accidents to which the gold-seeker is constantly liable. Futile attempts of physician to save crushed leg of young miner. Universal outcry against amputation. Dr. C, however, uses the knife. Professional reputation at stake. Success attends the operation. Death of another young miner, who fell into mining-shaft. His funeral. Picturesque appearance of the miners thereat. Of what the miner's costume consists. Horror of the author aroused in contemplation of the lonely mountain-top graveyard. Jostling of life and death. Celebration of the anniversary of Chilian independence. Participation of a certain class of Yankees therein. The procession. A Falstaffian leader. The feast. A twenty-gallon keg of brandy on the table, gracefully encircled by quart dippers. The Chileños reel with a better grace, the Americans more naturally.
| Letter the Fifth | page 67 |
DEATH OF A MOTHER—LIFE OF PIONEER WOMEN
Death of one of the four pioneer women of Rich Bar. The funeral from the log-cabin residence. Sickly ten-months-old baby moans piteously for its mother. A handsome girl of six years, unconscious of her bereavement, shocks the author by her actions. A monte-table cover as a funeral pall. Painful feelings when nails are driven into coffin. The extempore prayer. Every observance possible surrounded the funeral. Visit to a canvas house of three "apartments". Barroom, dining-room, kitchen with bed-closet. A sixty-eight-pound woman. "A magnificent woman, a wife of the right sort". "Earnt her 'old man' nine hundred dollars in nine weeks, by washing". The "manglers" and the "mangled". Fortitude of refined California women pioneers. The orphaned girl a "cold-blooded little wretch". Remorse of the author. "Baby decanters". The gayety and fearlessness of the orphaned girl.
| Letter the Sixth | page 77 |
USE OF PROFANITY—UNCERTAINTY OF MINING
Prevalence of profanity in California. Excuses for its use. A mere slip of the tongue, etc. Grotesqueness of some blasphemous expressions. Sleep-killing mining machinery. What a flume is. Project to flume the river for many miles. The California mining system a gambling or lottery transaction. Miner who works his own claim the more successful. Dr. C. a loser in his mining ventures. Another sleep-killer. Bowling-alleys. Bizarre cant phrases and slang used by the miners. "Honest Indian?" "Talk enough when horses fight". "Talk enough between gentlemen". "I've got the dead-wood on him". "I'm going nary cent" (on person mistrusted). All carry the freshness of originality to the ear of the author.
| Letter the Seventh | page 87 |
THE NEW LOG-CABIN HOME AT INDIAN BAR
Change of residence to Indian Bar. Whether to go to the new camp on muleback over the hill, or on foot by crossing the river. The water-passage decided upon. An escort of Indian Barians. Magnificence of scenery on the way. Gold-miners at work. Their implements. "The color". The Stars and Stripes on a lofty treetop. A camp of tents and cabins. Some of calico shirts and pine boughs. Indian Bar described. Mountains shut out the sun. The "Humbolt" (spelled without the d on the sign) the only hotel in the camp. A barroom with a dancing-floor. A cook who plays the violin. A popular place. Clinking glasses and swaggering drinkers. "No place for a lady". The log-cabin residence. Its primitive, makeshift furnishings. The library. No churches, society, etc. "No vegetables but potatoes and onions, no milk, no eggs, no nothing."
| Letter the Eighth | page 103 |
LIFE AND CHARACTERS AT INDIAN BAR
Ned, the mulatto cook and the Paganini of the Humboldt Hotel. A naval character. His ecstasy upon hearing of the coming of the author to the Bar. Suggestion of a strait-jacket for him. "The only petticoated astonishment on this Bar". First dinner at the log cabin. Ned's pretentious setting of the pine dining-table. The Bar ransacked for viands. The bill of fare. Ned an accomplished violinist. "Chock," his white accompanist. The author serenaded. An unappreciated "artistic" gift. A guide of the Frémont expedition camps at Indian Bar. A linguist, and former chief of the Crow Indians. Cold-blooded recitals of Indian fights. The Indians near the Bar expected to make a murderous attack upon the miners. The guide's council with them. Flowery reply of the Indians. A studious Quaker. His merciless frankness and regard for truth. "The Squire," and how he was elected justice of the peace. The miners prefer to rule themselves.
| Letter the Ninth | page 117 |
THEFT OF GOLD-DUST—TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT
The "Squire's" first opportunity to exercise his judicial power. Holding court in a barroom. The jury "treated" by the Squire. Theft of gold-dust, and arrest of suspect. A miners' meeting. Fears that they would hang the prisoner. A regular trial decided upon, at the Empire, Rich Bar, where the gold-dust was stolen. Suggestion of thrift. Landlords to profit by trial, wherever held. Mock respect of the miners for the Squire. Elect a president at the trial. The Squire allowed to play at judge. Lay counsel for prosecution and defense. Ingenious defense of the accused. Verdict of guilty. Light sentence, on account of previous popularity and inoffensive conduct. Thirty-nine lashes, and to leave the river. Owner of gold-dust indemnified by transfer of thief's interest in a mine. A visit to Smith's Bar. Crossing the river on log bridges Missouri Bar. Smith's a sunny camp, unlike Indian. Frenchman's Bar, another sunny spot. "Yank," the owner of a log-cabin store. Shrewdness and simplicity. Hopeless ambition to be "cute and smart". The "Indiana girl" impossible to Yank. "A superior and splendid woman, but no polish". Yank's "olla podrida of heterogeneous merchandise". The author meets the banished gold-dust thief. Subscription by the miners on his banishment. A fool's errand to establish his innocence. An oyster-supper bet. The thief's statements totally incompatible with innocence.
| Letter the Tenth | page 133 |
AMATEUR MINING—HAIRBREADTH 'SCAPES, &C.
Three dollars and twenty-five cents in gold-dust. Sorry she learned the trade. The resulting losses and suffering. Secret of the brilliant successes of former gold-washeresses. Salting the ground by miners in order to deceive their fair visitors. Erroneous ideas of the richness of auriferous dirt resulting therefrom. Rarity of lucky strikes. Claim yielding ten dollars a day considered valuable. Consternation and near-disaster in the author's cabin. Trunk of forest giant rolls down hill. Force broken by rock near cabin. Terror of careless woodman. Another narrow escape at Smith's Bar. Pursuit and escape of woodman. Two sudden deaths at Indian Bar. Inquest in the open. Cosmopolitan gathering thereat. Wife of one of the deceased an advanced bloomer. Animadversions on strong-minded bloomers seeking their rights. California pheasant, the gallina del campo of the Spaniards. Pines and dies in captivity. Smart, harmless earthquake-shocks.
| Letter the Eleventh | page 149 |
ROBBERY, TRIAL, EXECUTION—MORE TRAGEDY
Theft of gold-dust. Arrest of two suspected miners. Trial and acquittal at miners' meeting. Robbed persons still believe the accused guilty. Suspects leave mountains. One returns, and plan for his detection proves successful. Confronted with evidence of guilt, discloses, on promise of immunity from prosecution, hiding-place of gold-dust. Miners, however, try him, and on conviction he is sentenced to be hanged one hour thereafter. Miners' mode of trial. Respite of three hours. Bungling execution. Drunken miner's proposal for sign of guilt or innocence. Corpse "enwrapped in white shroud of feathery snowflakes". Execution the work of the more reckless. Not generally approved. The Squire, disregarded, protested. Miners' procedure compared with the moderation of the first Vigilance Committee of San Francisco. Singular disappearance of body of miner. Returning to the States with his savings, his two companions report their leaving him in dying condition. Arrest and fruitless investigation. An unlikely bequest of money. Trial and acquittal of the miner's companions. Their story improbable,