rude cabins, and there was the unfailing accessory of a large mining camp, the gambling tent, where the banker, like a wily spider, lay in wait to appropriate the hard-earned dust of the successful miner.
Joe and his friend took their station a few rods from the river and gazed at the scene before them.
"Well, Mr. Bickford," said Joe, "the time has come when we are to try our luck."
"Yes," said Joshua. "Looks curious, doesn't it? If I didn't know, I'd think them chaps fools, stoopin' over there and siftin' mud. It 'minds me of when I was a boy and used to make dirt pies."
"Suppose we take a day and look round a little. Then we can find out about how things are done, and work to better advantage."
"Just as you say, Joe, I must go to work soon, for I hain't nary red."
"I'll stand by you, Mr. Bickford."
"You're a fust-rate feller, Joe. You seem to know just what to do."
"It isn't so long since I was a greenhorn and allowed myself to be taken in by Hogan."
"You've cut your eye-teeth since then."
"I have had some experience of the world, but I may get taken in again."
Joe and his friend found the miners social and very ready to give them information.
"How much do I make a day?" said one in answer to a question from Joshua. "Well, it varies. Sometimes I make ten dollars, and from that all the way up to twenty-five. Once I found a piece worth fifty dollars. I was in luck then."
"I should say you were," said Mr. Bickford. "The idea of findin' fifty dollars in the river. It looks kind of strange, don't it, Joe?"
"Are any larger pieces ever found here?" asked Joe.
"Sometimes."
"I have seen larger nuggets on exhibition in San Francisco, worth several hundred dollars. Are any such to be found here?"
"Generally they come from the dry diggings. We don't often find such specimens in the river washings. But these are more reliable."
"Can a man save money here?"
"If he'll be careful of what he gets. But much of our dust goes there."
He pointed, as he spoke, to a small cabin, used as a store and gambling den at one and the same time. There in the evening the miners collected, and by faro, poker, or monte managed to lose all that they had washed out during the day.
"That's the curse of our mining settlement," said their informant. "But for the temptations which the gaming-house offers, many whom you see working here would now be on their way home with a comfortable provision for their families. I never go there, but then I am in the minority."
"What did you used to do when you was to hum?" inquired Joshua, who was by nature curious and had no scruples about gratifying his curiosity.
"I used to keep school winters. In the spring and summer I assisted my father on his farm down in Maine."
"You don't say you're from Maine? Why, I'm from Maine myself," remarked Joshua.
"Indeed! Whereabouts in Maine did you live?"
"Pumpkin Hollow."
"I kept school in Pumpkin Hollow one winter."
"You don't say so? What is your name?" inquired Joshua earnestly.
"John Kellogg."
"I thought so!" exclaimed Mr. Bickford, excited.
"Why, I used to go to school to you, Mr. Kellogg."
"It is nine years ago, and you must have changed so much that I cannot call you to mind."
"Don't you remember a tall, slab-sided youngster of thirteen, that used to stick pins into your chair for you to set on?"
Kellogg smiled.
"Surely you are not Joshua Bickford?" he said.
"Yes, I am. I am that same identical chap."
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Bickford," said his old school-teacher, grasping Joshua's hand cordially.
"It seems kinder queer for you to call me Mr. Bickford."
"I wasn't so ceremonious in the old times," said Kellogg.
"No, I guess not. You'd say, 'Come here, Joshua,' and you'd jerk me out of my seat by the collar. 'Did you stick that pin in my chair?' That's the way you used to talk. And then you'd give me an all-fired lickin'."
Overcome by the mirthful recollections, Joshua burst into an explosive fit of laughter, in which presently he was joined by Joe and his old teacher.
"I hope you've forgiven me for those whippings, Mr. Bickford."
"They were jest what I needed, Mr. Kellogg. I was a lazy young rascal, as full of mischief as a nut is of meat. You tanned my hide well."
"You don't seem to be any the worse for it now."
"I guess not. I'm pretty tough. I say, Mr. Kellogg," continued Joshua, with a grin, "you'd find it a harder job to give me a lickin' now than you did then."
"I wouldn't undertake it now. I am afraid you could handle me."
"It seems cur'us, don't it, Joe?" said Joshua. "When Mr. Kellogg used to haul me round the schoolroom, it didn't seem as if I could ever be a match for him."
"We change with the passing years," said Kellogg, in a moralizing tone, which recalled his former vocation. "Now you are a man, and we meet here on the other side of the continent, on the banks of the Yuba River. I hope we are destined to be successful."
"I hope so, too," said Joshua, "for I'm reg'larly cleaned out."
"If I can help you any in the sway of information, I shall be glad to do so."
Joe and Bickford took him at his word and made many inquiries, eliciting important information.
The next day they took their places farther down the river and commenced work.
Their inexperience at first put them at a disadvantage, They were awkward and unskilful, as might have been expected. Still, at the end of the first day each had made about five dollars.
"That's something," said Joe.
"If I could have made five dollars in one day in Pumpkin Hollow," said Mr. Bickford, "I would have felt like a rich man. Here it costs a feller so much to live that he don't think much of it."
"We shall improve as we go along. Wait till to-morrow night."
The second day brought each about twelve dollars, and Joshua felt elated.
"I'm gettin' the hang of it," said he. "As soon as I've paid up what I owe you, I'll begin to lay by somethin'."
"I don't want you to pay me till you are worth five hundred dollars, Mr. Bickford. The sum is small, and I don't need it."
"Thank you, Joe. You're a good friend. I'll stick by you if you ever want help."
In the evening the camp presented a lively appearance.
When it was chilly, logs would be brought from the woods, and a bright fire would be lighted, around which the miners would sit and talk of home and their personal adventures and experiences. One evening Mr. Bickford and Joe were returning from a walk, when, as they approached the camp-fire, they heard a voice that sounded familiar, and caught these words:
"I'm from Pike County, Missouri, gentlemen. They call me the Rip-tail Roarer. I can whip my weight in wildcats."
"By gosh!" exclaimed Joshua, "if it ain't that skunk from Pike. I mean to tackle him." _