annot resist now and then when luring baits are laid
before him, though such ventures invariably result in violent and
profane protests from Aurora.

"The pick and shovel are the only claims I have any confidence in now,"
the miner concludes, after one fierce outburst. "My back is sore, and my
hands are blistered with handling them to-day."

But even the pick and shovel did not inspire confidence a little later.
He writes that the work goes slowly, very slowly, but that they still
hope to strike it some day. "But--if we strike it rich--I've lost my
guess, that's all." Then he adds: "Couldn't go on the hill to-day. It
snowed. It always snows here, I expect"; and the final heart-sick line,
"Don't you suppose they have pretty much quit writing at home?"

This is midsummer, and snow still interferes with the work. One feels
the dreary uselessness of the quest.

Yet resolution did not wholly die, or even enthusiasm. These things were
as recurrent as new prospects, which were plentiful enough. In a still
subsequent letter he declares that he will never look upon his mother's
face again, or his sister's, or get married, or revisit the "Banner
State," until he is a rich man, though there is less assurance than
desperation in the words.

In 'Roughing It' the author tells us that, when flour had reached one
dollar a pound and he could no longer get the dollar, he abandoned
mining and went to milling "as a common laborer in a quartz-mill at
ten dollars a week." This statement requires modification. It was not
entirely for the money that he undertook the laborious task of washing
"riffles" and "screening tailings." The money was welcome enough, no
doubt, but the greater purpose was to learn refining, so that when
his mines developed he could establish his own mill and personally
superintend the work. It is like him to wish us to believe that he
was obliged to give up being a mining magnate to become a laborer in
a quartz-mill, for there is a grim humor in the confession. That
he abandoned the milling experiment at the end of a week is a true
statement. He got a violent cold in the damp place, and came near
getting salivated, he says in a letter, "working in the quicksilver
and chemicals. I hardly think I shall try the experiment again. It is a
confining business, and I will not be confined for love or money."

As recreation after this trying experience, Higbie took him on a tour,
prospecting for the traditional "Cement Mine,"