r the old
exciting times and the prospects of the gold-miner's toast, "Here's a
dollar to the pan, the bed-rock pitching, and the gravel turning blue."

Nowadays there are still plenty of men who traverse the country in all
directions looking for new finds. They are called "prospectors," and go
about with a pony packed with a pick, a shovel, and a few necessaries,
hunting chiefly for quartz veins, and they talk of nothing but "quartz,"
"bed-rock," "leads," gold and silver, and so many ounces to the ton. It
is now many years ago since I was working on a small cattle ranch in the
Kamloops district, when one of these men, a tall, grey-haired old fellow
named Patterson, came by. My employer knew him, and asked him to stay.
He bored us to death the whole evening, and showed innumerable
specimens, which truly were not very promising, as it seemed to us. His
great contempt for farming was very characteristic of the species.
"What's a few head of rowdy steers?" asked Mr Patterson; "why, any day I
might strike ten thousand dollars." "Yes," I answered mischievously;
"and any day you mightn't." He turned and glared at me, demanding what I
knew about mining. "Not a great deal," said I; "but I have seen mining
here and in Australia, and for one that makes anything a hundred die
dead broke." "Well," he replied, scornfully "I'd rather die that way
than go ploughing, and I tell you I know where there is money to be
made. Just wait till I can get hold of a capitalist."

That is another of the poor prospector's stock cries; but as a general
rule capitalists are wary, and don't invest in such "wild cat"
speculations.

Next morning Mr Patterson proposed that I should go along with him and
he would make my fortune. "What at?" said I. "Quartz mining?" "Not this
time," was his answer; "it's placer" (alluvial). I was not in the least
particular then what I did if I could only get good wages, so I wanted
to know what he proposed giving me. "Bed-rock wages," said he. Now that
means good money if a strike is made, and nothing if it is not. So I
shook my head, and he turned away, leaving me to wallow in the mire of
contemptible security. I can hardly doubt that he will be one day found
dead in the mountains, and that his Eldorado will be but oblivion.

Just as I was about to leave British Columbia for Washington Territory
there were very good reports of the new Similkameen diggings, and for
the first and only time in my life I was very nearly t