ledge"--consequence, "feet" that went begging
yesterday were worth a brick house apiece to-day, and seedy owners who
could not get trusted for a drink at any bar in the country yesterday
were roaring drunk on champagne to-day and had hosts of warm personal
friends in a town where they had forgotten how to bow or shake hands from
long-continued want of practice. Johnny Morgan, a common loafer, had
gone to sleep in the gutter and waked up worth a hundred thousand
dollars, in consequence of the decision in the "Lady Franklin and Rough
and Ready" lawsuit. And so on--day in and day out the talk pelted our
ears and the excitement waxed hotter and hotter around us.

I would have been more or less than human if I had not gone mad like the
rest. Cart-loads of solid silver bricks, as large as pigs of lead, were
arriving from the mills every day, and such sights as that gave substance
to the wild talk about me. I succumbed and grew as frenzied as the
craziest.

Every few days news would come of the discovery of a bran-new mining
region; immediately the papers would teem with accounts of its richness,
and away the surplus population would scamper to take possession. By the
time I was fairly inoculated with the disease, "Esmeralda" had just had a
run and "Humboldt" was beginning to shriek for attention. "Humboldt!
Humboldt!" was the new cry, and straightway Humboldt, the newest of the
new, the richest of the rich, the most marvellous of the marvellous
discoveries in silver-land was occupying two columns of the public prints
to "Esmeralda's" one. I was just on the point of starting to Esmeralda,
but turned with the tide and got ready for Humboldt. That the reader may
see what moved me, and what would as surely have moved him had he been
there, I insert here one of the newspaper letters of the day. It and
several other letters from the same calm hand were the main means of
converting me. I shall not garble the extract, but put it in just as it
appeared in the Daily Territorial Enterprise:

But what about our mines? I shall be candid with you. I shall
express an honest opinion, based upon a thorough examination.
Humboldt county is the richest mineral region upon God's footstool.
Each mountain range is gorged with the precious ores. Humboldt is
the true Golconda.

The other day an assay of mere croppings yielded exceeding four
thousand dollars to the ton. A week or two ago an as