STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 AN HISTORICAL TALE OF THE UPPEE 
 LEAD REGION, 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES M. QOODHUE, 
 
 Founder of the St- Paul Pioneer Press. 
 
 JOSEPH COVER, Jr., Publisher. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 JAMESON & MOKSE, 162-164 CLARK STREET. 
 1883.
 
 Copyright, 1883, 
 
 BY 
 JOSEPH COVEB, LANCASTEB, WISCONSIN.
 
 T>N the following admirable series of sketches of life in the lead mines as 
 
 I it existed in the early days of the development of the lead industry in, 
 
 southwestern Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois, Col. Goodhue has 
 
 woven both fact and fancy. He was for a time a resident of the locality 
 
 wherein the scenes of the story are located, and partook of the pioneer life 
 
 of the West as it then existed. His familiarity with the rugged and unique 
 
 characters of that day has given his pen sin easy gi-a.ee in describing them; 
 
 some of whom ha,d their living prototypes in " the mines." Jim White was 
 
 no imaginary Texan Major, nor did he consult imaginary lawyers. 
 
 The action in "forcible entry and detainer," and the omnibus bill 
 passed by the Wisconsin Legislature, as herein depicted, are "studies from 
 life," in the history of the Northwest. 
 
 Believing that Struck a Lead will have special interest to the early 
 settlers of the lead district yet living, and to the many admirers of the 
 brilliant author in his life time, as well as to the genera.! reader, who will 
 find delight in the romantic episodes that occur in "the wooing o't " 
 between the hero and heroine, this tale is herewith submitted to the pub- 
 lic for the first time in book form, by 
 
 THE PUBLISHES. 
 
 2072381
 
 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 AN HISTORIC TALE OF THE UPPER LEAD REGION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOAT. 
 
 At sunset, on the ist day of September, 184 , the 
 steambeat Roarer, then lying at the, port of St. Louis, cast 
 off her moorings and swept gracefully into the channel of 
 the Mississippi ; and now she breasts the torrent with her 
 strong arms, and dashes behind her a shower of spray, in 
 which she is wreathed a moving rainbow. St. Louis, with 
 her warehouses, steeples and steamboats, soon disappears in 
 the distance, and the chiming of her evening bells break 
 indistinctly upon the ears of the passengers, while the sun 
 sinks, like a red iron ball, behind the wide plains of the West. 
 The Roarer soon passes the mouth of the Missouri which 
 rushes down from the Rocky Mountains like a herd of 
 affrighted buffaloes scampering through one of Cooper's 
 novels (no libel intended) and next she passes the city of 
 Alton, reposing on the dusky bank of the river; Alton, the 
 city of magnificent projects and bankrupt pork merchants; 
 one of those mushroom cities which grew out of the expan- 
 sion of bank issues in the years of 1835-36, and which was 
 designed to be the focus of five hundred railroads, ENACTED 
 by the Legislature of Illinois. Forest and bluff echo the 
 coughing of the high pressure steamboat, the Roarer; and
 
 6 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 now she passes the mouth of the sluggish Illinois, which 
 glides into the Mississippi like an overgrown eel. Onward 
 struggles the Roarer, puffing and wheezing, and trembling 
 in every joint; the shores, dimly lighted by the blaze of the 
 boat's furnaces, seem still as wide asunder as those of the 
 lower Mississippi. On one shore rises an abrupt bluff to 
 the height of forty or fifty feet, and the other is a bank of 
 fresh crumbling alluvion, being the terminus of a wide plain 
 which seems to be dissolving in the river. And now, as 
 night advances, there is seen far up the river, a steamboat 
 rushing with the stream. Her furnaces, like eye-balls, glare 
 in the darkness flames stream from her tall black flues 
 the waters foam around her and as she rushes by the 
 Roarer her name, " lone," printed upon her wheel-house, 
 is scarcely legible, so quickly does she pass. 
 
 In the cabin of the Roarer sat several persons, some of 
 whom were playing a game of brag. Two of the players 
 seem to be professional gamblers. They belonged no- 
 where in particular, but inhabited the river generally, from 
 the Balize to St. Peters. Bright shone the chandeliers sus- 
 pended above the tables; but the night was far advanced 
 and many of the passengers the careful country merchant 
 the English tourist the old man on a visit to the South 
 and the young man seeking his fortunes in the West, 
 one after another retired to rest. One of these gentle- 
 men in black was engaged in an interesting game of cards 
 with Jefferson Randolph Rutleclge, Esq., whose father had 
 commissioned him to invest fifteen thousand dollars in the 
 purchase of negroes in the upper country. Mr. Rutledge 
 had great confidence in his own ability in his own ability 
 to beat anybody in the world at a game of brag or at any- 
 thing else. He is in bad luck that night, and has already
 
 A MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOAT. 7 
 
 lost thirteen thousand dollars. Mr. Black, who was pitted 
 against him, played coolly. Believing that Rutledge's pile 
 was nearly exhausted, he determined to overbrag the young 
 gentleman, and oversize his pile. Rutledge held three 
 " bullets" and bragged a thousand dollars. 
 
 " Two thousand better," says Black. 
 
 Rutledge looked dismayed he was brok'e. A stranger 
 standing at his elbow who had watched the game and saw 
 that Rutledge held a sure hand, lent him a large bundle of 
 bank notes, and whispering to him, "here, young man are 
 fifty thousand dollars, brag it all." In the meantime Mr. 
 Black had borrowed all the funds of his fellow blacklegs to 
 meet the emergency. 
 
 " Fifty thousand better," says Mr. Rutledge. 
 
 "I am broke," replies Black, pushing his pile across 
 the table to his adversary. " Here is only thirty thousand; 
 for the remaining eleven thousand, sir, you must take an I 
 O U;" and thus ended the game of " brag." The passen- 
 gers slept; but the engine rested not the fiery furnaces 
 were unquenched, and the Roarer still dashed onward, and 
 the watchful eye of the pilot in the wheel-house soon dis- 
 covered another boat, the " Orion," coming in the rear of 
 the Roarer. " Hurrah for a race!" shouts the mate. "Wood 
 up! boys, wood up! They say this new low pressure boat, 
 the Orion, outruns lightning." The Orion came darting 
 along, without much apparent exertion; gaunt and slender 
 as a greyhound. The firemen of the Roarer were splitting 
 their wood fine; and having dipped it in barrels of tar, they 
 plunged it into the furnaces. Columns of black smoke, 
 commingled with the flame, poured from the flues. The 
 firemen sweated and swore, and swilled whisky the pulsa- 
 tions of the paddles were quickened to a fearful rapidity.
 
 8 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 The Roarer trembled and struggled forward like a maniac. 
 Her escape pipe whistled the shrill note of alarm, but it was 
 smothered by adding weight to the safety-valve. Barrels 
 of rosin were pitched into the furnaces, and lard and hams 
 were sacrificed, but in vain; for the Orion slowly stole 
 alongside, and the two rival boats ran side by side, neck by 
 neck, for half an hour, until at length the Roarer fell grad- 
 ually in the rear. 
 
 While the Orion was running alongside of her antago- 
 nist, a fine muscular young man, dressed in the uniform of 
 Texas, leaped like a panther from the Roarer's guards 
 onto the deck of the Orion. Having alighted, he turned 
 to the captain of the Roarer, and told him very politely 
 that he felt anxious to reach Galena, and hoped, there- 
 fore, the captain would excuse him for taking as speedy 
 conveyance as possible. In two minutes after the Roarer 
 was blown up. As the young man, whose name is White, 
 is the hero of my tale, I will briefly inform the readers how 
 he happened to be on board the Roarer. 
 
 It is sufficient for the present to say that he was on his 
 return from Texas. Of course he was out of funds; for 
 although it was very common for men to carry money into 
 Texas, it was very uncommon for them to bring any away. 
 The poor devil was completely broken down; and, to tell 
 the truth, had not the means of paying his passage up the 
 river. He had fought at the battle of San Jacjnto held a 
 commission in the army of Texas frequented the levees of 
 Sam Houston and danced fandangoes with the Spanish 
 girls of Mexico. He had seen prosperity and adversity 
 had been in battle, and oftener in love; arid, in short, al- 
 though not twenty-five years of age, Jim White had seen 
 all sorts of life.
 
 CITY OF GALENA THE MINERAL REGION. 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CITY OF GALENA AND THE MINERAL REGION. 
 
 If this biography should chance to be read by any 
 reader living east of the Allegheny Mountains, that reader 
 may be curious to know what, if not even where, the city of 
 Galena is. On the evening of the 5th day of September at 
 about sunset, the Orion turned her bow eastward into the 
 channel of a sluggish little stream called Fevre River, and 
 after winding her way between precipitous bluffs for half a 
 dozen miles, she was moored in the city of Galena. The 
 town is built in the amphitheatre of hills; and at first view 
 appears like a flock of houses coming down to water. The 
 river appears to have its source under the town. The build- 
 ings back of Main street rise one above the other like 
 theatre boxes; and, in short, Galena, take it all in all, is one 
 of the most grotesque little cities in the world. It has its 
 mayor, aldermen and common council, its ordinances and 
 police regulations like the cities on the Atlantic seaboard; 
 and cuts a figure much like a boy who has just exchanged 
 his frock for pantaloons and jacket. When the traveler be- 
 holds the large quantities of lead piled upon the levees and 
 considers that Galena is the principal outlet for the richest 
 and most extensive mineral regions in the world, he will no 
 longer wonder " what the devil Galena is encamped there 
 for!" 
 
 A few years ago, Galena was a mere. hamlet co'ntaining 
 a few miners' cabins and groceries, and a few courageous- 
 hearted men, who did battle with Black Hawk and his war- 
 riors and drove them across the Mississippi. Since then
 
 10 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 the mines have been in the peaceable possession of the 
 whites, and the manufacture of lead has gone on steadily 
 increasing. New and valuable discoveries have been made 
 every succeeding year; and the agricultural interest of the 
 mining region has advanced hand in hand with the mining 
 interests. 
 
 Mr. White went ashore (he had no baggage, not even a 
 spare shirt, which candor alone compels the writer to ac- 
 knowledge), and took lodgings in the " Northwestern Hotel. " 
 Having registered his name as " Major James White, of the 
 army of Texas," he took a seat and made himself at home. 
 The next morning he took up a newspaper called the Ga- 
 lena Telescope and Sucker Times, in which amongst other 
 important items of intelligence he read the following: 
 
 "TERRIBLE STEAMBOAT EXPLOSION, ETC." 
 
 " The steamboat Roarer, on her passage up from St. Louis, when a 
 little below Quincy, burst her boiler; by which means all the passengers, 
 save the mate and one engineer were blown into eternity. Beans are rising 
 in St. Louis, and large sales of lead were made on Monday at one-fourth 
 per cent, advance on the prices on Saturday. The names of the passen- 
 gers on -the Roarer are unknown, and the causes of the explosion also; no 
 blame is to be attached to the officers of the boat. The Orion was just 
 ahead of her when she exploded; but not near enough to know of the dis- 
 aster or to afford any relief. State Bank of Illinois remains in statu quo. 
 "P. S. The Roarer was insured for thirty thousand dollars in St. 
 Louis by the Rushlight Assurance Company, which company, upon the 
 news of this disaster, will no doubt go into liquidation, as all the principal 
 stockholders in that institution have taken the benefit of the bankrupt act, 
 and the shares been transferred to assignees. The Washingtonians are 
 carrying all before them. The large wholesale house of Fawcette, 
 Spiggot, Decanter & Co., wine and spirit dealers, has made an assignment 
 and gone into liquidation." 
 
 Mr. White lighted a cigar and walked out into the city 
 to reconnoitre. He saw some fine houses, but they were 
 not his ; and some large stores and warehouses, but he was
 
 CITY OF GALENA THE MINERAL REGION. 11 
 
 none the better for them ; and some elegant churches, in 
 which perhaps the soul might feast, but which could furnish 
 him nothing to satisfy his necessities. He looked at the 
 desolate knobs and hills encamped around and saw the count- 
 less holes that had been dug by miners with various success, 
 and seating himself alone upon a rock afar off upon the pin- 
 nacle of a hill that overlooked the town, he began to solilo- 
 quize : " Ten years ago I embarked in a skiff at Olean, 
 and dropped down the Allegheny river to Pittsburgh and 
 saw for the first time the magnificent Valley of the Missis- 
 sippi spread out like a map before me. Then as my imagi- 
 nation swarmed with the creations of fancy, how little did I 
 dream that in ten years I should be cast a penniless soldier 
 upon the shores of the Mississippi to dig in the mines. 
 Texas! why, the revolution of Texas was not then talked of, 
 and here I am at the age of twenty-five a veteran of the revo- 
 lutionary army of Texas. I wish Texas had been at the 
 devil and I at my business making myself wealthy and re- 
 spectable in some honest pursuit ; but here I am a vaga- 
 bond! I see that my military coat is getting out at the 
 elbows. Well, the amount of the business is, I must dig." 
 
 The " lead district" is embraced in the original Northwest 
 Territory, ceded to Congress by the State of Virginia. Upon 
 the extinguishment of the Indian title, the fee simple of 
 course vested in Congress. The upper lead district as it is 
 generally called, extends about seventy miles north and 
 south on both sides of the Mississippi river, and about sixty 
 miles east and west, embracing portions of Iowa, Wisconsin 
 and Illinois. Perhaps the most prominent feature in the 
 face of the country, is the " Mounds." They are quite nu- 
 merous ; among the most prominent of which, are, the Blue
 
 12 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 Mounds, the Sinsinnawa, and Platte Mounds some of these 
 mounds are one or two hundred feet high, and appear to b'e 
 nothing more or less than hills dissolved by time, and by 
 the gradual disintegration of the rocks of which they are 
 composed ; rugged mountains razed into smooth, green 
 mounds. Standing upon one of these the traveler sees the 
 mining region spread out before him like a map. The 
 greater part of the land is prairie ; though there is abund- 
 ance of forest and barrens. The prairie is mostly undulat- 
 ing ; but the forest and barrens are strongly marked with 
 ridges and ravines. No country in the world is more abun- 
 dently watered. Every ravine has its rivulet. The most 
 successful mining operations have been in the barrens, where 
 the land is broken into irregular lobes or swells, ranging in 
 altitude from ten feet to one hundred. In " prospecting," 
 the miner generally commences by digging a hole as large as 
 a well, on the north and south side of these hills, in some 
 small ravine leading up the side. If, in sinking the shaft he 
 finds scattered mineral " float" as it is termed, he infers 
 that it descended from an east and west crevice above. It 
 is then termed a prospect, and the miner is encouraged to 
 sink, another hole a few feet further up the ravine. If in the 
 next shaft he finds the mineral still "stronger," that is, lar- 
 ger, more abundant, and of a character indicating the near 
 approach to the crevice from which it " floated," he throws 
 into a pile all the pieces of mineral he has found and calls it 
 a " show" -a. good show or a bad show as the fact may be. 
 The speculator, upon examination of a show, often buys 
 the discoverer's show or prospect of a " lead." The mere 
 prospect of finding a lare body of mineral is frequently sold 
 for hundreds of dollars. The miner now proceeds to prove 
 his " prospect;" that is to extend a range of prospect holes
 
 CITY OF GALENA THE MINERAL REGION. 13 
 
 up the hill to the crevice. If he should pass over the crev- 
 ice, in prospecting, he will find no mineral in the holes he 
 may sink ; because mineral never floats up hill. He then 
 commences " drifting," that is, digging horizontally from 
 the bottom of the last hole in which he " struck" mineral, 
 towards the bottom of the next hole above, and in his pro- 
 gress he strikes the crevice, which may, after all the labor 
 in finding it, be a barren crevice, containing but little min- 
 eral ; on the other hand, the lead may be worth many thous- 
 ands of dollars ; since the labor of raising the mineral when 
 discovered is comparatively little, and the ore is worth when 
 raised from ten to twenty-five dollars per thousand pounds. 
 " Crevices," of course vary in depth and width. Some of 
 these are openings thirty or forty feet wide, between per- 
 pendicular wall rocks. The ore is generally found mixed 
 with ochre and flint but is sometimes found in solid masses. 
 When all the mineral is raised that can be found in sink- 
 ing a shaft the miner commences drifting east and west in 
 the crevice for more mineral. For this purpose it is sometimes 
 necessary to brace the aperture with timbers to prevent cav- 
 ing. Sometimes a lead is worked out by means of a level ; 
 that is, a tunnel being dug in the bottom of the crevice 
 through the hill, and in this tunnel is constructed a cheap 
 railroad for carrying out the contents of the crevice. The 
 principal crevices run east and west ; those running north 
 and south contain smaller quantities, generally in thin hori- 
 zontal sheets, and are cut out by east and west .leads (or as 
 geologists term them " lodes"). Sometimes after drifting 
 a few rods the crevice " closes up," but frequently by sink- 
 ing another hole still further east or west on the same crev- 
 ice, another " opening" is found, and the mineral comes in 
 good again. Leads vary greatly in extent. Some are
 
 14 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 wide and deep, while others are narrow and shallow. 
 Some " run" well, while others " give out" in a few rods. 
 Occasionally a crevice is found widening into a "chamber" 
 containing an immense body of mineral. It is not, however, 
 every crevice that contains mineral the sanguine miner 
 sometimes comes to the bottom of a barren crevice, confi- 
 dent all the time that he is about to strike mineral ; and 
 when, after all his labor, he finds the crevice closed up at 
 the bottom with solid rock, he leans perhaps on the handle 
 of his pick, the very image of despair, and then ascends 
 into the light of day by means of a 'windlass. In some 
 places the diggers have run the mineral into the water. Of 
 course these water leads cannot be worked unless by drain- 
 ing and pumping. 
 
 Some miners and geologists believe that much larger 
 bodies of lead and also of copper ore, lie buried deep 
 in these mines, than have yet deen discovered. For mining, 
 deep, much capital and large and expensive machinery is 
 requisite. The population of the mines is rather fluctuat- 
 ing, drifting from one part of the mines to another and set- 
 tling permanently nowhere. This state of things is of course 
 unfavorable to the steady growth and permanent prosperity 
 of the towns and villages in the mines. All the lands in the 
 "lead district" which were known by government to be 
 mineral lands, and some which were not supposed to be 
 mineral lands, but which were covered with forests to supply 
 the wants of miners and smelters, have been reserved from 
 sale " for mining and smelting purposes." Many tracts of 
 land not reserved, have been entered, that is, purchased at 
 the land office. Before entering a tract of land a purchaser 
 was sometimes required to make oath that he knew of no 
 mineral having been discovered upon it. If the miner dis-
 
 CITY OF GALENA THE MINERAL REGION. 15 
 
 covers a valuable lead upon Congress land, and the discov- 
 ery is known to no other person, the inducement to perjury 
 by taking the oath required at the land office, and purchas- 
 ing the soil in fee simple at one dollar and a quarter per 
 acre, is great. Perhaps some frauds upon the Government 
 have been thus committed. No patents for these lands 
 have yet been issued; if such frauds have been committed, 
 they may become the subject of legal investigation. Min- 
 eral lands thus purchased are of course leased by the pro- 
 prietors upon such terms as they please to establish. A 
 great part of the lands reserved from sale have, by a kind 
 of prescription, become also the property of claimants in 
 the following manner: They were at first farmed out to 
 miners in small lots, by an agent of government. The miner 
 was allowed to stake out his lot which he was then author- 
 ized by a "permit" from the agent to occupy, upon the 
 condition of his mining upon the lot five days in every week, 
 etc. Few, if any, of the miners complied with the condi- 
 tion of their permits; but the miners were indulgent toward 
 one another, and each respected the claims of the rest; so 
 that although the lots were forfeited, no complaint was made 
 to the agent. Permits soon began to be transferred by sale, 
 like leases; and every purchaser of a mineral lot held it by 
 a title deemed even better than that by which the first 
 claimant held; because a valuable consideration had been 
 paid. The revenue for the mines was collected from the 
 smelter, who purchased his ore from the miner. Each 
 smelter received a license from the government, and was 
 required to pay over to the agent one-tenth part of all the 
 lead he manufactured. Thus the revenue was paid indi- 
 rectly by the miner.
 
 16 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 Many valuable leads were discovered upon lands which 
 had been entered at the land office. The proprietors of 
 such lots were of course under no obligations to pay rents 
 to the government. They required the smelter to pay them 
 the full value for their mineral. But the smelter was bound 
 to pay over one-tenth part of the lead manufactured by him 
 as revenue to the government, whether manufactured from 
 ore raised upon "reserved" lands or "entered" lands; 
 The smelter could not ascertain whether the mineral brought 
 to him was raised on government land or not. If he had 
 been allowed to attempt a discrimination, it would have 
 been unavailing; since nothing could be easier than for a 
 miner upon government land to sell his ore to a neighbor 
 who owned a mineral lot in fee simple, and who would sell 
 the ore as his own, without any deductions for rent. The 
 revenues for rent naturally soon became nearly nominal. 
 The smelters were environed with difficulties. In the year 
 1836, the whole system went down, every smelter refusing 
 to pay rent. The agency ceased, and government was 
 fairly " elbowed " out of the mining district. The posses- 
 sion of such reserved mineral grounds as had been claimed 
 by miners under the old regulations by virtue of permits, 
 was left undisturbed. The proprietors, as they consider 
 themselves, lease these lands to miners upon such terms as 
 they deem most profitable, some taking one-fourth, others 
 one-fifth of the mineral raised. A great number of mineral 
 lots are in many instances the property of the same land- 
 lord, some successful speculator in lead perhaps, who has 
 bought up, at a bargain, the claims of many poorer men. 
 Whether these tenures were exactly honest in their origin 
 or republican in their tendency, will not here be made a 
 subject of inquiry. No doubt the most profitable disposi- 
 tion Congress could make of their mineral lands would be
 
 CITY OF GALENA THE MINERAL REGION. 17 
 
 to sell them in small lots to the highest bidders. By such 
 sale a large sum of money would accrue to the treasury as 
 great, perhaps, in the aggregate, as the lands are intrinsically 
 worth; and more profit would thus be derived from them 
 than could be derived from the best system of renting and 
 leasing that could be devised. The expense and endless 
 perplexities arising from the establishment and support of 
 agencies for leasing the lands and collecting the rents would 
 thus be avoided, and Congress would be saved from the 
 odium always in our country attached to the character of a 
 landlord exacting his rents. The mineral resources of the 
 lead district, or at least those which are accessible to the 
 labor and industry of the small capitalists have been exag- 
 gerated. Most of the leads near the surface of the ground 
 have been discovered. That there are large bodies of cop- 
 per, as well as of lead ore, in these mines, buried deep in 
 the bowels of the earth such bodies of mineral as have 
 been found in the Cornish mines is quite possible, but the 
 working of mines to any considerable depth requires the 
 investment of large capital in machinery, etc., and is not 
 likely to be undertaken iwitil the mines become the exclusive 
 property of those who have capital to invest in working 
 them. If Congress, in its wisdom, should deem it incon- 
 sistent with the rights of the parties concerned, and the 
 greatest good to the greatest number, to sell these mines to 
 private purchasers, it might nevertheless be considered judi- 
 cious to surrender them to the States in which they are, or 
 the Territories when they shall become States, of which 
 they shall form an integral portion, upon such conditions as 
 may be*j\ist and equitable to the other States of the confed- 
 eracy. It is certain that a State can manage revenues of 
 this description better than Congress.
 
 18 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 The business of smelting is quite distinct from that of 
 mining. The smelter must have some capital to do busi- 
 ness. He constructs a furnace, usually in a ravine near the 
 diggings and over some small stream of water which is used 
 as well for washing the mineral as for turning the water- 
 wheel that works the furnace bellows. The. process of 
 smelting is simple enough. The mineral is broken fine and 
 thrown into a large slanting hearth filled with charcoal and 
 wood. When, by action of the bellows, the heat becomes 
 sufficiently intense, the lead begins to trickle down the 
 hearth in bright streams, which unite and flow through one 
 mouth into a reservoir, which is also heated. From this 
 reservoir the melted lead is removed with a ladle and poured 
 into moulds made of cast-iron. When thus moulded into 
 " pigs," weighing about seventy pounds each, the lead is 
 ready for the market. The per centum yielded by good 
 mineral is about seventy or eighty. The ore contains a 
 small quantity of silver; though perhaps too little to warrant 
 the cost of extracting it; the residuum is called " slag."
 
 A SCENE IN THE MINES. 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A SCENE IN THE MINES. 
 
 Jim White remained in Galena one month. His land- 
 lord began to treat him cavalierly; for, with the unerring 
 instinct of a publican, he had guessed the true state of Mr. 
 White's finances. 
 
 "Mr. White," quoth he, as Jim was exchanging his 
 slippers for boots one morning. " Mr. White, I have a 
 trifling bill of twenty dollars for four weeks' board, which I 
 will trouble you to cash." 
 
 "No doubt," coolly replied Mr. White; " but such is 
 the state of my finances " 
 
 " You poor, trifling rascal," interrupted the landlord 
 " You poor, trifling vagabond, sir, leave my house sir!" 
 
 " Certainly, sir," says White, " I leave your house in 
 disgust. You are quite undeserving the patronage of gen- 
 tlemen. you and your house, too!" 
 
 Blue Rabbit diggings, on little Blue Rabbit Creek, is 
 in the Territory of Wisconsin, and is distant from Galena 
 three hours' ride. The hamlet consists of fifteen or twenty 
 miners' cabins, straggling carelessly along the creek, like 
 Irish shanties; moreover there were three groceries, con- 
 nected with one of which there was a ninepin alley, or 
 " horse billiard room," where the clatter of falling pins and 
 the rumbling of the balls could be heard twenty-four hours 
 in each day and seven days in each week; for Sunday, 
 with its sober quiet, was a stranger in these "diggings," 
 and prayers were as uncommon as earthquakes. Since then 
 the temperance reform, which swept lately like a hurricane
 
 20 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 through the Valley of the Mississippi, has scattered to the 
 four winds of heaven the last vestige of a grog-shop in 
 Little Blue Rabbit, but, at the period of time of which I 
 am writing, the ball alley grocery was thronged. Some 
 were playing cards, some were smoking, some laughing, 
 and others swearing; and no scene could be found richer in 
 degradation and* vice in the most degraded basement of the 
 " Five Points." 
 
 " Set up the pins there, boy! Stand away from the 
 ball!" shouted a six-footer, dressed in a buffalo robe. 
 
 Away rolled the ball. 
 
 " Good luck," quoth little weazel-faced John Smith. 
 
 The second ball swept down the remaining pins 
 
 " Spare ball, by !" shouted all. 
 
 Rice Hawkins, a black-haired, billious looking rascal, 
 with a deep sunken eye in his head, whose mate he had left 
 in Kentucky, rolled next. His first ball struck down only 
 the centre pin, 
 
 " Perfect gut!" says Buff. 
 
 The second ball ran into the trough, and the third ball 
 struck the pin that was prostrate and bounded over against 
 the bull's hide. 
 
 Hawkins poured out a broadside of chain-shot curses, 
 as if he were a living magazine of blasphemy. 
 
 The last roller took the alley. He was twenty-five 
 years of age, five feet ten. inches in height. His counte- 
 nance was open and expressive his head, of the best 
 phrenological model, covered with light brown hair a scar 
 on his forehead, and his eye full of language. He wore a 
 blue military frock coat, out at the elbows, drab pants but- 
 toned up to the knees outside and a checquered shirt, which 
 appeared as if it were destitute of a comrade to relieve it 
 from duty.
 
 A SCENE IN CAMP. 21 
 
 "Roll away, stranger!" said little Smith. 
 
 " My name," replied the person addressed, coolly se- 
 lecting his balls, " is Jim White at your service." 
 
 White rolled with great precision. His first ball-struck 
 the head pin a little quartering so as to sweep the alley. 
 
 " Ten strike!" reared the company. 
 
 White took the pool, paid for the alley and treated all 
 hands. The noise, and babbling and boasting increased 
 and soon reached the fighting point. 
 
 " Who dar say," roared Buff, smiting his fists together, 
 " that I am not the best man in the house? or in Blue Rab- 
 bit? or in the mines?" 
 
 " Did you ever fight an alligator in the Okefenokee 
 swamp?" retorted Mr. White. 
 
 "You take it up!" roared Bluff. "You take it up? 
 You blue-bellied gallinipper! I'll hoop you to death in a 
 minute!" 
 
 Upon this the fight commenced. Both combatants 
 were armed. White instantly drew a % large bowie knife 
 from a pocket or sheath on the back side of his neck. His 
 adversary drew a similar weapon from the skirt of his coat- 
 pocket. They glared at each other for a moment. White 
 received a cut on the left arm, and instantly aimed a blow 
 at Buff's heart, by which the breast of his coat was torn 
 open and a flesh wound inflicted. 
 
 Knives and pistols leaped from their scabbards, and the 
 row became general. However, as nobody was killed or 
 much hurt, the whole affair was forgotten in a few minutes 
 or remembered only as an agreeable little pastime of almost 
 daily occurrence. 
 
 " Give us your hand, comrade," said Jim, helping his 
 adversary up. " I don't want to hurt you; but
 
 22 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 my roaring soul if any man must say he is a better man than 
 Jim White. Ho! landlord! liquor for the crowd." 
 
 The barkeeper placed sixteen tumblers on the counter. 
 Some took cogniac, others monongahela, while others chose 
 gin rum 'alf and 'alf, etc., all of St. Louis manufacture. 
 
 "Walk up, gentlemen, and help yourselves, the liquor 
 is free. Old Buff, here's to your better luck!" 
 
 " Good hand," replies Buff; " fire up down below." 
 
 It is now midnight and we leave this crowd to find 
 lodgings for the night the best way they can; heartily hop- 
 ing that they will go home, and "never get drunk any 
 more." 
 
 PROSPECTING. 
 
 One frosty morning in October, as the smoke was 
 streaming up in plumes from the chimney of every shanty 
 in Blue Rabbit diggings, you might have seen, had you 
 been there, a man dressed in an old blue military frock coat 
 and drab pantaloons, at work in a small mineral hole which 
 was being sunk in a small ravine extending at right angles 
 up the bluff from the principal ravine in a southerly direc- 
 tion. Several fresh holes had been dug north of that over 
 which the windlass stood. By the side of the windlass 
 was a hat, and hanging on a bush nearby was a large buffalo 
 coat with a hole five or six inches long slit in the breast of 
 it. The man at the windlass wound up the rope at the end 
 of which was a tub filled with reddish clay. The tub ap- 
 peared to be the half of a barrel sawed in two, with a rope 
 bail. The man at the windlass, Major James White, late of 
 the army of Texas, then seized the tub by the bail, swung 
 it onto the platform with his left hand, disengaged the
 
 PROSPECTING. 23 
 
 wooden hook from the bail and emptied the tub. It was 
 hard work; but still the Major looked as contented as a 
 badger "to the manner born." Gentle reader, if you are 
 tormented with blue devils, or distressed with ennui, or lack 
 an appetite for food or the means of gratifying it if you 
 are out of spirits, out of funds, out of patience, out of 
 picayunes, out at elbows and tempted to get out of the 
 world, go and tend windlass for a week. 
 
 " Hook!" roared a voice from the-hole. 
 
 The hook without the tub was instantly lowered down 
 and almost as quickly drawn up again. The proprietor of 
 the buffalo coat came rising out of the hole, pale as a 
 spectre, and trembling violently. Jim White seized Buff by 
 the arm, pulled him onto the platform, his foot still hanging 
 in the hook, and laid him on the ground. Jim then brought 
 some water in a jug from Little Blue Rabbit -Creek near by, 
 and soon restored his partner. How inconsistent is man! 
 To-day he aims his murderous steel at the heart of his fel- 
 low and to-morrow, perchance, risks even his own life to 
 save the same individual from danger. 
 
 "Is it the damps, partner?" inquired Jim kindly, at the 
 same time bringing Buff's coat to him, which he had so 
 lately slashed with a bo\( r ie knife. 
 
 "Yes the damps," answered Buff. 
 
 " How do the damps seem at first to affect one?" quoth 
 Jim. 
 
 "Why," replies Buff, "when you have been in the 
 damps awhile, breathing don't do you any good. It's just 
 like breathing nothing, you understand. You just naturally 
 grow dizzy and faint away." 
 
 "Well," quoth Jim, "what is the damps anyhow? 
 Give me the philosophy of the thing?"
 
 24 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 "The/^/T-o-sophy, Jim? Is it how you feels you want 
 to know?" says Buff. 
 
 " No, no," quoth Jim, laughing; " I only meant to 
 inquire what the damp is." 
 
 "Oh," said Buff, "I suppose it is just solid air, so 
 thick that you can't breathe it."
 
 THE MINERS CABIN. 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE MINER'S CABIN. 
 
 The next morning at sunrise Jim was getting breakfast 
 for himself and partner at the shanty where they " bache- 
 lored." Buff had not yet risen from his bunk on the back 
 side of the shanty. Jim White seemed to be cooking very 
 scientifically over a fire built in the bottom of a large stone 
 chimney, which served as the only window when the door 
 was shut. In the hot ashes were buried some potatoes 
 Two large slices of ham were frying in a two-legged spider; 
 a coffee pot stood glowing upon the coals in the opposite 
 corner of the fireplace. In one end of the shanty was a 
 pile of potatoes upon the ground, and over the pile of po- 
 tatoes, were hanging a ham, a shoulder of pork and a saddle 
 of venison. The table was such an one as might be made 
 in ten minutes with an ax and auger, being simply an oaken 
 board with four oaken legs inserted in as many auger holes. 
 
 There is no time when thought bubbles up in the mind 
 as after a refreshing sleep. 
 
 "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed/Buff, rising. 
 
 " Why, what are you laughing at, Buff?" inquired Jim. 
 
 "Why," says Buff, "when I saw you trying to get 
 breakfast in the awkward way that men always do, I could 
 not help thinking what an excellent invention a woman is! 
 A thought has struck me. " 
 
 "The devil there has, Buffi Why I should as soon 
 expect the lightning. to strike you," quoth Jim. 
 
 " I will tell you," says Buff, " I have an idea " 
 
 " Oh," interrupted Jim, " if you have only one idea do 
 keep it for seed."
 
 26 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 "No, I have laid a plan," quoth Buff, "which I will 
 unfold to you." 
 
 " Ah!" 'inquired Jim, "that reminds me that I have 
 something to unfold to you. Here is a bill of items 
 which I found stuck under the door this morning and ad- 
 dressed to you. It is an interesting document I have had 
 many similar favors in my day and may look for more unless 
 I take the benefit." 
 
 "Pray read it to me," quoth Buff, "for I am no 
 scholar. I had too much important business on hand when 
 I was a boy, to learn to read and write." 
 
 " Certainly," replied Jim, " I will read it."* 
 
 MK. BUFF 
 
 184 To NERO E. GBIPE, Dr. 
 
 June 10, To one buffalo coat $18. 00 
 
 " 15, To 30 Ibs. windlass rope at 31c 9.31 
 
 July 9, To 1 pair buckskin pants 7.00 
 
 ' ' 30, To 1 round-topped miner's hat 1 . 50 
 
 Aug. 15, To 1 pick 2 . 00 
 
 Sept. 12, To tobacco, pipes and sundries 13 . 00 
 
 Total -. $50 . 81 
 
 MB. BUFF Please call and settle the above bill in cash or mineral and 
 save cost. . NERO F. GRIPE. 
 
 PER JOEL JACKAL, Clerk. 
 
 <' Whew!" quoth Buff, "old Gripe be ! Thirteen 
 
 dollars for sundries, ha! that must mean armbarillas, ha? 
 Why I never bought an armbarilla in my life. " 
 
 " No, no," says Jim, laughing, " sundries in this bill 
 means whisky." 
 
 "Very good, then," quoth Buff, "it is all perfectly 
 right. I will never refuse to pay for necessaries when I have 
 mineral. "
 
 THE MINER'S CAMP. 27 
 
 "Well, Buff," says Jim, "the potatoes are done, and we 
 will breakfast in spite of old Gripe. Stuff the devil when 
 thou canst, as old King Nehemiah says in his book of prov- 
 erbs. Let those borrow trouble who have money to lend. 
 Now, Buff, unfold to me the plan you say you have laid. " 
 
 "Why, Uien, you must know," says Buff, "that I am 
 getting tired of digging for unsartainties; -just as though 
 there were not unsartainties enough atween heaven and 
 airth, without probing the airth for more of 'em. The 
 fact is, thar is a great deal more dirt in the ground than 
 mineral. " 
 
 '* Astonishing!" exclaimed Jim, " what a discovery!" 
 
 " Besides," said Buff, " I want the privilege of breath- 
 ing while I live. Now, I hold and am always ready to 
 maintain, that it is just as natural for a man to breathe as to 
 drink whisky. Therefore, a man in the damps is as unhap- 
 py as a fish out of water." 
 
 "What is that you are saying, partner?" quoth Jim, 
 " not dig? And as pretty a crevice as we are in mineral 
 going down pretty joint clay and mineral ashes running 
 down in an east and west crevice between regular wall rocks? 
 Not dig? Why, the man is crazy! Let me tell you we 
 have a pretty show. Not dig!" 
 
 " Land me in heaven," feplies Buff, " if I dig to-day. 
 True, Jim, we have a fine show. Two years ago our pros- 
 pect might have sold for a thousand dollars. With good 
 management it may be sold now. We need the ready. I 
 am an old miner, Jim; I came to the diggings before the 
 Sank fursc saw the first steamboat that disturbed the 
 waters of Fevre River, ' the Old Virginia.' I have struck a 
 power of mineral in my day good shows and not so good 
 fine prospects and not so fine. Jim, there are tricks in all
 
 28 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 trades. We have a sure thing when we get it; but I know 
 by the float we are on that the main body of mineral lies 
 east of us in the bowels of the hill. We might sell our 
 prospect to a fool and strike it big afterwards. The ground 
 we are on won't bear mineral it won't run but on yon 
 swell to the east it is stronger. " % 
 
 " Why not dig there then at once," inquired Jim. 
 
 " Bekase," quoth Buff, " it might peter out, and if so 
 be we should strike nothing, how could we sell out?" 
 
 " Exactly," says Jim, " I begin to comprehend your 
 meaning. You go on the principle that a bird in hand is 
 worth two in the bush. You would sell our prospect for- a 
 certain sum and run the risk of making a lead of it when 
 the buyer has abandoned it?" 
 
 " With your consent, then, we will dress up our pros- 
 pect for sale," replied Buff. 
 
 " Dress it!' replies Jim, " What do you mean by dress- 
 ing it? We have nothing even to dress ourselves, but 
 rags." 
 
 "Ha! ha! haw! haw! well, well," quoth Buff, "have 
 you never hearn tell of grafting a mineral hole? Graft the 
 hole; graft the hole, boy. Why, you must be soft. We 
 have mineral enough to dress up a 'prospect hole beautifully. 
 This is what I call dressing up -a prospect for sale." 
 
 " That would be wrong," replies Jim. 
 
 " No," rejoined Buff, taking a chew of cavendish, " no, 
 I will prove that it is perfectly right according to the estab- 
 lished usages of the world. Does not all mankind put the 
 best foot foremost? Does not the merchant put up show 
 boxes to attract customers? Do not good men put on airs 
 to make themselves pass in better .company? What is a 
 fashionable lady but a show dressed up to cheat some poor
 
 A GREAT MAN IN GALENA. 29 
 
 devil in a matrimonial bargain? In short, this world is all 
 a fleeting show." 
 
 " But who would buy?" says Jim. 
 
 " Oh, leave that to me," quoth Buff, with an air of 
 authority, " do you suppose the fools are all dead?" 
 
 A GREAT MAN IN GALENA. 
 
 Wealth is power, and Americans with all their democ- 
 racy bow the knee to Mammon. No sooner is it reported 
 that the wealthy Mr. Leech and his beautiful lady have ar- 
 rived in Galena, and taken lodgings at the North Western 
 Hotel, than the whole town is filled with gossip and anxiety 
 to see the distinguished strangers. And pray who was Mr. 
 Leech, that all this fuss and prattle should be made about 
 him? 
 
 Was he a man of as much real worth, integrity, or 
 talent as Jim White, who had lately been denied the hospi- 
 tality of the North Western Hotel, and been spurned from 
 it with contempt because he was too poor to pay for a 
 month's board? Not half. The difference was this: Jim 
 White had robbed and beggared himself, and was despised; 
 Leech had robbed and beggared others, and was honored. 
 He was the ex-cashier of the Mulberry & Baden Corn 
 Banking Company of Wildcat, Feline County, Michigan; 
 from whence he had just arrived with one hundred thousand 
 dollars, being all the cash funds of the bank, and to which 
 he had no right but that of possession. Mr. Funk, the 
 landlord, was all attention; the lackeys were all obsequious- 
 ness, and all Galena was ransacked to furnish the table of 
 the illustrious Mr. Leech with dainties. Mr. Funk ordered
 
 30 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 three baskets of champagne, three dozen of Madeira, three 
 boxes of fruit, three dozen of poultry, and other table lux- 
 uries in proportion; so that the retail business of Galena 
 flared up as it was wont to do in other days under the influ- 
 ence of bank expansions.
 
 GRAFTING A MINERAL HOLE. 31 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GRAFTING A MINERAL HOLE. 
 
 Buff was as prompt to execute as he was shrewd to 
 plan. The next morning at sunrise he and his partner had 
 conveyed all their mineral to the last prospect hole they 
 had sunk. They then proceeded to " graft." Buff went to 
 the bottom of the hole, and there embedded several large 
 pieces of mineral. 
 
 He then inserted smaller pieces from the bottom of the 
 hole to the top, on each side thereof, sticking them in thick 
 all the way, and finishing the work as well as nature herself 
 could have done it. The hole was completely gemmed and 
 studded with sparkling ore, and presented every appearance 
 of a rich and extensive lead, with large mineral still going 
 down. It was a labor that occupied them nearly all day; 
 and when completed, would have deceived the old scratch 
 himself. 
 
 " Ars celar artem! " muttered White, looking with 
 amazement at the ingenious fraud; "surely Buff you were 
 born for a poet." 
 
 "Don't talk Indian to me," quoth Buff; do you sup- 
 pose bekase I was out in the Saux fuss that I understand all 
 the Indian tongues from Choctaw to Pottowatamie? if you 
 have any fault to find, speak it out." 
 
 "'Ars celar artem is Latin," rejoined Jim, "not In- 
 dian. It is a quotation from Horace; meaning the art to 
 conceal art." 
 
 "Horace bed ," replies Buff; "Horace maybe 
 
 a good miner, but I can beat him to death at grafting a
 
 32 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 mineral hole. Art? there's no art about it; you only just 
 make it look sort of naytural like." 
 
 By the next morning it began to be whispered about 
 that Buff and Jim White had struck a lead. Three smelters 
 had been to them by .ten o'clock in the morning, to engage 
 their mineral, and amongst them old Nero E. Gripe, who 
 told Buff in a very bland conciliatory tone, that he would 
 be happy to pay him cash for their mineral at his furnace; 
 that he, Buff, had been an old customer at his store, and a 
 good one; that he regretted to learn that Jackal, his clerk, 
 had sent Mr. Buff a dunning letter a day or two previous. 
 Mr. Jackal had certainly acted without the slighest authority 
 from him in the matter, etc. Every grocery keeper in Blue 
 Rabbit diggings insisted upon treating Mr. Buff and Mr. 
 White; arid Mr. Slop, the new merchant tailor, actually 
 dragged them both into his store, and sent them away each 
 in a new suit of clothes from head to foot. 
 
 " Did you say you were going into town to-day, Mr. 
 Buff?" quoth Slop. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well now you want an overcoat; just try this on; it 
 will fit you like an India rubber over-shoe. I can sell you 
 this coat cheaper than you can buy it in Galena. Only 
 twenty-four dollars! Will you have it?" 
 
 "Yes, I may as well," replied Buff; and back went the 
 two partners to their humble cabin 
 
 " Now," says Buff, " I will tell you what must be done, 
 Jim. You must go and take the rope from the windlass and 
 keep these prying rascals from going down into the hole; 
 and buy goods of every man in town on the strength of our 
 "lead;" and by this means get them all interested in our
 
 GRAFTING A MINERAL HOLE. 33 
 
 effecting a good sale, so that we may have the means of 
 paying them. In the meantime, I will go to Galena and 
 stop with your old landlord, Mr. Funk, to whom you owe 
 twenty dollars for board, and get him interested in your be- 
 half, for the sake of getting his pay, to find a customer 
 amongst the adventurers in Galena; some gudgeon who will 
 bite a well-baited hook, to come out and purchase our lead 
 of you. Of course you will affect the greenhorn. I will 
 send a man out, you may depend. Ask him ten thousand 
 dollars, and take, in cash, what you can get. If I should 
 come out zvith him, treat me as an hired servant of yours. 
 You take?" 
 
 The evening of the same day found Buff enjoying his 
 supper at Mr. Funk's hotel in Galena. Amongst the stran- 
 gers there, was Mr. Leech, ex-cashier of the Mulbefry & 
 Baden Corn Banking Company, who had just absquatulated 
 from Michigan with one hundred thousand dollars to which 
 he had no title but possession. Through the dress and gen- 
 teel disguise of this upper crust rascal, Buff seemed at once 
 to look, as if by instinct. 
 
 " Mr. Buff," quoth Funk, " I think you said you were 
 from Blue Rabbit Diggings', in the Territory?" 
 
 " Yes; I hail from there. " 
 
 " How is mining? Raising much mineral out there?" 
 
 " Why no, landlord, I can't say as they are. Though 
 luck comes, in streaks, as it always did. Now, I've been 
 digging nine years, and am poor yet; though in fact I once 
 struck a nine thousand dollar lead, which, like a fool, I sold 
 for five hundred; but luck is everything. There came a 
 poor devil of a greenhorn into our diggings a few weeks 
 ago, who couldn't tell dry-bone from mineral and he just 
 dropped right down on the boomingest kind of a lead. "
 
 34 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 " Is it possible?" quoth Mr. Leech. " What might it 
 be worth? Would he sell out? 
 
 " There is great uncertainty," says Funk, " about the 
 value of these leads. It may be a mere show and worth 
 nothing." 
 
 " No show about tVAtte's\ea.d, I assure you gentlemen; 
 I am an old miner, and pronounce it certain for a million 
 and a half of mineral'" 
 
 "Did you say White?" asked Funk eagerly, "Jim 
 White. " 
 
 "Yes," says Buff, coolly. 
 
 "Oh! ah!" exclaimed Funk, " then you have seen the 
 lead. Of course, being an old miner, you can tell very 
 nearly from its appearance, and Trom the way mineral runs 
 in th'ose diggings, about it. " 
 
 "Yes; I ought to know something about it," replies 
 Buff; " for I was at work when he struck it, and might have 
 been a partner with him. " 
 
 "Mr. Buff," whispered Leech, "I should like a few 
 moments' private conversation with you. Bar-keeper, send 
 a decanter and glasses to my room. " These two honest 
 gentlemen, being seated together in Leech's room, the dia- 
 logue proceeded as follows: 
 
 " No doubt, Mr. Buff, you fed chagrined at the reflection 
 that you have no interest in White's lead ; being at work for 
 him at the time, and he probably owing his discovery more 
 to your skill in mining than to anything else. Now suppose, 
 for a reasonable compensation, that you go out with me to 
 what-do-ye-call it diggings, and without any seeming con- 
 cert with me, act as my factor in the purchase of this land?" 
 " Stranger!" replied Buff, with a look of virtuous indig- 
 nation, " stranger! I am only a poor digger, but have al-
 
 SELLING A PROSPECT. 35 
 
 4* 
 
 ways had the name of acting honestly. Do you think it 
 would be right for me to help you defraud this poor green- 
 horn!" 
 
 " Keep cool! keep cool! Mr. Buff; reflect on what I have 
 proposed. One hundred dollars does not grow on every 
 bush. Are not leads often bought and sold? Every man 
 makes the best bargain he can for himself. I ask you simply 
 to act as my factor in this business transaction." 
 
 "When will you go?" says Buff, slowly pocketing two 
 fifty-dollar bills which Leech offered him. 
 
 " Immediately! Mr. Buff. My wife is here. As soon as 
 I can make arrangements for her to go Badgerton to-mor- 
 row morning in the stage, on a visit to her sister there, I 
 will be ready to leave. Get you ready immediately. " 
 
 SELLING A PROSPECT. 
 
 Starlight was fading away in the rosy dawn of day, 
 when Leech and Buff rode together in the quiet hamlet of 
 Blue Rabbit Diggings, and not a sound was heard but the 
 ripple of the Little Blue Rabbit creek, as it stole down the 
 crooked ravine, shining like silver thread in the pale light of 
 the fading moon. Not a cur barked not a chimney smoked; 
 and the ex-cashier, as he stood shivering in the miner's 
 cabin-door, thought of the warm parlor he had left in 
 Michigan. 
 
 " Hallo! Jim ; I have brought a stranger with me ; a 
 gentleman who is an agent of the government living at Prai- 
 rie du Chien, and who lost his way. 
 
 " Invite him in, Mr. Buff," replies Jim, getting up. 
 " Strangers are ever welcome at my poor cabin. Please 
 start a fire, Mr. Buff. "
 
 36 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 * 
 
 " Mr. White, inquired Buff, "have you raised any min- 
 eral since I left? 
 
 " No, I have been beset all the time by strangers from 
 abroad, who are trying to buy "my lead. Buff, I was strongly 
 tempted to sell out to-day." 
 
 " What were you offered, Mr. White?" 
 
 " Mr. Stokes says he will pay me ten thousand five 
 hundred dollars, if I will wait three -days for him to raise 
 the money." 
 
 During this dialogue, the parties all assembled around 
 the kindling fire. 
 
 " Gentlemen," says Leech, " I have some curiosity to 
 see this lead you speak of, and will call again after break- 
 fast. Mr. Buff, be so good as to show me the tavern." 
 
 Buff directed him to the tavern, winking at him as they 
 parted, as - if to say, I'll attend to White's case, while you. are 
 absent. 
 
 " Honor among thieves!" said Buff, giving him one of 
 
 his fifty dollar bills. " This d land shark has run away 
 
 from one of the banks down east with bags of money defal- 
 cated, as they call it when a man with ruffle shirt and silk 
 gloves on, steals. He paid me a hundred dollars to help to 
 cheat you out of the lead. Now play your part well, and 
 stick for nine thousand dollars." 
 
 After breakfast, the three gentlemen walked together 
 to the mineral hole. 
 
 "Jim," says Buff, "you think more of your mineral 
 hole than I do. Now, if this gentleman makes you a liberal 
 offer, you had better sell." 
 
 " I do not know as I want to jj/,"said Leech, affecting 
 carelessness, " You have been offered a great price for your 
 lead."
 
 SELLING A PROSPECT. 37 
 
 . 
 
 " I consider," added Buff, " that you ought to remem- 
 ber, Jim, when you have money offered you, that you are 
 owing me something, and I want my pay; I need it, and 
 can't well wait for you to speculate." 
 
 " Don't get uneasy, Mr. Buff, about your wages. I sh,all 
 probably raise mineral enough to pay you off, Mr. Buff. 
 You would not have asked me for your wages, Mr. Buff, if 
 I had not struck this lead." 
 
 ' You struck the lead, Jim? Yes, with my help! and it 
 would only be liberal in you to make me a handsome 
 present. 
 
 " I will be liberal with you Buff ; never you mind. But 
 now tell me candidly, Buff, as you are an .old miner, would 
 you take fifteen thousand dollars for the lead?" 
 
 " Jim, you know I am a friend of yours; but I scorn to 
 meddle with other men's bargains ; I w///say, though, Jim, 
 that I would take a great deal less. But every man for him- 
 self. There is not over thirty thousand to the foot." 
 
 Leech came up from the mineral hole with eyes as big 
 as pealed onions. 
 
 " Well Mr. White', what is the least you will sell for?" 
 says Leech, pale with excitement. 
 
 " Ten thousand dollars," replied Jim, the words falter- 
 ing on his lips. 
 
 " I will give you nine, Mr. White." 
 
 " I will take it, Mr. Leeeh. The lead is yours.". 
 
 "Mr. Buff," quoth Leech, paying White a thousand 
 dollar check on the Suffolk Bank of Boston, " Mr. Buff, 
 please witness that I pay Mr. White one thousand dollars, to 
 bind this bargain." 
 
 The parties went to a magistrate, and in one hour the 
 conveyance was made the remaining eight thousand dol-
 
 38 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 lars paid and Mr. Leech became proprietor of a grafted 
 mineral hole. 
 
 JUMPING A LEAD. 
 
 On the day Buff went to Galena, little weazel-faced 
 John Smith and one-eyed Bill Hawkins met together at the 
 grocery where we first found them, when the following dia- 
 logue ensued between them: 
 
 " I say, Bill, how the devil comes it that Buff and Jim 
 White should pop down on such a heap of mineral ?" 
 
 "Why, John, you know the old proverb, 'Poor men for 
 children and fools for luck.' It isn't because they are any 
 peerter than we, I reckon there's a heap of smarter men." 
 
 Bill, I've a notion that they are about on a range with 
 our old diggings, east. You know we found good mineral 
 going down amongst the tumbling rock in all them are holes 
 we sunk. Let us go and take a look. " 
 
 " N. C., John; that is 'nuff said; keep dark." 
 
 In an hour after this, Mr. Smith and Hawkins were 
 sinking a shaft under their windlass, about fifty rods due 
 east of Buff and White's -shaft on the same range and lot ; 
 and they did keep dark; for only two or three persons knew 
 they were digging there for some days. They commenced 
 digging there on the 2ist day of October.
 
 * 
 
 DIVIDING THE SPOILS. 39 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DIVIDING THE SPOILS. 
 
 "Buff!" 
 
 "Jim !" 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 " Well, back again and see how you like that. Ha ! 
 ha! Whoo! whoop! hurra! I will yell. Hold me Jim, nine 
 thousand dollars, by the horned spoon! Clar the kitchen! 
 Come, divide the spoils, Jim." 
 
 " To be sure Buff; honor bright! And as you are a 
 Benton man, you shall have two hundred half eagles in your 
 share ; and here is the remaining three thousand five hun- 
 dred dollars in treasury notes, said Jim, spreading the money 
 upon the table before described. As for my share, Buff, I 
 will take anything that will buy me pleasure. I intend to 
 spend my money. Devil catch me, but I will live broad, 
 if not quite as long as some. Who is it that compares money 
 to a root? The Lord send me plenty of such rcots while I 
 live. I would feed no more on potatoes. 
 
 " Why, Jim, you talk as wild as a loon. What would 
 you do, if you had as much money as that old Astor I hearn 
 tell about, away down east, in New York,, amongst the blue- 
 bellied Yankees?" 
 
 " Do? Why, I would clear away all the buildings be- 
 tween the Battery and the Park, to build me a good, re- 
 spectable dwelling house on, fit up the Astor House for my 
 stable, and make a dog-kennel of the City Hall! I would 
 be Nabob General of all North America. "
 
 40 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 " Keep cool! keep cool, Jim; we have service on hand 
 yet. Leech has returned to Galena, and he will be here in 
 a day or two to raise mineral. Ha! ha! Well, now, be- 
 twixt you and me, Jim, I have an idea his lead won't run 
 well. I suspicion as how we've got the advantage of him 
 in the trade. Well, as soon as he comes to raising mineral, 
 no doubt he will accuse us of cheetting-laifaL. That is just 
 the natur of man. Then next, you know, he will be sueing 
 us for a conspiracy to rob him, and then hurrah boys for a 
 lawsuit! Jim you must go to Badgerton and see a lawyer. " 
 
 "See the devil, Buff." 
 
 " I tell you, Jim, you must go and take counsel. 
 
 " Take physic, Buff. " 
 
 "Well, Jim, call it physic if you like, but you must 
 take it. " 
 
 " Is it ' root hog or die,' Buff?" 
 
 "Them's 'em, exactly. To be sure, by running away 
 you might save feeing a lawyer, and then again you 
 moughtn't. No man who defends himself can be locked up 
 with four thousand dollars in his pocket it don't stand to 
 reason. It is only those poor devils who has rent furnished 
 'em gratis a*t Doncaster. Wouldn't you scorn to have the 
 county pay your house rent? Go to a lawyer go to a 
 lawyer, man. You must fight fire with fire; that is the 
 way. A lawyer is as necessary as a boot-jack or windlass. 
 Lawing without a lawyer, Jim, would be like mining Math- 
 out a pick. There is one lawyer there who will be sure to 
 pick you up fee him well. Ten to one Leech will go to 
 him afterwards, and then we are safe. " 
 
 " Won't he take a fee on both sides?" 
 
 " He daren't, Jim."
 
 TAKING COUNSEL. 41 
 
 TAKING COUNSEL 
 
 The profession of law in the West is not generally the 
 most lucrative business in the world. Many lawyers of 
 much ability, in the mines, have been compelled, from time 
 to time, to lay aside Blackstone and Chitty, and prac- 
 tice with the miner's spade and pick to make a living. 
 Then again, it is generally supposed that three months spent 
 in reading Blackstone and the statutes qualifies any man 
 who has volubility of tongue and impudence of face, to 
 practice law, and explain and unravel all the intricacies and 
 subtleties of a science which, from its nature, is enlarged 
 and extended by every additional volume of law reports; 
 and the very elements of which might still be profitably 
 studied by any lawyer during a lifetime as long as Methu- 
 selah's. Hence it happens that much of the law business 
 that is to be done falls into the hands of impudent quacks, 
 who, for half price half undo half the people who employ 
 them, and thus bring the profession into contempt. It is 
 due to the Badgerton bar to say, however, that its members 
 are quite respectable. 
 
 " Walk in, sir," quoth Counsellor Power, rising, bow- 
 ing several times very politely, and placing a chair for Mr. 
 White; " very happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. 
 White sorry you find my office in such confusion, sir 
 please be seated, sir." 
 
 Upon this, the learned counsellor himself took a chair, 
 tilted back in it and brushed his hair back with his right 
 hand, just as my lord Chancellor might have done. 
 
 " I was just drafting a bill in chancery, Mr. White, for 
 a young lawyer in the pinery, in relation to certain Indian 
 Reservations; but will be happy to lay it aside, and attend 
 to your business, sir."
 
 42 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 " Why, I wish for your counsel, Mr. Power, in regard 
 to a to that is or, rather, I will state the case to you. 
 I sold out my lead in Blue Rabbit Diggings to one Leech, 
 for nine thousand dollars" 
 
 " In cash?" asked Power. 
 
 " Yes, sir, in cash. Now, if he should be dissatisfied 
 with his bargain, can he come back on me for damages?" 
 
 "Why, that will depend on circumstances, Mr. White. 
 Did he buy on your representation, or did he go and look 
 at the lead and examine it for himself?" 
 
 " He came, sir, and looked at it himself, and went down 
 into the mineral hole." 
 
 " Well, sir, ' his eyes was his chap,' then; he can't hurt 
 you for taking his money, when he bought entirely on 
 his own judgment. Does he threaten to proceed?" 
 
 "Why, yes that is, no he don't exactly exactly 
 threaten; still, from what I have seen of the man, I should 
 not wonder if he did. " 
 
 " I understand, Mr. White. You wish to be prepared 
 for him; an excellent idea, upon my honor. Ha! ha! 
 
 Quoth White, " If Leech should come to town for ad- 
 vice" 
 
 " Exactly, exactly," responded Power. " I understand 
 Mr. White. I will attend to that, you may depend. " 
 
 " How much will be your fee, Mr. Power?" 
 
 " Why ahem! ha! let me see about yes this is 
 a matter of considerable importance, Mr. White about 
 oh! say a matter of fifty dollars." 
 
 "Here is your money, sir. Good day, Mr. Power." 
 
 " Good day! good day to you, Mr. White, and a pleas- 
 ant ride. Call again, sir, do."
 
 CAUGHT IN A GULL TRAP. 43 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CAUGHT IN A GULL TRAP. 
 
 Mr. Leech returned from Blue Rabbit Diggings to Ga- 
 lena in high spirits, and splendid were the air-castles he 
 constructed as he rode into the busy little city, and looked 
 down, as from the gallery of a theatre, upon the bustle 
 and activity in the streets; the loading and unloading of 
 merchandise; the large quantities of bar lead, some of it in 
 piles and some of it laid up in the manner of cob houses, 
 upon the bank of Fevre River, awaiting the arrival of steam- 
 boats to transport it down the Mississippi River. 
 
 " Here," thought he, " will surely be a large city. It 
 is on a fine navigable little river, only seven miles from the 
 Mississippi, and in the heart of the mining country. This 
 is the mart to which is brought all the lead manufactured by 
 thousands of miners and smelters; here they sell their lead, 
 always for cash; and here are purchased most of the goods 
 and even provisions used in the mines. I will yet be an 
 extensive lead merchant here, build me a good steamboat 
 for the lead trade, erect a hotel like the Planter's in St. 
 Louis, that will be fit for gentlemen who visit Galena to 
 resort to; and on one side of this amphitheatre of hills I 
 will cause to be built an elegant mansion for my private 
 dwelling house. Let me see, there is a pretty site for my 
 house on the hill back of the Catholic church. Ah! but 
 won't I show these Galenians a pretty specimen or two in 
 architecture? They do these things up better in Detroit. 
 After all, what can be done without banks? Banking facil- 
 ities banking facilities is what they want here. Trade
 
 44 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 needs a stimulus.. There is no more stimulus in specie than 
 there is in cold water. Would I not make a very respecta- 
 ble president of a bank? Let me think yes, President of 
 the I have it now the Blue Bullion Bank of Galena. Ha! 
 ha! but didn't I play the devil at banking in Michigan? 
 Well, let them come after me if they please; they can, do 
 nothing with me! Unfortunate failed ruined by specu- 
 lation a victim to the pressure of the times all the fault 
 of Old Hickory removing the deposits and so on. After 
 all, what is defalcation now-a-days? I foresaw embarrass- 
 ment and saved myself the best way I could. Should I be 
 an infidel and not provide for my own household? Every- 
 body was preparing to make a run on the bank. I was 
 bound to save myself the best way I could. Should I 
 have let the vaults be robbed by the ragged rabble? 
 Very clear of it. No, no. The world owes me a living, 
 and I cheerfully place this hundred thousand to its credit. 
 If the world is my debtor, then, and I hold its funds, why 
 should I give them up? Shall I ever have a better oppor- 
 tunity to collect what the w.orld owes me? Never. Besides 
 had I retired from Wildcat destitute, I should have had no 
 means to go into business here could have obtained no 
 bank facilities could never have liquidated my debts, if I 
 had desired to do so and, in a word, could never have be- 
 come the proprietor of this lead of mineral, by the purchase 
 of which I have this day, I believe, made my eternal for- 
 tune." 
 
 The ex-cashier's reverie was here interrupted by his 
 horse stopping at the stable door of Mr. Funk's Hotel, 
 which stable too nearly resembles the house to deserve de- 
 scription. It being now generally understood about Galena 
 that Mr. Leech had a large sum of money to invest in spec-
 
 CAUGHT IN A GULL TRAP. 45 
 
 ulation and otherwise, that gentleman was hourly thronged 
 with the company of persons anxiously solicitious to give 
 him information how he could best dispose of his funds. 
 One wanted to hire a few thousand dollars upon a mortgage 
 of lots in Bellview, another had a span of beautiful dapple 
 gray horses and a carriage, which he would sell at an im- 
 mense sacrifice. Messrs. Shark & Co., knowing of his 
 mineral purchase at Little Blue Rabbit, were desirous that 
 he should contract to deliver them half a million of lead in 
 Galena. Half a score of attorneys and as many doctors 
 left their professional cards with him. In short, Mr. Leech 
 was the lion of the day in Galena. Mr. Leech was too 
 much a man of the world not to know the meaning of all 
 these civilities; but who is secure amid a thousand gull- 
 traps? The next day Mr. Leech was seduced into another 
 mineral speculation. Mr. Jonas, a self-styled alchemist, 
 with more brass in his face than silver in his pocket, called 
 upon the ex-cashier and introduced himself as a gentleman 
 who had lately discovered immense quantities of copper ore 
 near Charleston, in the Territory of Iowa, about which so 
 much had been said in the newspapers. 
 
 " It's a mint, Mr. Leech; a perfect mint, sir. Inex- 
 haustible : quite inexhaustible. It is copper, sir pure 
 copper; virgin metal, sir, virgin. Look at these specimens, 
 Mr. Leech. That copper is fit to coin sir to coin. We 
 only want capital to begin with capital is all, sir," con- 
 tinued the alchemist with great enthusiasm. "I only want 
 a gentleman of capital and intelligence and intelligence, 
 sir, to take an interest with me in the mine. We want 
 money to erect buildings and machinery machinery, you 
 understand. "
 
 46 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 "But," interrupted Leech, "may you not over-esti- 
 mate the value of this discovery, Mr. Jonas? How exten- 
 sive is the mine, and has the quality of the ore been well 
 tested?" 
 
 "Why, sir," replies Jonas, "as to the extent of the 
 mine, it runs everywhere; there is any amount of it any 
 amount. The ore has been submitted to the examination 
 of the best chemists in Cincinnati and New York, and they 
 concur in pronouncing it the purest ever discovered. Ask 
 anybody you please about Galena. Everybody has seen 
 specimens everybody. " Here Mr. Jonas exhibited some 
 fine specimens of copper ore, brought from Mineral Point, 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 " I will show you a letter a letter, sir, on the subject, 
 which I have just received from New York. " 
 
 Leech took the letter and read as follows: 
 
 NEW YORK, Aug. 18, 184. 
 Mr. Jonas. 
 
 Sir After making further and more careful analysis of the copper 
 ore you sent us, we are confirmed in the opinion of its value we hastily 
 formed and briefly expressed to you in our letter dated 1st of July last. 
 We have to make you a conditional proposition for the purchase of an in- 
 terest in your mine. Copper mining is not quite in our line of business, 
 still we are Yankees enough to engage in lucrative speculation where we 
 are confident of winning. Provided that we can be satisfied that the ore is 
 generally as good as the specimens, and the mines as extensive as you 
 represent, we will take one-fourth of it at twelve thousand five hundred 
 dollars, and engage to find purchasers for the other three-fourths. Please 
 consider our proposition and answer us immediately, and oblige 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 BLOWPIPE & CRUCIBLE. 
 
 "Hum! ah! yes. Blowpipe? Blowpipe?" said Leech, 
 musing and looking at the post mark. ^ " So this is my old 
 classmate! why, sir, I know Blowpipe well. He had always 
 a great penchant for the laboratory; and used to get fuddled
 
 CAUGHT IN A GULL TRAP. 47 
 
 regularly every week by inhaling exhilarating gas. So, 
 then, Blowpipe & Crucible" 
 
 " Have" taken a share a share with me in the mine," 
 interrupted Jonas. " But their payments are not due until 
 half a million of ore is raised. I shall not ask them to ad- 
 vance one dollar, because they are not here to look at the 
 purchase themselves. Now, can I en-list you in this enter- 
 prise? Take a share with me take one-half and on your 
 own terms that is if you think well of the mine after see- 
 ing it." 
 
 "Why," replied Leech, " I think not I rather think 
 not, Mr. Jonas. I have just bought valuable lead diggings 
 at Little Blue Rabbit, in Wisconsin, which I must work 
 immediately. Where is your mine? Where is Charleston?" 
 
 "On the Iowa side of the Mississippi," answered 
 Jonas. Only a few dozen miles below. The Otter is now 
 getting up steam for St. Louis. Drop down with me to 
 Charleston and see my mine, at least. We can return any 
 day. " 
 
 "Well, said Leech, "I should like the exercise at 
 any rate, I will go. But do not rely upon selling to me. I 
 don't know about these copper mines. I am afraid you are 
 too sanguine?" 
 
 " The next day the elegant wife of the ex-cashier took 
 stage for Badgerton. She was one of those few women 
 whom every one inevitably loves. It was not altogether 
 her beauty that made her attractive; it was more the win- 
 ning smile the elegant eye but why attempt to tell what 
 it was? One woman will be rather agreeable another re- 
 pulsive and another fascinating. Mrs. L. was one of those 
 women whom to see is to love. You could feel the tendrils 
 of her heart entwining with yours. She seemed to have a 
 natural affinity to man.
 
 48 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MONEY MAKES THE MARE GO. 
 
 Major White now being in funds, suddenly became the 
 lion of Badgerton. As if by magic, it was discovered that 
 he was the best looking and the most accomplished man 
 " of our acquaintance. " Every lady in town sent her album 
 to the Major, and every one was inquiring into the Major's 
 history. It was generally reported that the Major had been 
 an officer in the army of Texas, and, like most soldiers, had 
 left the army with nothing except honor and glory, and that 
 he had since become immensely rich in the mines. Miss 
 Celia Persimmon, a young lady of twenty-five and upwards, 
 who had refused three young men without leads, determined 
 to win the Major. He had taken the best lodgings in town 
 sported the finest horse and buggy wore the best clothes 
 smoked the best cigars subscribed for the best periodi- 
 cals, including the Turf Register and was altogether a tip 
 top fellow. 
 
 Unfortunately, the lady of the ex-cashier occupied 
 apartments in a house exactly opposite the Major's rooms; 
 so that the two respective occupants seemed destined to dis- 
 course together, at least in the language of the eyes. 
 
 Let a young man have nothing else to do, and of course, 
 as he must do something, he will get in love; and why 
 should a young lady b'e wiser? Dr. Watts says, that 
 
 Satan finds some mischief still 
 For idle hands to do. 
 
 Still, as there are counts enough in the indictment 
 against his Satanic highness, I am not inclined to add this
 
 MONEY MAKES THE MARE GO. 49 
 
 charge to the number; and will therefore let the old fellow 
 off; although the introduction of a little infernal machinery 
 might add vastly to the epic grandeur and dramatic effect of 
 my story. 
 
 Day after day was the Major's attention directed across 
 the street, and riveted upon the beautiful woman who sat 
 looking out of the window opposite. He watched the rapid 
 changes that stole over her countenance. At one moment 
 she seemed gay, and her eyes laughed; at other times 
 she sat with her chin pensively resting upon her jeweled 
 hand, as calm as marble. She did not seem to observe the 
 Major. He had abandoned books, horses and everything 
 else in blind idolatry to this beautiful being, to whom he 
 had never yet so much as spoken. She became the very 
 light of his existence. He would have sacrificed all he pos- 
 sessed to win from her one look one smile. He knew not, 
 cared not, who she was; he only knew that he loved her as 
 he had never loved woman before. Was she ignorant of 
 his sensations? By no means. There is a language a 
 natural language that betrays these secrets that speaks in 
 every motion in the countenance and above all, in the 
 eye. She did not seem to see the Major that meant some- 
 thing it was studied. She had a perfect right to be look- 
 ing out of the window; nor was she under the slightest ob- 
 ligation to see the Major. Again and again, a thousand 
 times each day, he looked. Every hour she seemed more 
 beautiful more captivating. He felt that she must indeed 
 be capable of intense love. She was tall and graceful, and 
 twenty-five years of age; yet she looked much younger. 
 With a sigh of despair, the Major retreated to his mirror, at 
 the back of his apartment for the ostensible purpose of 
 brushing his whiskers, but in reality to see a reflection of
 
 50 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 the lady's face in the glass, when he beheld those eyes, 
 which he had so long sought to look into, meet his gaze and 
 send a sudden pulsation to his heart. He read in their ex- 
 pression much to love and something to hope. When he 
 moved she blushed deeply her eye-lids fell and they were 
 friends. 
 
 Time vanished and the Major's funds were also vanish- 
 ing. Money was nothing to him love was everything. 
 Three weeks ha'd passed since his first acquaintance with 
 Madame Leech ; and yet he had never once suspected that 
 she was the wife of the ex-cashier. He had sought her so- 
 ciety, and she was not displeased with his attentions. He 
 read, and laughed, and conversed, and rode with her; but her 
 presence and conversation awed him; for she was " pure as 
 the icicle that hangs from Diana's temple," though not quite 
 as cold. They had rambled together by moonlight through 
 the grove they stood together upon the banks of the mur- 
 muring stream ; he drank in the music of her silvery voice, 
 and read poetry in the deep heaven of her eye. But what of 
 that? She was lonely, and wanted society, and no one could 
 be more attentive or agreeable than the Major. How could 
 she refuse ? It was plain enough that she had the power of 
 making him happy by her presence, and it was not in her 
 gentle nature to render others unhappy. Moreover, as the 
 lady was most sincerely and devotedly pious, she resolved, 
 in her heart, to be the instrument of his conversion from 
 sin. She was most sincerely anxious about his eternal wel- 
 fare there was surely no harm in that.
 
 A COMPROMISE. 51 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A COMPROMISE. 
 
 Such was the interesting state of affairs at Badgerton, 
 while, in the meantime, Leech, after having bought an inter- 
 est in the copper mine of Mr. Jonas, had returned to Galena, 
 where he employed ten miners, with the requisite tools, 
 teams, etc., and proceeded to Little Blue Rabbit, to work out 
 his lead there. Having erected a cabin on the premises, 
 and got everything in readiness for the business, operations 
 were commenced in the grafted mineral hole, by Leech him- 
 self. With a new round-topped miner's hat on, he de- 
 scended with a pick into the hole, and began to drift. In a 
 minute he suspected he was a fool; in another minute he de- 
 clared he was a fool, and all hands concurred in his opinion. 
 That he was badly duped and wofully taken in and done for, 
 was now palpable. All hands were at once dismissed. 
 Leech mounted his horse and spurred to Badgerton, where 
 he arrived with a face more rueful than a college professor 
 at a faculty meeting during a sophomore rebellion. Coun- 
 sellor Power was sitting in his office at his desk, with one 
 leg thereon, humming a Scotch air, and musing on the ras- 
 cality of man in general and of White and Buff in particu- 
 lar, and regreting that he had not taken a hundred dollar fee, 
 when in stepped Leech, with a countenance full of liti- 
 gation. 
 
 " Sir," said the attorney, rising and bowing with much 
 impressment of manner, " I am glad to see you, sir. Please 
 be seated. You must have found it abominable muddy 
 riding roads are horrible, sir, at present and in relation to
 
 52 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 the road to Blue Rabbit, I was remarking to our super- 
 visor " 
 
 " That," interrupted Leech, " is the very road I have 
 just traveled. " 
 
 " Just what I wanted to find out," thought Power. 
 " Now I know you!" Then addressing Leech, quoth he, 
 " Ah? indeed! ^Anything new at Little Blue Rabbit? I am 
 told there is a fine lead struck?" Thus did the attorney lead 
 the stranger directly to a disclosure of his business. 
 
 " Pity said Power, after hearing Leech's tale ; " pity," 
 sir, great pity, to go to law. I am free to acknowledge, sir, 
 that you have been somewhat overreached ; and indeed I 
 confess I am not fully prepared to deny, that the term swin- 
 dled would be too strong a term to be used in this case. I es- 
 teem White a bad man, sir; I do indeed. His conduct is 
 very unwarrantable and reprehensible indeed, sir ; and so I 
 shall not hesitate one moment to tell him to his face, sir ; 
 that is, if you tell me the truth, which from your appear- 
 ance, I have no reason in this world to doubt, sir. Never- 
 less, the difficulties of proof, and all the circumstances sur- 
 rounding the transaction, are of such a nature and charac- 
 ter that these considerations, taken in connection with the 
 great uncertainty, the long delay, and the inevitable ex- 
 pense and perplexity of a lawsuit, seems to indicate, that if 
 I were to advise you in this matter, as a friend to all parties 
 concerned, I should, by all means, advise, previous to any 
 coercive measure, that the parties be got together, to try to 
 arrange this difficulty amicably among yourselves." 
 
 Accordingly, White and Buff, being sent for, soon made 
 their appearance ; Buff in his own attire, and White in a new 
 suit of black, and dressed in admirable style from boot to 
 castor. With the most perfect ease and confidence, Mr.
 
 A COMPROMISE. 53 
 
 White advanced and shook hands with the ex-cashier, who 
 was quite disconcerted with his effrontery. Major White re- 
 marked that he was happy to meet Mr. Leech, not having en- 
 joyed that pleasure before, since he had been so foolish as to 
 sell himself out of his lead. Buff being no novice in finesse, 
 sat watching the face of the attorney. Mr. Leech blushed 
 and stammered. 
 
 " How," continued White, offering cigars to the com- 
 pany, " how do you find the mineral?" 
 
 "Not at all," answered Leech, gruffly, and then whist- 
 ling as he fixed his eyes on the ceiling over his head. 
 
 " What?" said Buff, drawing his feet quickly back, as 
 if about to rise from his chair, and thrusting a hand into 
 each side-pocket of his hairy overcoat, " What?" said he, 
 looking with eyebrows knit at Leech, " What, sir, 
 has the lead petered? Well, well! that is proper bad! We 
 left it right pretty; but prospects is mighty unsartin." 
 
 " I believe," said Leech, in a supppressed tone, which 
 betrayed a violent inward struggle, the pulsations of his 
 heart being audible in the sounds he uttered, " I believe you 
 have colluded and connived together to cheat and defraud 
 me; you are a couple of swindlers, you are." 
 
 "Mr. Power," quoth White, raising his hands and look- 
 ing at the attorney with affected meekness, " Mr. Power, I 
 desire you to notice these certain slanderous and defamatory 
 words, spoken of and concerning us.'' 
 
 " You d cut-throat cashier !" growled Buff, spring- 
 ing forward and seizing Leech by the throat; "swallow 
 them are words that you just spit out, or I'll swallow you 
 like a Mississippi airthquake." 
 
 "Oh ! ah ! oh !" shrieked Leech ; "take him off!" 
 
 " Swallow, then!" shouted Buff, choking him.
 
 54 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! ah ! don't cho oke me!" said Leech. " I 
 swallow. Yes, cer certainly, I swa swal al allow 
 them." 
 
 "Oh! gentlemen! said Power, interfering, "Oh! I 
 beseech you, gentlemen, to desist, or I shall be compelled 
 to arrest you for a breach of the peace.'' 
 
 "Hands off, Buff," said Mr. White, advancing, " let 
 there be no more of this. What does all this mean? For 
 God's sake, let us act like men, and not like dogs. Mr. 
 Leech if you have aught against me, we can settle' amicably, 
 no doubt." 
 
 The result of the conference was a final settlement of 
 the difficulty, Leech selling the lead to White, and receiving 
 in full satisfaction of all demands, damages, the sum of two 
 hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 This business over, Mr. Leech, like a dutiful husband, 
 went to see his wife ; and she, like any wife, was anxious to 
 know where he had been gone for a month, and what he 
 had been doing.
 
 A CONJUGAL SCENE. 55 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A CONJUGAL SCENE. 
 
 Mr. Leech, did you bring me the Atlantic Souvenir?" 
 
 "No. Where should I find a souvenir to bring you, 
 woman?" 
 
 " Why, my dear, I am sure I do not know. That de- 
 pends upon where you have been. Here you have left me 
 alone amongst strangers for a whole month, without so much 
 as writing me a letter. Pray, what have you been doing?" 
 
 " Doing? What the plague is it to a man's wife what 
 he has been doing? Business is business. I'll engage you 
 have not wanted for attentions during my absence. How 
 many suitors have you?" 
 
 " For shame, Mr.. Leech, to talk so. What cause have 
 I ever given you to make such heartless insinuations?" 
 
 The tears glistened in her beautiful eyes. She gazed 
 at the window opposite; her gaze met that of her new 
 friend across the street. She crimsoned, and in a moment 
 her face was all sunshine. She made a sudden resolve,, 
 which must remain a secret; told her husband she was to. 
 blame indeed she was repented, kissed and forgave him; 
 but that night she prayed more fervently than ever for the 
 salvation of her gay young friend across the street, and de- 
 termined the first favorable opportunity to persuade him to 
 go to the prayer meeting with her. 
 
 LOVE REFORMS THE MAN. 
 
 It was now winter, and the prairies were robed in snow. 
 The hoary old sun, rising with a brace of sun-dogs, looked
 
 56 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 across the dazzling expanse of prairie ridges that lay still 
 and unruffled as an ocean of chaos frozen, and saw, as he 
 had for ages seen, the dark channel of the Mississippi, with 
 its branches, like a mammoth tree pictured upon the snowy 
 globe; and smiled upon farms and villages and cities, just 
 created by the magic of steam and civilization, and looked 
 serenely down into the great lakes as into a mirror newly 
 framed, and bordered with the thrift and elegance of civil- 
 ized society. Far away on the border of many a dis- 
 tant grove, that morning could be seen for the first time the 
 column of blue smoke streaming up from the new lime- 
 painted log cabin; and you could see to count the very logs 
 of which it was the day before constructed, and distinctly 
 hear the axe at the wood pile. It was one of those morn- 
 ings peculiar to the Northwest, when distance seems to be 
 annihilated, and the power of the senses doubled. It was 
 a dangerous morning for game whether for the lady-footed 
 deer that congregate in the sunny ravines upon the borders 
 of the leafless grove or to the platoons of prairie chickens 
 that sit upon a thousand zig-zag rail fences, courting the 
 effulgence of the sun or to the poor little bare-footed 
 quails that run tripping through the brush like miniature 
 ostriches or to the hungry wolf that stands upon some 
 bleak knob, and looking impudently back, first over one 
 shoulder and then over the other, challenges the pursuit of 
 the well-mounted horseman. 
 
 Such was the morning on which Major James White 
 returned from a hunting excursion of two hours, and dis- 
 mounted his foaming thorough-bred horse after riding fif- 
 teen or twenty miles, and killing one doe, one woW and 
 thirteen prairie chickens. During this animated ride, the 
 Major formed a resolution which ever after governed him
 
 FIXDING A STEADY HOME. 57 
 
 through life. He determined to be a just man, a just and 
 good man worthy of the woman he loved. He reflected 
 that much of his money was spent; that was nothing; he 
 believed in his good fortune, and fancied he could strike a 
 lead any day. After breakfast he went to Mr. Leech, and, 
 telling him he had done a wrong and an injury in selling 
 him the prospect, he drew from his purse all the money he 
 had remaining and paid it to the ex-cashier, went home to 
 his room with a light heart, disposed of his horses, dogs, 
 bijouterie, paid all his debts, even his wash bill, informed 
 Buff what he had done, bought Buff's interest in the pros- 
 pect, hired a digger by the month to work with him, and 
 put on his miner's dress and went back to Little Blue Rab- 
 bit to dig again upon his old prospect. He left behind him 
 the following letter addressed to the lady of the ex-cashier: 
 
 My Friend You will look at my window to see me, but you will look 
 in vain. That I love you more dearly than the whole world beside, you 
 know better than lean tell you; how unworthily I am to love you, you 
 know not, and heaven only knows. I never knew the blackness of my own 
 heart until I had contrasted it with the purity of yours. You have awed 
 my wayward spirit into the worship of moral beauty. I thank you for it. 
 I now feel compelled by a sense of justice and honor, to surrender my ill- 
 gotten wealth to its rightful owfler, and to rely upon honest industry for 
 my support. Dearest woman! with the rising sun, and at noonday, and at 
 twilight, and in the solemn watches of the night, and until the moment we 
 meet again (I hope under happier auspices), your dear image, the angel of 
 my hopes, will ever be living, moving and breathing in the memory of your 
 unworthy friend, JAMES WHITE.
 
 58 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FINDING A STEADY HOME. 
 
 Mr. Leech went to Galena the same day to make prep- 
 arations for prosecuting business with Mr. Jonas in the 
 Iowa copper mines. But no sooner had he set foot in the 
 Northwestern hotel, than he was seized by an officer by vir- 
 tue of a warrant and a requisition from the Governor of 
 Michigan, issued -on a charge of larceny, for stealing the 
 funds of the Mulberry & Baden Corn Banking Company. 
 
 " Mr. Leech," quoth the officer, "you are needed in 
 Michigan!" Leech was alarmed. 
 
 " Wh at is th at, sir?" said he. 
 
 "Why," says the officer, with sham politeness, "If 
 your business here will permit, the Governor of Michigan 
 desires your immediate presence within the limits of that 
 sovereignty. " 
 
 Accordingly away went the ex-cashier, to answer an 
 indictment of the grand jury of the county of Feline, in the 
 State of Michigan. He wrote hot a line to his wife, who 
 had never once suspected him of fraud, and nobody in Ga- 
 lena knew where or why he was gone; and the place that 
 knew the ex-cashier knew him no more forever. 
 
 RASCALITY OVERLEAPS ITSELF. 
 
 Old Buff took to whisky and smelting. He bought a 
 furnace and might have done well at the business, but having 
 one day taken it into his head that slag might be profitably 
 employed by moulding it in the middle of pigs of lead, the 
 honest man, merely by way of experiment, made five hun-
 
 RASCALITY OVERLEAPS ITSELF. 59 
 
 dred pigs of bogus lead, which, somehow or other, through 
 some unaccountable mistake, got into market. The St. 
 Louis purchasers, having detected the blunder, by the 
 breaking of several pigs when unloaded from the boat and 
 thrown upon the pavement, and having ascertained where 
 the mistake originated, made no noise about it, but wrote 
 Mr. Buff the following laconic epistle: 
 
 Dear Sir Many pigs, as we have ascertained, manufactured at your 
 furnace, and bought by us, prove to be slag veneered with lead. Suppos- 
 ing that the fraud has been committed by your workmen without your 
 knowledge, we hasten to inform you of the fact (to which we have given 
 no publicity), presuming you will be ready, upon trans-shipment by us of 
 the spurious pigs to Galena, to redeem them in an equal number of good 
 current pigs. We have the honor to subscribe ourselves, sir, your most 
 obedient and humble servants, 
 
 GIMLET, VISE & SHAKPEK. 
 
 Accordingly, Messrs. Gimlet, Vise & Sharper, by their 
 first boat, sent up five hundred pigs of bogus lead, which 
 Buff promptly redeemed. The next week they sent seven 
 hundred pigs more, being their whole stock of bogus lead 
 on hand, which had accumulated in the course of several 
 years' trade in lead, but which was manufactured, they knew 
 not where. On the arrival of the second cargo, Buff sweated 
 and swore some; but as he had already redeemed five hun- 
 dred pigs, he finally thought, to save exposure, he might as 
 well redeem the other seven hundred, although perfectly 
 innocent of emitting them. Thus, moralized Buff, are the 
 innocent sometimes punished for crimes of the guilty.
 
 60 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CONCERNING WOMEN. 
 
 Woman is a paradox a puzzle. Even Shakespeare 
 was sometimes lost in attempting to trace the labyrinthine 
 mazes of the female heart. It presents more phases and 
 more varied phenomena than anything else in the whole 
 range of nature. This infinite multiformity of woman's 
 character constitutes one of her principal charms. Who 
 has not seen the beautiful combinations of the kaleidoscope? 
 Turn the instrument over. Now look! Did you see the 
 transition? No; but I see a new combination, as perfect, 
 as symmetrical, as wonderful as the last. Thus do circum- 
 stances and vicissitudes shape and combine and color the 
 character. A woman as changeless as marble would be 
 intolerable; aye, and anomalous; for Lot's wife is the only 
 petrified woman we have any account of. Women allure 
 men by their charms they soothe them by their kindness 
 they soften his ferocity by their mildness and affection 
 they study to render him happy, and they nobly alleviate 
 the burden of his existence they are full of love and grat- 
 itude, but they will not be slighted or wronged. They de- 
 serve due attention, and they will command it. He who 
 leaves his wife, and pays her no more attention than he 
 would an eight-day clock, need not be surprised if, in his 
 absence, she runs down or runs away. My heroine was no 
 longer loved nay, she" was slighted by her husband. She 
 had long repined and suffered, and sought to win his heart. 
 He seemed to be utterly selfish. She had sighed and 
 looked in her mirror, and saw in it her own tall figure the
 
 CONCERNING WOMEN. 61 
 
 rounded arm, the tapering hands, the snowy complexion, 
 the auburn ringlets that strayed from under the tiara, the 
 blue eyes melting with love and she wondered why he, her 
 husband alone, should be insensible to her charms. She 
 wanted some object to love. She had grown melancholy. 
 "To be sure," said she, "I have a friend, whom I prize 
 dearly; he seems like a brother; but it would be wrong for 
 me to love him, as I might if it were not for my marrying 
 vows. How dare I entertain the thought " Then she 
 sighed again, and looked at the clock, and went to the win- 
 dow to see if her friend were not coming. A servant came 
 in at that moment, and brought the farewell letter from. 
 Major White, which we have already presented to the reader. 
 When she had read this letter, the very fountains of her soul 
 seemed broken up. She fell down and wept with uncon- 
 trolled agony. 
 
 That letter was a key to the mystery of her own heart. 
 Her fancied distinction between friendship and love, van- 
 ished; and she found she had long been the victim of the 
 "grand passion." 
 
 Perhaps my readers wonder that my heroine is a married 
 lady. That was not my fault. She was never married with 
 my consent. This is a new country; and we have to take 
 things as we find them. Then, again, at the time of which 
 I am writing, fine girls were scarce in the mines. They 
 were mostly plucked in the bud; and no vulgar girl would 
 do for the Major. Those days in the mines, like the early 
 days of Rome, were days of violence, when some things were 
 done "contrary to law." Besides, the novelist may create 
 everything to his own liking, if he have invention, but the 
 biographer must confine himself to facts.
 
 62 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. 
 
 The following is an exact copy of a letter written at this 
 time by Madame Leech to her bosom friend, in Massachu- 
 setts, Miss Florence Hastings, and which I have taken great 
 pains to secure : 
 
 DEAREST FLORENCE Once more let me hold sweet communion with 
 thy spirit. Let my winged thoughts which dare not repose elsewhere, fly 
 back to thy faithful bosom. Or, rather, I will fancy myself, as in days of 
 girlhood, sweet Florence, wandering with you along the bank of the Con- 
 necticut in the month of August. It is Saturday evening. Let us be girls 
 again. Let us wear the same calashes and shawls we then wore, and wan- 
 der along the same meandering path. Here let us be seated once more 
 beneath the venerable elm this sacred old tree which has sheltered so 
 many generations that are gone, and will drop its rustling leaves, perchance, 
 upon the grave of another century here let us sit, where we once ro- 
 manced together. What a holy repose seems to rest upon the face of 
 nature! The shadow of the coming Sabbath rests upon it. Enchanting as 
 ever seems -the narrow plain, teeming with golden harvests. The same 
 white cottages and rural towns embowered in ancient shade trees lend 
 tranquil beauty to the landscape. There are still the same cragged old 
 mountains Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke, with their stern Puritanic 
 features, frowning over the luxuriant plain. Dear Florence! These recol- 
 lections make me sad. Let us sit down and commune together. I cannot 
 imagine that you are changed since I saw you that you are not the same 
 artless young girl that you were, but as you part my auburn tresses again, 
 I fancy I hear you say, " Mary, here is sorrow penciled on thy brow, and 
 thine eye looks more experienced but oh.! forgive me! not more pure." 
 I do forgive thee, Florence; but can I forgive myself ? I have learned, my 
 dear girl, too late, that I do not love the man to whom I am married. I 
 strove to love him. It was impossible. I did not know the meaning of the 
 word love much less had I ever felt the all pontrolling power of that pas- 
 sion. My husband was much absent indeed, has scarcely pretended to 
 remain at home since we moved from Michigan. Circumstances threw me 
 into the society of a young man of my own age. a man of fine address, of 
 education, and wit but of rather dissolute habits. I was pleased with his 
 society I found in him nobler qualities than perhaps the world knew he 
 possessed I sought to reclaim him. He listened to my persuasions. I, 
 too, listened to the narrative of his adventures in life. He talked to me of 
 the mountains and golden plains of Mexico described the gorgeous city of 
 the Montezumas told me of the Alamo, and of the perils of San Jacinto
 
 STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. 63 
 
 and I listened, oh! too fondly listened, and, like Desdemona, sighed and 
 wondered, and "wished that heaven had made me such a man." Florence, 
 I loved and still do love him. Oh! pardon, foi'give your e"rring friend! 
 Thus far am I fallen. Oh! the omnipotence of love! I knew not what it 
 was; I thought it was, friendship, until he was gone; then, when I listened 
 for music, the harp was broken when I looked for support, his arm was 
 not there to lean upon when I looked for light, there was only darkness. 
 When I looked for him and saw him not when I listened for him and he 
 came not, but sent a farewell, I awoke from the delusion. I have struggled 
 to forget him. What am I to do? Rum surrounds me. What is charac- 
 ter? what is honor what is life without him? Dearest Florence! If you 
 have loved as I love, you will answer nothing, nothing. Oh! I could 
 moralize once. I could talk of self-respect and pride and decorum. These 
 motives may weigh with those who do not need their restraint; but I I, 
 who loye him alone, and have my thoughts, feelings, affections and almost 
 my existence, identified with his I may perish perhaps in disgrace but 
 never shall his dear image be torn from my heart. 
 
 Florence, I am far away from you in the land of gigantic rivers and 
 boundless prairies. I sometimes hope that I may yet be happy. I have a 
 thousand things to tell you, and a thousand questions to ask you when I 
 embrace you again, if ever. 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 MARY M. LEECH. 
 
 P. S. In your next,, please inform me whether " Orientalaines " is as 
 much worn for dresses as ever; and whether "a la Pacha" is worn by the 
 recherche? M. M. L.
 
 64 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 STRIKING THE MAIN BODY AHEAD. 
 
 Mr. White went forty feet due east of the grafted min- 
 eral hole, and there commenced sinking another shaft ; work- 
 ing in the shaft himself for he rightly judged that the hired 
 man would be less likely to break the Major's head through 
 carelessness at the windlass, than " to cover up mineral on 
 him," if allowed to work in the ground, On the third day 
 at noon, they had sunk forty feet down to a cap-rock that 
 covered the whole width of the crevice. After dinner, Mr. 
 White drilled into the rock thirteen inches, and put in a blast 
 of powder, which shivered the rock to fragments. The pie- 
 ces of rock fell through into a cavity beneath. Upon going 
 down, Mr. White found he had opened into an immense 
 cavern of ore, with a space of six feet between the mineral 
 and cap rock. He sent for a candle and matches, and ex- 
 plored the cavern east one hundred and fifty yards; walking 
 all the way over a turnpike of mineral. Elated with his dis- 
 covery, he returned to the opening, and fastened the rope 
 with a noose around one of the fragments of rock, and or- 
 dered the windlass man to hoist it. Not anticipating the 
 least danger, Mr. White, instead of stepping aside into the 
 cavern, remained at thebottem of the shaft. When the rock 
 was raised a part of the way up, the rope broke and the rock 
 fell upon his back, grazing the back part of his head, and 
 knocking him senseless. Help obtained he was carried to 
 his cabin nearly dead. Medical aid was sent for, and two 
 doctors came. The two doctors were of different schools in 
 the art of killing. One of them slew his patients with calo-
 
 STRIKING THE MAIN BODY AHEAD. 65 
 
 mel and the lancet, while the other finished them with lo- 
 belia and red pepper, and stifled them in steam. They held 
 a consultation; that was a critical time for Mr. White. Dr. 
 Lancet was proceeding to bleed. Dr. Lobelia protested 
 against it. 
 
 "The patient requires," said the professor of phle- 
 botomy, " immediate and copious depletion, to relieve the 
 pressure of blood from the brain. He is already in a com- 
 atose state." 
 
 " The patient requires no such thing," quoth Lobelia. 
 "The blood is the life; and the man is nearly dead already. 
 He requires something warming, and nourishing, and stim- 
 ulating to keep the breath of life in him. " 
 
 " You talk like a fool!" rejoined Lancet. What do you 
 know of the human system? You cannot tell on which side 
 of a patient the heart lies. I am sometimes charged with 
 exaggeration, but I will take my oath you have too little 
 knowledge ofanatomy to cut a patient's finger nails. " 
 
 " You lie! " retorted Lobelia ; " and you are a lying 
 trifling puppy, you are. You mow down mankind like a 
 simoon, and your track is like the tornado. You have peo- 
 pled more than ten quarter sections of grave-yards, and fed 
 out more of your nasty poison calomy than ten grist mills 
 could grind. You pretend to be a surgeon! Why you are 
 not fit to tap a seed cucumber for dropsy ! You a doctor ? 
 You don't know the itch from the small pox. But you can 
 out-lie me, and I give it up. " 
 
 Accordingly Major White was freely bled ; and, to tell 
 the truth, he was certainly benefitted by the operation. Dr. 
 Lancet went home ; but Dr. Lobelia staid at Blue Rabbit 
 until midnight ; for he was determined to " crack down" on 
 the patient himself, with steam. He was just preparing to
 
 '(86 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 administer to the patient an injection of cayenne, when he 
 was interrupted in the manner I will now proceed to relate. 
 
 A FRIEND IN NEED. 
 
 Oh! what is love made for, if it is not the same 
 Through joy and through sorrow, through glory and shame? 
 I know not, I asked not, if guilt's in that heart, 
 But I know that I love thee, whatever thou art ! 
 
 Thou hast call'd me thy angel in moments of bliss; 
 Still thy angel I'll be 'mid the horrors of this ; 
 Thro' the furnace unshrinking thy steps to pursue, 
 And shield thee, and save thee, or perish there too ! 
 
 MOOEE. 
 
 Oh ! woman ! What can equal the moral sublimity of 
 thy spirit? Whether thou art found in the the tent of the 
 wild Arab, or in the wigwam of the Indian, or cradled in 
 the luxuries of palaces, or sharing the toils and dangers of 
 the western pioneer, thy free, noble daring, and enduring 
 spirit ever glistens like the polar star in the dark hour of 
 man's adversity.' Though the heartless sneer at thee, and 
 the cold and selfish deride thy sufferings and thy sacrifices, 
 thou art ready, if need be, to suffer all and to endure all, 
 at the shrine of thy heart's devotion. 
 
 The first news the wife of the ex-cashier had of Mr. 
 White, after he departed from Badgerton, was that he lay at 
 the point of death, some fifteen miles distant, at Little Blue 
 Rabbit. Then it was that the mighty impulses of woman's 
 sympathy were aroused in her gentle bosom. Before then, 
 all softness and weakness, she was now in a moment nerved 
 with the firmness of iron. She instantly formed a high re- 
 solve, which, like a resistless torrent, bore down all fear of 
 danger or obstacles all pride all conventional notions of 
 decorum ; all the the impulses of her heart were merged in
 
 STRIKING THE MAIN BODY AHEAD. 67 
 
 one purpose to go that very night and alleviate the dying 
 sufferings of her young friend, whose unredeemed soul was 
 hovering on the brink of eternity. Despatch and profound 
 secrecy were requisite. For the first time in her life she 
 robed her delicate limbs in male attire, which she contrived 
 to obtain. She left a billet upon her writing desk, addressed 
 to her sister, informing her that she was summoned suddenly 
 away and would return in a few days, and imploring her not 
 to be alarmed at her sudden departure the cause of which 
 she would hereafter explain. Her nimble little feet were 
 soon on the road to Little Blue Rabbit. Her only guide across 
 the snowy expanse of moonlight prairie was a distant 
 mound, the outline of which was distinctly pictured against 
 the blue sky; and which she knew was near the place she 
 sought to find. 
 
 About midnight a gentle rap was heard at the door of 
 the patient's cabin. A rough miner came and" opened the 
 door. The graceful stranger entered, and tripped lightly to 
 the bed of the sufferer. He was groaning deeply and lay 
 entirely unconscious of all around him. 
 
 After a few moments, her eye seemed to kindle with 
 new hope and resolution. "What are you doing for the 
 patient?" inquired the graceful stranger, addressing Dr. 
 Lobelia. 
 
 "Why," said the doctor, "I have placed two hot bricks 
 at his feet and given him the Composition and some warm 
 Lobelia tea to nourish his stomach and I am going to give 
 him an 
 
 " Enough, doctor," interrupted the blushing youth. " I 
 have to inform you that I am this patient's nearest friend. 
 Make out your bill. Your further services can be dispensed 
 with." The stranger spoke as one not to be trifled with;
 
 68 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 and Doctor Lobelia was taken with a leaving. She then 
 removed the two hot bricks and applied cold water freely to 
 the patient's head, and she administered such other pallia- 
 tives as common sense seemed to indicate, and watched over 
 him with constant tenderness, until the arrival of Dr. Lan- 
 cet. On examination of the patient's hat, it appeared that 
 his skull had been shielded from fracture, by some papers 
 that happened to be in his hat, and which papers she ven- 
 tured to take the custody of. One of the papers was an 
 open half sheet, on which were written with a pencil, the 
 following lines ; which as they were interesting to her are 
 here transcribed. 
 
 When he whose feverish brain gives birth 
 
 To fond thoughts written here, 
 Is torn.from all he loves on earth, 
 
 Oh ! drop for him a tear. 
 
 This throbbing pulse, this feverish frame, 
 
 Betray my secret soul, 
 And tell that her I dare not name, 
 
 I love beyond control. 
 
 Perchance no more thy form divine 
 
 My watchful eyes shall bless ; 
 Yet, though thou never canst be mine, 
 
 I cannot love thee less. 
 
 The stream, the plain, the prairie flower, 
 
 Each object that I see, 
 And every moment of each hour 
 
 My memory links to thee. 
 
 She watched over the sufferer until the fourth night and 
 until his reason began to revive and he was pronounced free 
 from danger, when with a blush she imprinted an impas- 
 sioned kiss upon his forehead and departed. The next 
 morning she came down from her room to breakfast at her 
 sister's at the usual hour.
 
 PLANTING A SUIT. 69 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PLANTING A SUIT. 
 
 Calamities are gregarious and come mostly in flocks. No 
 sooner was Major White on his feet again, than he was 
 threatened with a leash of law suits. First came old Buff 
 who insisted that his partnership with the Major had never 
 been dissolved; and demanded one-half of the lead. He 
 was soon quieted, however. "Never mention it to me 
 again, Buff," said the Major, pale with anger, and touching 
 the hilt of his six-shooter, " never name partnership to me 
 again, you dishonest old rascal. Five words more from you, 
 would tempt me to blow your brains out. Look me in the 
 eye, you brazen old knave, and tell me how you dare attempt 
 to practice this impudent rascality upon me. " 
 
 Old Buff's eye quailed. He looked upon the ground and 
 commenced stirring the dust with the toe of his boot. At 
 length he said, in a subdued tone, that he wanted money 
 
 ' ' You shall have money, " quoth the Major. ' ' But if you 
 have money off me, you must take it as a gift and not de- 
 mand it as a right." 
 
 Smith and Hawkins, who the reader will recollect, long 
 since jumped the diggings, set up a much more formidable 
 claim to the Major's discovery; for they had been in peace- 
 able possession of the range running east, ever since the 
 grafting of the mineral hole; and had raised several thous- 
 and of top mineral; though they had never yet gone down 
 into the underbody of ore. 
 
 They employed as their attorneys, Messrs. Shave & Still. 
 " State your case gentlemen," said Shave to his clients; for
 
 70 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 Shave did all the talking, while Still held his tongue, and got 
 credit for keeping up a devil of a thinking. 
 
 Bill Smith went on to state that he and his partner com- 
 menced digging on the range on the 2ist day of October 
 that then there was no discovery made on the ground; that 
 Buff and White had then pretended to make a discovery, 
 but that in point of fact they had only grafted their mineral 
 hole; that they, Smith and Hawkins, had struck mineral the 
 very day Leech purchased of Buff and White that White 
 had since bought out Leech and Buff, and gone ahead on 
 the crevice east, and struck it big. 
 
 " One of you," quoth Shave, "must sell out his interest 
 to the other, and come in as a witness, if we proceed for a 
 forcible entry and detainer." 
 
 Mr. Still nodded assent. 
 
 "And," continued Shave, "you must get old Buff and 
 train him. He will be a material witness." 
 
 Mr. Still nodded approbation. 
 
 "We must bring the suit let me see where will we 
 bring the suit? There is Esquire Green he is right and 
 the next nearest justice of the peace before whom the cause 
 could be moved is Esquire Gosling, and he is right, too; 
 yes, we will commence -before Green. Now for the jury. 
 "There is," said Shave, counting his fingers, "there is 
 Cringe, who stands indicted of hog stealing, is one; Cotton, 
 .against whom we have a judgment, makes two; Swallow, 
 who believes in all that Green says, makes three; Shallow, 
 who swears that you are the deepest lawyer in the Terri- 
 tory, makes four; Whimper, the man I defended for flog- 
 ging his wife, makes five; Dig, who don't like any body 
 should be too lucky, makes six; Nuckle, who believes in 
 majorities, makes seven; Hungry, who never hangs a jury,
 
 PLANTING A SUIT. 71 
 
 makes eight; Wrede, who wants to do what the majority 
 think right, makes nine; Guzzle, who says he can see no 
 sense in requiring a jury to drink water only, makes ten; 
 and as for the balance, it can be made up of ciphers. We 
 must carry out a load of loafers for the talesmen. "
 
 72 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE TEA PARTY. 
 
 Although we western folks mostly drink coffee, the tea 
 party has found its way here; and the tea market of the 
 celestial empire widens in the circle of civilization that is 
 spreading over our hemisphere. We are too mercurial to 
 drink coffee alone, and to be taciturn as Turks. We want 
 tea as scandal it is our birthright and we will have it. 
 
 One after another of the ladies of Badgertown dropped 
 into the house of Mrs. Tibbets. Each lady came with but 
 little bustle (for bustles were yet in embryo) but they had 
 each a boa entwining her neck a fashion as old, for what I 
 know, as Eve. There was but little " music " until after 
 each lady had imbibed three cups of "imperial." After tea 
 the sweet fountains of loquacity (and some not so sweet) were 
 opened, and there was an inundation of small talk a per- 
 fect deluge of scandal, which threatened the destruction of 
 every character out of their " ark." 
 
 " Y~J don't say it!" quoth Miss Stubbs. 
 
 " What? Two wives living !" exclaimed Mrs. Grubbs. 
 
 " Abominable creature !'' exclaimed Miss Stubbs. 
 
 " Won't the grand jury interdict him?" inquired Mrs. 
 Snubbs. 
 
 " If / were his wife and he should throw the sugar bowl 
 at my head," quoth Mrs. Drubbs; a sharp nosed termagant, 
 " he would catch it, I'll warrant you; I would get him rode 
 on a rail, I would." 
 
 " Yeth," said little Miss Coombs, lisping, " yeth, it ith 
 my imprethion that I would return railing for railing, too.
 
 THE TEA PARTY. 73 
 
 The conversation here arose into a confused murmur 
 a sort of parlor Babel a conglomeration of sentences 
 knocked into "pi," which at length subsided into a calm; 
 when all at once a fresh buzzing was heard in one corner, 
 which presently broke into a distinct whisper between Miss 
 Celia Parsimmon and Miss Abigail Cauliflower. 
 
 " In a man's clothes?" inquired Miss Parsimmon, drop- 
 ping her sewing into her lap, and raising both hands with a 
 look of horror. 
 
 " Yes," replied aunt Abigail, looking out sternly over 
 her spectacles and speaking more audibly; " yes, and in the 
 night, too." 
 
 "Where?" "Which way?" "Who?" "What?" 
 "When?" " Who is it?" " Where was it?" " How was 
 it?" exclaimed a dozen at once. 
 
 "I shall call no names," answered Miss Cauliflower. 
 " You must take it just as I got it. The woman is a stran- 
 ger here. Perhaps they were very nice people in Michigan; 
 but when a woman's husband is gone, for her to leave home 
 all of a sudden and not be seen again for four days and 
 nights, and finally to come home again all stark alone when 
 it is pitch dark, in a man's clothes, I don't think it very pru- 
 dent if she is a cashier's wife. 
 
 To do the ladies justice, there was a majority who 
 refused to give the tale any credence. They said that 
 Madame Leech had every appearance of being a lady, and 
 would not believe any such scandalous story and that if 
 there was any semblance of foundation for it, they thought 
 it might be explained so as to be consistent with her purity. 
 A division of opinion arose and all voices chjmed in to 
 swell the chorus of queries and interjections; so that there 
 \vas a noise in Mrs. Tibbet's parlor for about the same length
 
 74 STRUCK A LEAD, 
 
 of time that St. John says three was silence in heaven; viz: 
 for about the space of half an hour, by Mrs. Tibbet's new 
 brass clock. A dumb tea party would be profitable for 
 exhibition; and amongst a thousand arguments to prove 
 that the gentle sex share with man, hereafter, that heaven, 
 which, with all their faults, they so much more richly merit, 
 none perhaps is more conclusive than the negative proof 
 furnished in the text: "There was silence in heaven for 
 about the space of half an hour" a fact that never would 
 have been deemed worthy of record, had heaven been 
 peopled only by our own saturine sex.
 
 TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF. 75 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF. 
 
 Opposition or antagonism is the main spring of creation. 
 The concussion of the flint and steel produces fire the col- 
 lision of mind produces wit from the meeting of the oppo- 
 site sexes result the mighty stream of original existence 
 opposition multiplies steamboats, accelerates speed and 
 reduces rates opposition multiplies merchants and mechan- 
 ics, lawyers and litigation opposition made Mr. Van Buren 
 president and Napoleon Bonaparte emperor opposition 
 stimulated Philip of Macedon to play the hero, and inspired 
 Demosthenes to thunder forth his Phillippics opposition 
 planted Nauvoo, like a cancer, on the bosom of the Missis- 
 sippi and pimpled the whole valley of the west with rival 
 churches opposition reduced the price of brogans and 
 built up the rival towns of Rock Island and Davenport, and 
 opposition drives out the very dogs of those two respect- 
 ive villages to howl defiance at each other by moonlight 
 across the cold shining river. Rivalry and competition 
 stimulate the active millions that are swarming over this 
 new continent. ' The great globe itself blooming afresh with 
 every annual revolution, were it not for the antagonism of 
 the centrifugal and centripedal forces, would cease its glorious 
 career and would fall into lifeless, formless, chaos. There 
 seems to be two opposite principles of mind, the conflict of 
 which is essential to call into exercise all the faculties and to 
 develop all the capabilities of our nature. If these oppo- 
 site principles be weak the character will be feeble. "Con- 
 found your harmless folks," as a lady of wit and beauty once
 
 76 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 remarked. Better to be wavering and inconstant than to be 
 nobody. 
 
 Several circumstances had lately combined to call into 
 exercise the better principle of Major White's nature and to 
 effect a change in his character. The injury upon his tyead 
 so nearly fatal, had led him to reflect on the shortness and 
 uncertainty of life, as yet neither useful nor virtuous. His 
 pecuniary circumstances were now such as placed him above 
 the temptation to steal. He found himself suddenly a 
 man of some importance and felt a growing self-respect and 
 pride of character. But his passion for the elegant woman 
 whom he idolized, more than all other causes had been in- 
 strumental in purifying the fountains of his heart and en- 
 nobling his soul. No man is irreclaimable who is capable 
 of sincerely and devotedly loving a woman of purity and 
 refinement. Men of dissolute habits may love men of 
 dissolute hearts cannot. Those polished scoundrels who 
 "drag angels down" generally pass for men of good morals. 
 There is hope for those who are not too selfish to look up 
 and be guided by "some bright particular star." Love as- 
 similates those who exercise it perhaps by some law of 
 physical affinities better understood by Professor De Bonne- 
 ville than by the writer. Major White's resolution to re- 
 form was also strengthened by the following letter from his 
 parents : 
 
 CLOCKTON, Conn., Jan. 10, 184 . 
 
 MY SON: So then you are in Wisconsin? Where in the world have 
 you been for these ten years? James, James, you are old enough to be a 
 man. What on earth is the reason you could not stay at home and be 
 steady and enjoy the ordinances of the gospel, like your younger brother, 
 John, who is now settled at Kagton, and owns a large cotton factory, and 
 is one of the pillars in Dr. Brimstone's church and society? You was 
 always a wayward boy and required frequent chastisement. Consecrated 
 as you were in childhood, by the holy ordinance of baptism, I could not
 
 TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF. 77 
 
 believe that you would wander away from this land of gospel light and 
 liberty, and spend your days in the darkness of heathenism, amongst pa- 
 gans, infidels and Catholics. You have had all the advantages which edu- 
 cation could bestow. I have expended thousands for your instruction. 
 You had from childhood wholesome family discipline, and you were re- 
 quired to listen to the lively oracles of God. You were faithfully taught 
 the decalogue and catechism, too, of the assembly of holy "Westminster 
 divines. In due time you were sent to a good sound orthodox New En- 
 gland college, where you graduated. I had fondly hoped, my son, that 
 your mind might be awakened to a realizing sense of your lost and undone 
 condition, and, after three years of study at the Andover Theological Sem- 
 inary, you might hecome a herald of the cross and proclaim the tidings of 
 salvation from the pulpit. How great has been my disappointment! You 
 left home; nothing could induce you to stay; and after ten years I have 
 the satisfaction to learn that you have been a ragged Texan Major, and 
 that you are now at large in the Northwest without property, family or 
 character! Glorious cause and most noble destiny! to have spent the 
 prime of your life in fighting for the sham democrats of Texas, who are 
 gloating upon the blood of the slave. Pray, what is your Texan emblem 
 bird? A buzzard! Oh, my son! such conduct is heinous enough to call 
 down the wrath of heaven and to arouse the very ashes of your Pilgrim 
 fathers. Your mother will conclude this letter. 
 
 JOHN WHITE, SB. 
 
 P. S. Inclosed find a check for one hundred dollars. Come home 
 immediately. 
 
 MY LONG LOST SON: In what shall your mother now address her 
 first-born? Are you, indeed, my veritable child? Months and years have 
 rolled by since your departure. Year followed year and brought no tidings 
 of you until you were remembered only as one of the dead. Oh! I have 
 seen you in a thousand dreams ; in peril in pomp in boyhood in man- 
 hood in all conceivable circumstances of existence. Sitting alone by the 
 hearth where you were cradled, and listening to the mournful chorus of the 
 crickets, I have often fancied I have heard the voice of my lost boy calling 
 me in unforgotten tones. Oh, my son! myself! dearer to me than the 
 light of heaven which I first saw dawn upon your infant eyes! What an- 
 guish have I not felt for you? I thank God you cannot know. No, no; 
 none but a mother can know anguish. At last news of you came. Mr. 
 Kobert Acres, a speculator in Western lands, being at a party at our house 
 on Thanksgiving evening, informed us of you. Your father, whose head is 
 now. silvered with age, and your brothers and sisters also, unite with me in 
 requesting your immediate return home. That my prayers to God with
 
 78 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 you and for you have been answered in the salvation of your soul and 
 preservation of your honor untarnished and that you may return a Chris- 
 tian and a gentleman but above all that you may return to these arms that 
 encircled you in your infancy, is the earnest petition of your poor mother. 
 
 MARIA WHITE.
 
 MESMERISM. 79 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MESMERISM. 
 
 The Major was troubled. There was the anxiety of his 
 friends at home about his welfare, and particularly the earn- 
 est appeal of his mother, whom he loved, tenderly; then 
 the difficulties, expenses, and risk of a lawsuit in defense of 
 his discovery; but more than all, the agony of separation 
 from the lady he loved. All these causes had combined to 
 depress his spirits, and produce melancholy. At times, he 
 almost repented of his resolution to sacrifice his attachment 
 to the lady, dishonorable though its indulgence might prove, 
 and ruinous to them both. It is highly probable, in this 
 irresolute state of mind, that, if he had believed the lady 
 would play Cleopatra, he would have enacted Mark Antony. 
 But whenever he considered his cash account, his virtue re- 
 covered its wonted equilibrium. Now, the Major, to be 
 secure from temptation, had resolved to return no more to 
 Badgerton; but business now required him to go there, and 
 he we-nt. 
 
 It was Saturday evening when he arrived in that beauti- 
 ful little village, and stopped at the best hotel; but which 
 hotel that was, I have not ascertained. Everybody had 
 gone to attend a lecture on the novel science of Mesmer- 
 ism; and, after tea, having nothing else to do, the Major 
 went likewise. Even Madame Leech, dejected and melan- 
 choly as she was, had, at the earnest solicitation of her 
 sister, taken a seat in the crowded audience, to listen to the 
 peripatetic philosopher. The Major entered the room and 
 uncovered his intellectual brow, and took a seat near the
 
 80 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 lecturer. He was, for a moment, the cynosure of all eyes; 
 but one there was who, when she glanced at him, started as 
 if an arrow had reached her heart; but he knew not of her 
 presence. 
 
 How is philosophy fallen! Shades of Newton and 
 Franklin and Spurzheim, your mantles have fallen upon the 
 shoulders of mountebanks.. Here was a teacher of philos- 
 ophy who had certainly blundered into some of the sublim- 
 est mysteries of physiology, which he exhibited to the 
 conviction of the most skeptical; yet, when he undertook 
 to explain the wonderful phenomena, and prate about the 
 " lors of nature," he only proved himself to be a fool. He 
 was like a child that had thrust a lever into some compli- 
 cated machine, and arrested its motion for the examination 
 of others; but of the construction of which he was himself 
 more ignorant than any spectator, and was as unfit to teach 
 philosophical theories, as was the silken cord with which 
 Franklin, as with a lariat, noosed and dragged down the 
 lingering lightnings from their wild home in heaven. 
 
 "Here," said the lecturer, turning to Major White, 
 "here is a gentleman of a temperament that I never fail to 
 bring under Mesmeric influence. If I am not mistaken in 
 his appearance, he is a somnambulist. If he will consent 
 to be mesmerized, I think I will afford the audience some 
 very pretty exhibitions of clairvoyance. " 
 
 The Major smiled incredulously, and at the urgent so- 
 licitation of Mr. Power and several other gentlemen, 
 consented to the experiment, The lecturer took a seat 
 facing the subject, and looked him steadily in the eye for 
 about five minutes. The subject at length began to per- 
 ceive a misty veil spreading before his vision he grew 
 unconscious of what was passing around him. The lecturer
 
 MESMERISM. 81 
 
 then approached him, and gently closed the lids of his eyes, 
 drew his fingers lightly over him a few times from the head 
 downward then pressed his hand upon the subject's bosom. 
 The subject's senses were locked in profound slumber his 
 cheek was flushed his pulse was quickened and his limbs 
 were rigid. The hushed audience breathed again. 
 
 "Now," said the lecturer, "I will excite the subject's 
 organ of memory, and try to ascertain what is most indeli- 
 bly impressed upon it." 
 
 He touched the organ of memory. 
 
 "Oh!" groaned the somnambulist, "it was a terrible 
 blow! I fear, doctor, the skull is fractured. Thus, then, I 
 am to perish and where is she? Oh! may she never, never 
 know my fate!" 
 
 "Can any one explain the meaning of this language?" 
 asked the lecturer. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Power, "he was nearly killed not long 
 since, by the falling of a rock on his head in a mining hole. 
 This is one of my clients, sir, Major White, of Blue Rabbit. " 
 
 "Ah!" said the lecturer, "that is a key to this subject's 
 mind. His brain has been more or less injured; and hence 
 his amazing susceptibility to this influence. I will now ex- 
 cite amativeness in connection with memory, and see if I can 
 learn anything about his lady-love." 
 
 All this time Madame Leech was sitting motionless as 
 a statue, with her eyes riveted upon the subject. 
 
 Memory and amativeness were now excited. 
 
 "Oh! thou angel of light! " exclaimed the subject; his 
 face beaming with eloquence; "hast thou indeed come, 
 mistress of my soul, to minister to my dying agonies in 
 this dungeon? Do I not know thy foot-fall thy voice thy
 
 82 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 dove-like eye, through all disguises? Dream of heaven, 
 vanish not!" 
 
 All were astonished. An emotion of sublimity was 
 felt by all; for each one was conscious that he was looking 
 into the very mystery of our nature. 
 
 "Now," said the lecturer, "we will see if this subject 
 can be made prophetic." 
 
 The proper organs being excited, the lecturer asked 
 the subject if he could see anything in the future. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What do you see?" 
 
 "I see upon the prairie, a log cabin, and stable, and 
 stacks, and men and wagons; two horses that cannot 
 move." 
 
 "What are they doing in the house? What do you see 
 there." 
 
 "Many people are there; and a new clock, and a great 
 fire-place, a bed, and trundle-bed full of children." 
 
 "Travel on what else do you see?" 
 
 "I see two men running in a snowstorm on the prairie 
 one of them I think is Buff." 
 
 "Where are they gone?" 
 
 "There! they have dropped out of sight! I cannot see 
 them any more." 
 
 "This is an intellectual man," said the lecturer 
 perhaps a poet. Let us see what may be the effect of ex- 
 citing ideality, amativeness, tune, language, and cautious- 
 ness. I include cautiousness for fear the subject may 
 improperly betray some secret of his own." 
 
 When these organs were excited, the subject stood up, 
 and at the same instant, as if moved by the same impulse, 
 the lady of the ex-cashier also arose, to the astonishment
 
 MESMERISM. 83 
 
 of everybody. The subject then proceeded to utter, with 
 the most fervid and impassioned elocution, the following 
 stanzas. Meanwhile the lady stood in the attitude of a 
 listener, with her eyes riveted upon the subject, her right 
 foot advanced her fore-finger raised her lips apart, like a 
 statue growing into life: 
 
 Deep in the heaven of her eye 
 
 Love sat enthroned ; 
 I gazed I knelt and with a sigh 
 
 Love's power I owned ; 
 But she was not my own 
 Her name must be unknown. 
 
 I listened to her syren voice 
 
 It thrilled my very soul ; 
 I loved her, though another's choice, 
 
 Beyond control. 
 Still she was not my own 
 Her name must be unknown. 
 
 Her foot-fall made my pulses dance 
 
 When she drew nigh ; 
 We crimsoned at each other's glance, 
 
 Yet dared not sigh ; 
 For she was not my own 
 Her name must be unknown. 
 
 Our straying fingers, trembling met, 
 
 One summer night ; 
 We glowed with burning rapture; yet 
 
 It was not right ; 
 For she was not my own 
 Her name must be unkhown. 
 
 "Astonishing!" "Most wonderful!" were the exclama- 
 tions of every one. "Ladies and gentlemen," said the 
 lecturer, these are the most astonishing phenomena I ever 
 witnessed. Here seems to be two subjects. Let me ex-
 
 84 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 amine this lady." Upon examination it appeared, sure 
 enough, that the two were in a state of deep somnolency. 
 Her limbs were rigid, her respiration was difficult, and her 
 immovable eyes were fixed upon the other subject. The 
 operator waved his hand upward, near her person, revers- 
 ing the magnetizing process, when, behold, both the lady 
 and the gentleman, at the same instant, looked around them 
 with wild expressions of returning reason, and sat down 
 among the astonished spectators entirely unconscious of 
 their experience while under the influence of mesmerism. 
 
 A MINERAL SERMON. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and the Major went to meet- 
 ing, as every gentleman should do. No class of men 
 perhaps in the world, more need the restraint of the gos- 
 pel than the miners. The greater part of them are young 
 men, removed from the influence of parents, and untamed 
 by the magic charm of female society. The miner is fre- 
 quently found a man of great daring, of much generosity, 
 and wonderful force of character; but generally improvident, 
 and too often with a dash of ferocity in him that rides 
 rough-shod over the requisite restraint of law or order. 
 Here, if anywhere, the pulpit should be supplied with elo- 
 quent and learned aye, learned divines; devout men, whose 
 morals will endorse their doctrines, and whose dress and 
 address will correspond to the dignity of their profession. 
 
 The Major glanced around to see if he could discover 
 amongst the worshippers, her whose eye beaming with love 
 had so often sent through him a sudden thrill of ecstacy. 
 There was a galaxy of bright eyes, flashing and twinkling 
 around him; but those bright particular stars that ruled his 
 destiny, were invisible. Where is she? Perhaps at some
 
 A MINERAL SERMOX. 85 
 
 other place of worship; for he that would see the entire ar- 
 ray of beauty, in this village, must look two ways of a 
 Sunday, or perhaps but a truce to conjectures. Ser- 
 vice commenced the prayer was ended and the hymn 
 was sung. The preacher stood up in the pulpit, a man 
 of forty years of age, clad in a rather slovenly suit He 
 had a face as imperturbable as cast-iron, and lungs like a 
 mule. " The text may be found in Proverbs, the sec- 
 ond chapter and the fourth verse, in these words: 'If thou 
 seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treas- 
 ures.' My dear hearers: In the text widsom is personified 
 and put in the feminine gender, to be the more attractive. 
 Wisdom, wearing whiskers like a boat-swain, would fail to 
 win your hearts, and you would shun rather than seek 
 for it. 
 
 "Now, then, how are you to seek for wisdom? Why just 
 as you would dig for a lead that is, you must keep pop- 
 ping down after it. Judea was probably a mining region, 
 and hence this simile, borrowed from the mines, naturally 
 occurred to Solomon. I shall not here attempt to philoso- 
 phise upon the origin of mineral, nor make a geological 
 inquiry concerning its formation. It is immaterial whether 
 it has ben forced up through fissures and crevices in the 
 shell of the earth by internal heat, or whether it is 
 formed in the great laboratory of nature, by chemical com- 
 binations of earths whether it grows by mere accretion, or 
 whether it has an organization and principle of vitality in it, 
 analagous to a bed of oysters. The simplest and best theory 
 I know of is this. That the same God, who in the begin- 
 ning said, ' let there be light, and there was light,' said ' let 
 there be mineral/ and there was mineral. The formation of 
 mineral is no more mysterious than the formation of marble.
 
 86 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 Well; no matter how it came where it is, so long as we find 
 it in divers and sundry places, wedged in between the ribs of 
 the earth, and can sell it for fifteen dollars a thousand, men 
 will prospect. Oh! that they should search for wisdom, as 
 for this hidden treasure! Men who prospect, dig where 
 there are the best signs of mineral. They sink in some of 
 the general North and South ranges of east and west crev- 
 ices. They would no sooner go between these ranges to get 
 mineral, than I would go to a ball-room to get wisdom. 
 Again, the miner keeps the tools to work with; but how 
 many of you are destitute of that great instrument of salva- 
 tion, the Bible? The miner watches the signs observes the 
 float notices the color of the ochre and the pitch of the 
 clay; but, alas! how few of you watch the emotions of your 
 hearts search for the internal signs of spiritual wisdom, or 
 notice the pitch of your affections. In your search for min- 
 eral you penetrate through flint you raise tumbling rock 
 you blast the solid cap rock you tear out the very bowels 
 of the earth; but in digging for wisdom, how easily you are 
 discouraged by the slightest obstacles. When the miner 
 makes a discovery, he knows what he has found, and never 
 mistakes black-jack for mineral; but how many fancy they 
 have experienced religion, and found the treasure of eternal 
 wisdom, are in fact only working out fanaticism and folly. 
 Ah! my hearers; how infinitely more valuable is wisdom, 
 than the richest cavern of sparkling ore. If you find wisdom 
 it cannot be 'jumped away 'from you, and you can never be 
 ' lawed ' out of it. The great enemy of souls may indeed 
 sometimes cut your windlass rope, or dull your tools, or let 
 the water into your shaft: but you have only to splice your 
 rope sharpen your tools and work the pump of prayer. 
 You cannot be robbed of your discovery; and you shall find
 
 A MINERAL SERMON. 87 
 
 more and more wisdom until it runs on as big- as mules; and 
 when all other leads have failed when this earth shall be- 
 come one vast furnace and when all the ore in her veins 
 shall have melted and trickled down in bright silver streams 
 into the boiling rivers and steaming oceans and when the 
 elements themselves shall melt with fervent heat, your treas- 
 ure of eternal wisdom shall still be within your grasp, 
 
 During the last of the singing, our hero was placed in a 
 dilemma. He saw a contribution-box travelling towards 
 him. He had no money with him but two twenty dollar 
 Missouri bills. Now, said he, what am I to do? Sit here 
 the observed of all, and refuse to contribute anything? or 
 sacrifice all to pride? Let them go by; if they wish to lay a 
 soul-excise, they should at least give gentlemen notice. 
 Who could anticipate, that these good folks who make such 
 an outcry against carrying the mail and raising incidental 
 revenue from the Post-Office on*Sunday, would select that 
 very day for the express purpose of levying a direct soul-tax!
 
 88 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TAKING THE BENEFIT. 
 
 A lawsuit may be a pleasant thing, that is to say, provided 
 one is not elected defendant. It is really a satisfaction to 
 assist those whose legal rights are invaded, if one gets paid 
 for it; for the lawyer who hires himself out, like a Swiss 
 soldier, to battle for his client right or wrong, must have the 
 recompense of reward. The people seem to have grown in- 
 sensible to their rights, and suffer them to be trampled upon 
 with impunity. Let the millenium or the small pox stalk 
 before the public gaze, and everybody grows as meek as 
 Moses; the fires of resentment burn down, until there is 
 scarcely heat enough left to keep the old chancery caldrons 
 simmering. When Death or^the Cholera are holding their 
 assizes, our practice yields to that of the medical faculty. We 
 do not complain at this; " live and let live " is our motto; 
 though some of the doctors do not subscribe to it. The 
 bankrupt law has swept away much of the material of litiga- 
 tion. Like the rod of Moses, it was stretched across the sea 
 of debts and obligations, and that sea yawned open to its 
 slimy bottom, and the beggarly host of debtors marched 
 through carrying away in triumph their creditors' " jewels of 
 silver and jewels of gold, and rainment. " They are now 
 winding away into the wilderness, to raise straw and make 
 bricks for themselves; and our vocation of taskmaster is 
 g<one. It reminds one of the boy who killed the goose. We 
 have had the satisfaction of dining upon a lean goose; but 
 what are we to do now for eggs ? Think of that Mr. Power. 
 Buff was getting embarrassed. His old " Drummond " fur-
 
 TAKING THE BENEFIT. 89 
 
 nace had cost him a large sum in repairs his smelters had 
 failed to obtain a good per centum from his mineral his 
 bogus lead operation had cost him some money and shaken 
 his credit his grocery bills were large and another install- 
 ment had become due upon the purchase of his furnace. 
 Unable to get an advance of money in Galena, he went to 
 Badgerton, to try to effect a loan upon a mortgage of his 
 furnace and for this purpose he called upon Counsellor 
 Power. 
 
 " You say," quoth Power, " that you must have eighty- 
 five dollars?" 
 
 " That are a fact. " 
 
 " Is that all you owe? " 
 
 " Yes, it are, except my liquor bills." 
 
 " Could you not conscientiously make oath that you are 
 unable to meet your debts and obligations? " 
 
 " Bekase why? " 
 Because, if you could, you might take the benefit. 
 
 " Take what? " 
 
 " Take the benefit, Mr. Buff; that is, the benefit of the 
 bankrupt act, for such case made and humanely provided. 
 That is, you will get a free discharge from all your debts." 
 
 " Take the oath? . Well, I could, hoss. I can't raise the 
 eighty-five dollars, no how I can fix it thirty is all I can 
 raise in the ready." 
 
 " I will get your discharge for thirty dollars or there- 
 abouts. You will have to advance, from time to time, the 
 clerk's and printer's fees. Mind you, I do not advise you to 
 take the benefit. I act entirely upon your suggestions." 
 
 " But my furnace?" 
 
 " Your creditors will never prove up a dollar of their de- 
 mands against you; and you can bid in your furnace at the 
 assignee's sale for three bits."
 
 90 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 " What personal property have you, Mr. Buff?" 
 
 " Three pistols, a bowie knife, and my other necessary 
 wearing apparel." 
 
 " Ahem! Well, Buff, the law will allow you this sort of 
 necessary personal property to the amount of two or three 
 hundred dollars." 
 
 " No! Well, if so be that mought be the case, I will in 
 the first place go and run my face with Slop for three new 
 suits of clothes and a hickory shirt." 
 
 " Have you no other personal property? Have you no 
 gun or watch?" 
 
 " Well, I haven't; but I know where I can buy both on 
 credit." 
 
 " Where is that fine red trotting horse you had of Major 
 White?" 
 
 " Swallowed," said Buff; opening his huge jaws, and 
 pointing down his red throat; drunk up squire gone down, 
 hoof and tail; but I have a poor little filley, and a saddle 
 and bridle, that you may have after I have rode her to the 
 forcible entry suit next week." 
 
 Thank you, thank you, Mr. Buff; I was just going to 
 remark in relation to the filley, that you could have no 
 earthly use for her." 
 
 Before the next week, sure enough, Buff was added to 
 the list of unfortunate petitioners in bankruptcy. He shone 
 out in a new wardrobe, and laughed at sheriffs, courts and 
 constables. 
 
 RATHER A DELICATE AFFAIR. 
 
 Major White went to consult his attorney. He found 
 Power at his office in " Doggery lane" a street narrower 
 than the road to heaven.
 
 RATHER A DELICATE AFFAIR. 91 
 
 " Of course Mr. Power," said he, " I wish you to defend 
 this suit for me; and if it will be agreeable to you, sir, I 
 will have Mr. Quibble associated with you. Whatever 
 attempts the other party may make to suborn Buff, I have 
 nothing to fear from him. I know him well; and he knows 
 and fears me. If sworn, I have no doubt but he will tell 
 exactly the truth. I hope our rascally transaction with 
 Leech may not transpire in evidence." 
 
 " Very well," answered Power, "that is well. Buff 
 alone knows of that transaction, and he will not convict 
 himself. Bring a copy of the writ, when served, if you 
 please. Now then, in relation to that other business, Major, 
 I have, as you suggested, written to Michigan, from whence 
 I learn, that the rumor you heard at Galena was not un- 
 founded. I have here authentic proof that Leech is sen- 
 tenced to the penitentiary; but if the election for governor 
 of that State terminate as may be feared, he will probably 
 be pardoned. " 
 
 The Major's face turned instantly pale then it was 
 flushed; and fairly trembling with excitement, he arose and 
 rapidly paced the office. 
 
 "No!" he exclaimed, with great emphasis. "Then 
 she shall be mine! God I thank thee! Tell me, is there no 
 hope? Is not his imprisonment a good ground for her 
 divorce? Talk to me! For God's sake, tell me!" 
 
 " Why," said the attorney, " it may be done by a bill in 
 chancery; but it will take at least six months to obtain a 
 decree." 
 
 "For which your fee would be how much?" 
 
 " Fifty dollars." 
 
 " Is there no shorter way? 
 
 " Yes; the Legislative assembly can do it in a trice."
 
 92 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 "Accomplish it, and your fee shall be one hundred 
 dollars, and all contingent expenses paid." 
 
 " But the lady she must petition the Assembly. " 
 
 "Ah! true," quoth the Major; "and /must first petition 
 the lady. I will go this moment." 
 
 . It was twilight; and the lady of the ex-cashier sat alone 
 in the parlor upon the sofa, musing, if the truth must be 
 told, not upon the mysterious fate of her liege lord, but 
 upon her young friend who had interested her more deeply 
 of late than everything else, and had in fact so deeply 
 engrossed her affection, that she sometimes forgot her relig- 
 ious duties. 
 
 The lovers were together, and their trembling fingers 
 met in silence. She wept, but spoke not, while he unfolded 
 to her the intelligence he had just received, and hinted at 
 the possible means of their being united. " Oh! woman!" 
 he exclaimed, "it may be madness, it may be crime; but I 
 must tell you how I adore you. I am unworthy of you, but 
 I have struggled hard to deserve your affection. Could you 
 know the depth of my devotion to you, you would pity me. 
 Beautiful, enchanting, endearing woman! you have attracted 
 my fallen spirits upward to virtue, and chained all my affec- 
 tions to yourself. At all times and places, I see and think 
 of you alone. When I was lying at the point of death, and 
 my brow was burning with delirium even then, I fancied 
 the sunshine of your beautiful eyes shone upon me in my 
 gloomy agonies. " *
 
 TAKING A FIGHTING INTEREST. 93 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 TAKING A FIGHTING INTEREST. 
 
 Mack Black, Mike Killum, and Jake Ropes all swore 
 they would have a fighting interest in the grafted lead. 
 They were regular fighting-cocks, and believed in the suprem- 
 acy of might. They had a natural thirst for blood and 
 violence, and would pounce upon a lead in contention like 
 wolves upon a carcass. By force or by fraud, one or the 
 other of these biped hyenas had for years managed to 
 get an interest in half the leads in the country. Nothing 
 but the discovery of a lead, by somebody, could ever arouse 
 them from their devotion to the faro banks. They quartered' 
 themselves in the most frequented groceries, in diggings 
 where mineral and money were plenty, and there opened their 
 faro banks and roulette tables to decoy and entrap simple- 
 tons. If they heard of a mineral discovery, they closed 
 banks and suddenly became miners. Their first movement, 
 then, was to foment a dispute a*mongst the diggers. They 
 were sure to find some one through whom to set up a claim 
 adverse to the discoverer's, no matter how frivolous. Hav- 
 ing once got the lead in contention, they would, steathily, 
 while the parties were badly frightened, secure a fighting 
 interest upon their own terms. 
 
 Armed to the teeth, these gentlemen made their appear- 
 ance at Major White's windlass hole, the day after they had 
 heard of Smith & Hawkins' pretentions to the lead. 
 
 "I say, stranger," quoth old Mack, looking White in 
 the eye to see if he could be frightened, " I say, old hoss, 
 Smith & Hawkins are a going to play h with your duck's
 
 94 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 eggs! They are going to drive you right plum off! We 
 advise you to leave. Bill Hawkins is a hoss. If Bill says 
 he'll do a thing, he'll do it; now mind I tell you. " 
 
 " Perhaps, gentlemen, you would like to help me defend 
 my diggings?" said the Major with an expression of scorn 
 which was not quite understood. 
 
 "We will shore," said Black. 
 
 " Yes, to the knife " added Mike a little delicate soao- 
 lock, in whose eyes slept the ferocity of a leopard. 
 
 " d my roaring soul if we dont too," added 
 
 great swaggering Jake. 
 
 Old Mike thereupon took hold of the windlass-hook to 
 go down, as if possession were already his. 
 
 "Hold!" said the Major. "You may be very nice 
 young men, perhaps and my friends, and all that; but I do 
 not like your conduct, and I wish you to leave. This is viy 
 lead I discovered it. You must not interfere with me. I 
 allow no man to bully me. You must leave!" 
 
 The three looked at each other, as if hesitating whether 
 or not to throw the Major into the mineral hole. 
 
 " You are three," saitf White,'" and I am" 
 
 At this instant Mike began to feel for his pistol. Quicker 
 than thought, White drew and discharged a six-shooter at 
 him, disabling his arm; and instantly wheeled and presented 
 the same formidable weapon at Mack, while Jake took to his 
 heels. The repulse they met with was unlooked for but 
 effectual. They never attempted to jump on the Major 
 with force again; but retreated to Smith & Hawkins' shaft. 
 
 " Bill, you can't win at this game," said Black. 
 
 "Well, I reckon as how I will, hoss," answered Bill 
 Hawkins, leaning upon his windlass; " why not win?"
 
 TAKING A FIGHTING INTEREST. 95 
 
 " Well," says Mack, " in the first place you can't drive 
 White off he is not skeery. Then you can't win at law; 
 you have no show to win; for he will prove by old Buff that 
 he struck the lead first. I know of a trick or two by which 
 you might win." 
 
 " How is that?" said Bill. 
 
 "Oh!" quoth Mike, "that would be telling. What 
 would you give to know?" 
 
 The negotiation resulted in Mack's taking a fighting inter- 
 est of one-half, being Smith's half; with the understanding, 
 that Mack should share Smith's half with Mike and Jake, 
 and that Hawkins should share his half with Smith. The 
 suit to be brought in the name of Mack Black and William 
 Hawkins.
 
 96 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A TRIAL FOR FORCIBLE ENTRY AND DETAINER. 
 
 Justice Green's dwelling was a double log cabin in the 
 midst of a vast field of unharvested corn, on which some ten 
 thousand prairie hens were fattening. Before the door there 
 was a single log of firewood, from which several slabs of 
 fuel had been split also three ox-yokes; a plow of 
 very primitive construction, and a Pennsylvania wagon 
 ironed all over, and of course, too, a tar-bucket slung under 
 the hind axletree. The stable, surrounded with stacks of 
 hay and grain, was also a double log building; and between 
 the logs of which it was built, might be counted the ribs of 
 a pair of hungry old horses, that were starving inside. More 
 phantom hogs " than you could shake a stick at " were flit- 
 ting and squealing around the premises; they were the kind 
 of hogs known as the wolf breed; either because, from their 
 fleetness and ferocity, they are secure from the depredations 
 of the wolf or from their wolfish appearance or because 
 the wolf has no appetite for such pork. They are consid- 
 ered valuable, also, because, when killed, the meat cannot 
 be fly blown, and no more requires salt to preserve it than 
 would an equal quantity of sole leather. The proportions 
 of a genuine wolf-hog are, one-third snout, one-third legs, 
 and the remainder bristles. 
 
 The parties, witnesses and counsel in the action of for- 
 cible entry and detainer brought by Mack Black and William 
 Hawkins vs. James White being all present in court, Mr. 
 Shave, on part of the complainants, read the following 
 complaint:
 
 TRIAL FOR FORCIBLE ENTRY AND DETAINER. 97 
 
 Territory of Wisconsin, J 
 County of Platte. [ 
 
 Mack Black and William Hawkins, of said county, complain unto 
 Pinckney Green, Esq., one of the Justices of the Peace in and for said 
 county, against James White, of said county, for that the said James White, 
 on or about the 15th day of November, A. D.. one thousand eight hundred 
 and fifty-one, at the county aforesaid, did, with force and arms, and with a 
 strong hand enter upon and unjustly and illegally detain a certain crevice 
 or range of mineral or lead ore known as the Smith & Hawkins prospect, 
 
 containing ten acres, the same being on the N. W. quarter of section , 
 
 in town , in range , in Little Blue Kabbit diggings, in said county 
 
 and territory, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and 
 provided. SHAVE & STILL, 
 
 Att'ys for Complainants. 
 
 To this complaint, and also to the writ, the defendant's 
 attorneys filed the following demurrer : 
 
 James White ) Before Pinckney 
 
 ats. > Green, Esq. 
 
 Mack Black, et. al. \ In fore. ent. & d. 
 
 And the said defendant, by Power & Quibble, his attorneys, comes 
 and defends the wrong and injury, when, etc., and says that the said com- 
 plaint and writ, and the matters therein contained, in manner and form as 
 the same are above stated and set forth, are not sufficient in law for the 
 said complainants to have or maintain their aforesaid action thereof against 
 the said defendant; and he, the said defendant, is not bound by law to an- 
 swer the same. And this he is ready to verify; wherefore, by reason of the 
 insufficiency of the said complaint and writ in this behalf, the said defen- 
 dant prays judgment, and that the said complainants may be barred from 
 having or maintaining their aforesaid action thereof against him, etc. 
 
 And the said defendant, according to the form of the statute in such 
 case made and provided, states and shows to the court here the following 
 causes of demurrer to the said complaint and writ, that is to say : 
 
 1st. That the complaint purports to be made by Mack Black and Wil- 
 iam Hawkins; but is subscribed only by Messrs. Shave & Still. 
 
 2d. That the complaint does not define on which particular part of 
 the N. W. quarter section described the defendant made the entry com- 
 plained of. 
 
 3d. The complainants do not aver that at the time of the defendant's 
 entry, they, the complainants, were in, or legally entitled to, the posses- 
 sion of said premises.
 
 9S STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 4th. The complaint charges defendant's entry to have been made in 
 the year 1851 an impossible time. 
 
 5th. The writ varies from the complaint, in that the writ charges the 
 entry to have been made in 1841, and the complaint charges the entry to 
 have been made in 1851. 
 
 6th. The complaint does not conclude with the usual prayer to the 
 court for a writ. 
 
 And also that the said complaint and writ are in other respects un- 
 certain, informal, insufficient, etc. 
 
 QUIBBLE & POWER, 
 
 Atty's for Defendant. 
 
 The demurrer having been fully argued by Messrs. 
 Quibble & Shave, the court was sadly perplexed with doubt. 
 He fidgeted and thumbed the leaves of the statute book and 
 knit his brows. Shave was satisfied that the case was in 
 danger of going by the board. After consulting a moment 
 with Still, an affidavit was prepared and signed by Mr. 
 Black, by which the cause and papers were removed to Jon- 
 athan Gosling, Esq., who was present, and immediately took 
 the place of Justice Green. 
 
 A removal by the complainants not being provided for 
 by the statute, defendant's counsel excepted. 
 
 Gosling was sure to reverse Green's opinion, for it was 
 an axiom with him that Green must always be wrong. Gos- 
 ling was a little, bald-headed, penurious Yankee, in whose 
 eyes a half-dollar looked as large as a cart wheel. He cul- 
 tivated only six acres of ground, had a barn twice as large 
 as his house, harvested his crops as soon as they were ripe, 
 kept his ox-yokes painted, and greased his wagon wheels 
 with tallow and black-lead. 
 
 The demurrer was overruled; and issue being joined on 
 a plea of not guilty, the jury was duly sworn and the exam- 
 ination of witnesses was commenced and not closed before 
 night. Much of the testimony was conflicting, and much
 
 TRIAL FOR FORCIBLE ENTRY AND DETAINER. 99 
 
 of it doubtful, and a great deal more of itentirely irrelevant. 
 For a full report of all the evidence in the case I beg leave 
 to refer the reader to the docket of Esquire Gosling; for 
 Mr. Still carefully filed his own minutes of evidence with the 
 justice that there might be no material variance between the 
 complainant's affidavit for a writ of certiorari, (if a certiorari 
 should be required,) and Justice Gosling's certified return to 
 % the District Court. I will here only give the reader the con- 
 clusion of a three hours' speech by Mr. Shave for the 
 complainants. 
 
 " And now, gentleman of the jury," said Mr. Power, 
 " (for you are gentlemen, every one of you,) to be brief 
 for I promised in the outset to be brief, and it would be an 
 insult to your understanding to argue at great length a case 
 so clear let me close by drawing your attention to these 
 facts in the case: 
 
 1st. That it appears by the testimony of Buff that an 
 honester man does not breathe the air of heaven, notwith- 
 standing the sneers of counsel and their futile attempts to 
 blacken his character that Buff and White did strike min- 
 eral in the hole, (which it has been attempted to be made 
 appear was grafted,) on the loth day of October; that they 
 not only struck mineral but that they struck it under the 
 cap-rock. Whereas the complainants do not even pretend 
 that Smith & Hawkins dug before the 2ist of October, after 
 it was currently reported that Buff & White had struck the 
 lead. And how do you know, gentlemen of the jury, that 
 they commenced digging on the 2ist of October? Who 
 tells you? Who? Why, one of the very men who jumped 
 my client's lead, and who, one week since, openly claimed 
 to own half of it! What! can you believe one word Smith 
 says? Will you believe a man who has the turpitude to
 
 100 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 offer to swear under such damning suspicions of perjury? 
 But suppose they were digging on the 2ist? What then? 
 the 2ist comes after the loth, the day on which oiir discov- 
 ery was made. 
 
 Again it is pretended by opposite counsel that if we did 
 make the first discovery the possession has passed out of 
 us by a sale which they allege was made tc a Mr. Leech or 
 Mr. Somebody else. Now, in the first place, gentlemen, 
 they have not proved any such sale, (Buff swears that Leech 
 was paid by White for the work he did in the lead;) neither 
 could they; for it existed only in the fruitful imagination of 
 the learned attorney. If Leech dug there he dug for the de-* 
 fendant. But suppose for a moment there had been a sale 
 and that the possession become Leech's how could that 
 sale to Leech vest any right in these complainants? Or sup- 
 pose for argument's sake, that the right remained in Leech 
 for one week, or one month, and was then returned again to 
 Buff and White was it not a continuous possession? Could 
 the lead become the complainant's, because, forsooth, they 
 had stolen into one end of it and were in possession during 
 that imaginable point of time in which the possession was 
 passing from Leech back to Buff and White? Such subtle- 
 ties and sophistry and hair-splitting are an insult to a jury. 
 No, no; there was no forfeiture no abandonment nothing 
 which should or ever shall rob us of our discovery. How 
 long, then, were the diggings unworked by the defendant? 
 Only a few days, and that while the damps were so bad that 
 Buff says he could not and would not risk his life in the shaft 
 and Leech tried to work there for White and could not 
 in short, until cold weather. What if their tools were not 
 left at the shaft? They were locked up in their cabin that 
 they might be more secure from thieves. Do the complain-
 
 TRIAL FOR FORCIBLE ENTRY AND DETAINER. 101 
 
 ants grumble because they had not an opportunity to steal 
 our tools as well as our mineral? Again I call your atten- 
 tion to the candor of Buff, who is not a swift witness for 
 citJicr party, but speaks out plainly the things that he doth 
 know. He explains why and how long the diggings were 
 unworked; and, mark you, gentlemen, how reluctantly he 
 admits, when asked if the complainant had not tried to tam- 
 per with him, that this immaculate Mr. Black, who became 
 a party here, God knows how [Be careful what you say, 
 Mr. Lawyer, interrupted Mack] had made a proposition to 
 suborn him as a witness yes, that was the meaning to 
 suborn him! Gentlemen, how will you reward such virtue 
 as Mack's? Oh! I wish, for the sake of justice, that you 
 were sitting as a jury to try Mr. Black's claim to a cell in the 
 penitentiary; it would do me pleasure, then, to advocate his 
 pretensions. Mr. Flint's evidence corroborates Buft's. 
 Flint is as honest a man as ever suckeredahole, and a miner 
 of great experience; a man who has dug at Nip & Tuck, at 
 Scrabble, at Menominee, at Red Dog, at Whig, at Coon, and 
 almost everywhere else, and he says, that without a declara- 
 tion of abandonment, a discovery will not forfeit in one, or 
 in two, or in three weeks. 
 
 Again, you will bear it in mind that it has not been 
 proved, nor can it be proved, that the complainants ever 
 went down through the cap rock They never have discov- 
 ered nor been down at all through the under body of 
 mineral. 
 
 Gentlemen, be just and do right; my client asks no 
 more. 
 
 Here Mr. Power closed his speech, being too hoarse to 
 go through with " the pathetic."
 
 102 S TR UCK A LEA D. 
 
 THE TRIAL CONTINUED. 
 
 Mr. Shave closed on the part of the complainants in 
 substance, as follows: 
 
 " Gentlemen, I am done. Our case is before you. 
 Less I could not say in justice to my worthy clients more 
 I cannot say in justice to you. I see before me a jury of 
 sovereigns tried men clear headed men and some of you 
 practical miners; and I am satisfied. I can read a verdict 
 for the complainants in your honest faces. Gentlemen, I 
 had "indeed supposed that this defendant, with money to aid 
 him, with* friends to succor and assist him, and with the aid 
 of ingenious and eloquent counsel to defend him, would 
 have made at least a plausible defense that he would have 
 shown some shadow or coloring of right to this mineral 
 range. Alas! fraud is feeble, while truth, eternal truth is 
 mighty and must prevail. The defendant's whole case rests 
 upon the testimony of old Buff, of bogus lead memory a 
 witness whose very looks convict him of perjury and who 
 has avoided truth so long that he is ashamed to meet it, like 
 the simpleton who avoided meeting the doctor because he 
 was ashamed of not having been sick enough to require his 
 services for so long a time. Can such a man tell the truth? 
 To say nothing of the suspicious relations in which he stands 
 to the defendant, look at the man as he stood before you, 
 and say if you can believe him. Why, he is the very incar- 
 nation of a lie! What! Do you believe what he swears, 
 that my shrewd and wary client, Mack Black, had the folly 
 to attempt to suborn old Buff? False, every word! Mack 
 is not a fool. If the complainants wanted witnesses they 
 would at least have found those whose looks would not bear 
 witness against their words. Why, the old rascal, bad as he 
 is, when cornered on his voir dire, admits 'that White has,
 
 THE TRIAL CONTINUED. 103 
 
 promised to let him have money; but then it is to be a 
 gratuity. Oh! yes; of course a mere gift, a bonus for his 
 good character! And yet here comes White's attorney and 
 affects to be struck with holy horror at this culprit's state- 
 ment, that my worthy client, Mack Black, had proposed 
 conveying to him an interest in the diggings, and throws up 
 his arms like a tragedy king, and rolls up the whites of his 
 eyes like a dying duck in a thunder storm! Where, now, do 
 we find this defendant this spotless Mr. White this Texan 
 major, whose name is a burlesque on his character r one 
 whom his well paid attorney attempts to hold up in contrast 
 with my excellent and honorable client, Mack Black? 
 Where? Why, assisting old Buff to graft a mineral hole 
 and to swindle an honest stranger from Galena! What? If 
 they had really made a discovery there do you believe, 
 unprincipled as they are, that they would have perpetrated 
 this fraud? or would they not rather have preceded to work 
 out the mineral they had discovered? But suppose they 
 did strike mineral on the iQth of October, and that they did 
 sell an actual discovery to Leech, which they afterwards 
 repurchased, did they not leave the ground for weeks without 
 a tool upon it? was it not abandoned? forfeited? while 
 Smith & Hawkins were, and had been for a long time, work- 
 ing the east end of the range, as everybody knew, without 
 an objection raised by this defendant? No, gentlemen, 
 there was no discovery and that the real consideration for 
 the two hundred and fifty dollars which White paid to Leech 
 was the adjustment and settlement of a prosecution which 
 Leech was about to commence against that pair of worthies 
 for swindling him out of nine thousand dollars! There, you 
 have it; and if Mr. Anthony Power could be sworn he 
 would tell you so. "
 
 104 . STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 (" No, I wouldn't," muttered Power.) 
 
 " How easy for the defendant to have left tools on the 
 ground during his three weeks' absence as a sign of con- 
 tinued occupancy? No, no; White never thougJit of going 
 back to dig until he heard that Smith & Hawkins were rais- 
 ing mineral. What says the witness Clay, who has badgered 
 more holes in the mines than there are in half an acre of 
 honeycomb, and raised more thousands of mineral than 
 Flint has raised pounds? He says that the damps never 
 prevent working a shaft in October; and that every one who 
 abandons his mineral lot for more than seven days, weather 
 and health permitting him to dig, and carries away his wind- 
 lass and all his tools, absolutely forfeits his ground." 
 
 " Gentlemen of the jury; as you love honesty and 
 industry, and as you abhor rascality and fraud, I conjure 
 you, in behalf of my clients, to find for them, as I have no 
 doubt but you will, a verdict that they have restitution of 
 the premises, and the lead of which this defendant has 
 wrongfully robbed them." 
 
 When Counsellor Shave had closed the case, Justice 
 Gosling waked up, and the jurors yawned, and every soul 
 wished himself at home sleeping in a warm bed,- like the 
 thirteen white haired urchins that were snoring in one cor- 
 ner of the court room. The brass clock tolled four. The 
 fire in the huge chimney was nearly extinct. This was a 
 circumstance favorable to a speedy verdict. The jury was 
 given in charge of a constable, and everybody else went out 
 to await their verdict. The weather had suddenly changed 
 and grown cold as hell reversed. From thawing to freezing, 
 the change was almost instantaneous. The frost penetrated 
 and chilled everything. It stung like fire. All caloric 
 seemed annihilated. In five minutes the earth began to
 
 THE TRIAL CONTINUED. 105 
 
 crack as if it would be shivered; and the teeth chattered so 
 that no man could articulate; and the five hundred and odd 
 spectre swine lying between the double log stables, squealed 
 and growled and groaned as if they were in the agonies of 
 death. The prairie hens upon the stacks were so torpid 
 that they might have been brushed off with a stick. 
 
 Some were trying to listen at the door and learn what 
 the jury was about. The cold was increasing and became 
 intolerable. Buff and Black went to get their horses where 
 they had left them tied in the cold to nibble at some prairie 
 hay. There stood the horses with their fixed glassey eyes, 
 each with a wisp of hay in his mouth, but the poor creatures 
 were frozen as solid as marble. Buff felt his face freezing 
 and clapped his hands to his jaws; at the touch his whiskers 
 snapped and broke off like icicles; and finally every man 
 was obliged to start and run for his dear life; and the jury 
 was left hanging just as the dim sun arose with his crimson 
 dogs and scowled across the bleak prairie ridges. 
 
 What made it so cold? Why, old Jack Frost has been 
 up in the region of Bear Lake hunting for polar bears; and 
 being agent (long before Dousman was) of the American 
 Fur Company, he had business down at St. Louis; and that 
 happened to be the very night in which old Jack bound on his 
 skates and started down the Mississippi. The surface of the 
 great river congealed under the breath of his nostrils, and 
 the trees were incrusted with hoar frost as he skimmed the 
 ringing ice with giant strides, making everything sparkle and 
 crack again. The freightened steamboats stood still, the 
 engines were palsied and shivering nature did homage to 
 the king of winter. Frost and steam were twin brothers, 
 born of old mother Chaos; but they never could agree from 
 their infancy. Jack was always a practical joker would
 
 106 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 turn out at night to cut up shines and break things and the 
 loafer is just as full of his pranks as ever while his twin 
 brother, Steam, has taken to hard work of late years, is very 
 industrious, and makes a great deal of money; but Steam 
 will sometimes get too high and give everybody in his way 
 a blowing up. If Jack would take to labor and work with 
 his brother, the pair would make business ache. What a 
 pair of miners they would make! Jack with his beetle and 
 wedges to crack open the shell of the earth, and his brother 
 to raise the mineral out of the openings.
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 107 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 
 
 Mr. Buff and Mr. Black started for Blue Rabbit by the 
 way of Potawattamie diggings, where they stopped to 
 liquor at a doggery. They took a hand at "poker" with 
 the "boys," who were there assembled. By the middle of 
 the afternoon, the weather had greatly moderated, and the 
 sun was encircled with a "circumstance," that denoted a 
 coming storm. Buff and Mack were by this time pretty 
 "essentially corned." Towards night they . started off 
 across the prairie for Little Blue, Buff taking with him a 
 glass flask, on one side of which the thirteen stars and the 
 face of Washington were moulded. The flask was filled 
 with "sweet scented Rock river." The snow had for two 
 hours been showering down like feathers, and almost 
 blinded our travellers. The tops of the grass were not 
 visible in the road, and this negative sign was the only in- 
 dication where the path was; night was coming on, and no 
 land in sight; and still they had some miles to go. The 
 wind arose, and began to beat the snow about in whirling 
 eddies, and pile it in drifts. The darkness thickened, the 
 cold increased, and the storm howled around them with 
 frightful fury. Their limbs were benumbed with cold. 
 Scarcely able to stand against the tempest, they soon lest 
 their way. 
 
 "Buff, let us kick in the snow," said Black, "and try to 
 find the ruts in the road." 
 
 "Why, Mack, my legs are so cold I couldn't /<?<?/ a rut 
 with my foot; and I am afeared to get down on my knees 
 to feel with my hands, least I couldn't get up again."
 
 108 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 "Gracious God! what a tempest! It is as dark as a 
 nigger's pocket and the storm beats so I can't stand. 
 What shall we do?" 
 
 "Mack, we shall never get through this snowbank; we 
 shall be covered drifted over out of sight, in five min- 
 utes. Let us turn to the left and run before the wind. 
 Lord! how I shiver!" 
 
 "Well, Buff, put out the flask, and let us take a horn 
 first, to keep us from freezing. We would hate to be left 
 here frozen like our horses is, or like Lot's wife standing 
 monuments of the cold. D all lawsuits, I say." 
 
 They turned and ran before the wind, they knew not 
 whither, for half an hour. By this time the liquor they had 
 swallowed began to take effect; they came to a ravine in 
 which were some hazel bushes a little protected from the 
 storm. They crept away in these bushes to lay down to 
 rest. 
 
 "Ugh! ugh!" uttered Mack, puffing and blowing, 
 "I'm clean out of breath I'm fairly ugh! ugh! fairly 
 wind-broken I am. Give me some ugh! ugh! some 
 liquor, Buff." 
 
 "I shan't," stammered Buff, "do hie any such thing 
 hie Mack. You've got more hie more liquor than you 
 can carry now. Old Buff will take the ^hic remainder." 
 
 "The h you will!" roared Mack, making a grasp for 
 the flask. They instantly clenched' and fought like dogs, 
 rolling over and over down the drifted ravine; when all at 
 once thrash! they fell, locked together, to the bottom of a 
 mineral hole forty feet deep. 
 
 Were they not killed? inquires the reader. 
 
 Killed? no! how can you kill a man who is drunk? 
 They deserved to be killed but I must confine myself to
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 109 
 
 facts; they were only badly stunned, and it was some ^rtie 
 before they knew what sort of a fix they were in. They 
 soon felt the influence of the warmer atmosphere into 
 which they had tumbled. 
 
 Their intoxication was banished by fear. 
 "The Lord bless me!" groaned Buff, "who is here? Oh! 
 oh! oh! dear! Oh! is this Oh! is this Mack?' 
 
 Mack groaned; "Oh! get off of me! get up! I'm 
 killed I'm dead. Where in h are we? Who sells liquor 
 here." 
 
 "We have," said Buff, groping and feeling about him, 
 "we have not exactly got home to our papa's down below; 
 but we are part way there we are in a mineral hole." 
 
 They soon fell asleep. When they awoke in the 
 morning and looked up and saw how deep a hole they 
 were in they were much alarmed. They felt the gnawings 
 of hunger and wanted, more than all, whisky, their habi- 
 tual stimulus. 
 
 They halloed a few times; but that was hopeless. 
 Mack next took his bowie knife and commenced digging 
 holes with it in the sides of the shaft for steps to climb up 
 by. After carving out and climbing up one step after an- 
 other for about twenty feet, the earth in the sides of the 
 shaft under him caved and he fell to the bottom with the 
 precipitated mass, in which Buff was nearly buried. The 
 increased diameter of the hole as well as its conical form 
 forbade any further attempts to get out by cutting new 
 steps in the sides. They sat down in despair, constantly 
 treated with the fall of the mass of earth above them 
 
 Another night came a horrible night and morning 
 dawned upon their 'sleepless eyes. Buff began to show 
 symptoms of delirium tremens. Their hunger became intoler-
 
 110 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 ab,le. Mack found a toad burrowing in the hole. He tried 
 to conceal it from Buff, but did not succeed. Buff begged 
 and cried like a child for a part of it, and his comrade, not 
 yet utterly selfish, divided the reptile with him. 
 
 Does the reader inquire how the toad came there? I 
 do not know. The toad was there. Toads "have been found 
 imbedded in solid rock, but I cannot account for their being 
 found there. 
 
 Another day came and brought no hopes. Mack's lips 
 were parched with thirst, and his tongue was turning black, 
 and he blasphemed most horribly. Buff was foaming with 
 madness. Their cheeks grew hollow and their beards had 
 grown long and squalid. 
 
 Another morning dawned and they had fallen into a 
 state of drowsiness. Buff dreamed that he was invited to 
 sit down at a table on which was spread " the great sheet 
 filled with all manner of birds and beasts and creeping 
 things" cooked, which was let down to St. Peter by the four 
 corners; and as he fancied he was carving a roasted elephant 
 he smiled and smacked his parched lips. 
 
 Another day dawned, but no hope; they would sit and 
 cry like children; then they would blaspheme and curse the 
 very name of heaven; and then they would cry again but 
 shed no tears. That night a horrible idea had seized the 
 mind of each, that the other designed to murder and feast 
 upon him. Each burrowed a hole with his skeleton fingers 
 behind him; in these holes they crept and sat all night, 
 gnashing their teeth and glaring at each other, their rabid 
 eyes shining like fire. At last Mack darted out like a spider 
 from his hole and pounced upon his imaginary foe. He 
 caught Buff by the wrist of the right hand and broke his 
 right arm at the elbow across his knee, and with his bowie
 
 TERRITORIAL LEGISLATION. Ill 
 
 knife separated it from the stump, and with the shriek of a 
 devil incarnate swung it over his head. That moment the 
 whole impending mass of earth caved and slumped in with 
 a noise like muffled thunder. 
 
 What became of the rest of your scoundrels? perhaps 
 the reader inquires. Jake Ropes has been severely punished 
 and Mike Killum has fled westward with the brand of 
 Cain upon his forehead. Mr. Leech served a year's appren- 
 ticeship in the penitentiary, then went to Texas where he 
 received an appointment as Secretary of the Territory; Smith 
 & Hawkins are still in the diggings. "
 
 112 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 
 
 TERRITORIAL LEGISLATION. 
 
 The Legislative Assembly was in session at Madison; 
 for even then Belmont collapsed, and the principal evidence 
 of its existence was to be found in the recorded deeds of city 
 lots. Balbec and Palmyra and Babylon are in ruins, and 
 scarcely a vestige of Belmont remains. 
 
 " Tempus edox rerum"- a sad sentiment which Virgil 
 must have written expressly for the epitaph of Belmont. An 
 old moss-covered house was described as standing by the 
 side of the Dutchman's little dog, so the traveller will always 
 find the East Platte Mound standing by the side of the ruins 
 of Belmont a monument as ancient as any city (of its age) 
 can boast of. 
 
 Madison, the city of the four lakes, is destined to be 
 famous hereafter. When? When Wisconsin shall become 
 an affluent and populous State; and when Milwaukee, sitting 
 like Venice and looking out upon her fleets of merchantmen, 
 shall be the emporium of a trade richer than the dreams of 
 avarice. Will this be? It will, and that quickly 
 
 What were the members assembled for? Three dollars 
 a day and mileage. What had they to do? Attend the 
 calling of the roll, and answer aye or no, and do as little mis- 
 chief as possible and go home. Still, there was a great show 
 of business to be done. There were speeches to be made; 
 and the members lounging in the lobby were whispering, 
 and bargaining, and log-rolling, like hackneyed politicians. 
 
 The lobby was thronged. 
 
 " Gentlemen, one and all," said Col. Too-Slick, a per- 
 pendicular young Whig member from the county of Platte,
 
 TERRITORIAL LEGISLATION. 113 
 
 "gentlemen, I invite you all to oysters and wine at my room 
 this evening at nine o'clock. I have a little matter to talk 
 over with you which interests one of my constituents. " 
 
 The invitation was not declined, and all were at supper. 
 
 "Can't head the old fox off Tyler will save him," said 
 Dane, finishing a plate of oysters. 
 
 " Pshaw! " said Iowa, breaking the neck off a bottle of 
 champagne, " we know a little of the royal game of goose 
 if we cant corner him. I'll wager my financial character 
 that he don't make three jumps more upon the board before 
 he is cornered." " Ha! ha! " quoth Brown, " you might 
 as well attempt to get to windward of Old Nick. The only 
 chance is to run the ' old White Horse ' after him. " " These 
 oysters are very good very good very good," said Craw- 
 ford, nibbling a cracker; " but pray, Col. Too-Slick, to what 
 scene of corruption are we indebted for this excellent supper? 
 No draught upon the Treasury designed, I hope?" " Well, 
 the long and short of the business is," said Col. Too-slick, 
 pulling his whiskers and speaking in a confidential under 
 tone, " there is a lady in our county " 
 
 Here's to her health!" said Iowa, drinking, " here's to 
 her health, God bless her! anything that I can do for a 
 woman " 
 
 "The loveliest woman," continued Col. Too-Slick, 
 " you ever saw. Well, the amount of the business is, her 
 husband has just been tried and sentenced to the peniten- 
 tiary in Michigan." 
 
 "And wants a divorce," interrupted Sauk. "Why 
 don't she petition in Chancery? Colonel, we ought to dis- 
 courage these applications. " 
 
 "But," continued Col. Too-Slick, "her husband has 
 so much influence there is danger of his getting a pardon. "
 
 114 STRUCK A LEAD. 
 
 " Aye, aye," quoth Racine, " in a case of emergency 
 like that I would pass a bill for the relief of Mrs. Potiphar if 
 she couldn't wait. " 
 
 " No," quoth Milwaukee with vast gravity, "never keep 
 a woman in suspense if you can avoid it, especially one who 
 has the good sense to try what virtue there is in oysters and 
 champagne. Gentlemen, I consider this an elegant and in- 
 jured woman." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Iowa, rising, "please fill up your 
 glasses. Are you ready? " 
 
 " All ready. " 
 
 " Here's to Col. Too-Slick's lovely constituent. We 
 will find her in fresh husbands as long as she will find us in 
 fresh oysters. " 
 
 The toast was drunk with great enthusiasm. Poor Mary 
 tittle knew of all this rudeness at her expense. 
 
 " Suppose," said Crawford, "you append the bill to my 
 bill for legalizing the official acts of Paul Lynch and making 
 him a good, sufficient justice of the peace for the year 1836?" 
 
 " Agreed," said Col. Too-Slick. " It vill then read 'a 
 bill to legalize the official acts of Paul Lynch and for other 
 purposes therein named.' ' 
 
 " Yes," said Iowa, " that 'therein named' often covers 
 greater multitude of legislative sins than charity. It means 
 'too black to index.' And, by way of rider, my Kamonisto- 
 quire mill-dam bill. " 
 
 " And mine," quoth Sauk, "for the protection of cat- 
 fish above the forks of the Pecatonica. " 
 
 The bill was framed as incongruous in its parts and 
 provisions as an inventory of the contents of Noah's ark. It 
 passes the committee like physic went through its third 
 reading in triumph and was concurred in and became a 
 law.
 
 CONCLUSION. 115 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 At the same hour did Major White receive intelligence 
 that the jury had finally returned a verdict in his favor and 
 that his betrothed was divorced. In ten days he was united 
 to Mary. 
 
 And oh! let Mary be her name, 
 
 It hath a sweet and gentle sound, 
 At which no glories dear to fame 
 
 Come crowding round; 
 But which the dreaming hour beguiles 
 
 With holy thoughts and household smiles. 
 
 Since then the Major and his lady has visited Clocktown 
 and the home of Mary's youth in Massachusetts visited 
 Saratoga, and elegantly furnished a fine new house with 
 superb furniture not forgetting the cradle. Their children 
 are both vaccinated. The Major himself has been born 
 again and is one of the most eminent saints in the church and 
 his lead is still unexhausted. When the nascent star of Wis- 
 consin shall glisten in the constellation of states, /^political 
 star will be in the ascendant. Major James White, late of 
 the army of Texas, still firmly believes that he was even more 
 fortunate when he won a wife than when he struck a lead.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed.
 
 A 000 046 741 5