There is one man who has sixty Indians in
his employ; his profits are a dollar a-minute. The wild Indians know
nothing of its value, and wonder what the pale-faces want to do with
it; they will give an ounce of it for the same weight of coined silver,
or a thimbleful of glass beads, or a glass of grog. And white men
themselves often give an ounce of it, which is worth at our mint 18
dollars, or more, for a bottle of brandy, a bottle of soda-powders, or
a plug of tobacco.
"As to the quantity which the diggers get, take a few facts as
evidence. I know seven men who worked seven weeks and two days, Sundays
excepted, on Feather River; they employed on an average fifty Indians,
and got out in these seven weeks and two days 275 pounds of pure gold.
I know the men, and have seen the gold, and know what they state to be
a fact--so stick a pin there. I know ten other men who worked ten days
in company, employed no Indians, and averaged in these ten days 1500
dollars each; so stick another pin there. I know another man who got
out of a basin in a rock, not larger than a wash-bowl, two pounds and a
half of gold in fifteen minutes; so stick another pin there! Not one of
these statements would I believe, did I not know the men personally,
and know them to be plain matter-of-fact men--men who open a vein of
gold just as coolly as you would a potato-hill.
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