hopeful miners have thus flowed and
ebbed about the mountain, coming and going, now by lone prospectors, now
with a rush. Last in order of time came Silverado, reared the big mill,
in the valley, founded the town which is now represented, monumentally,
by Hanson's, pierced all these slaps and shafts and tunnels, and in turn
declined and died away.

"Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence."

As to the success of Silverado in its time of being, two reports were
current. According to the first, six hundred thousand dollars were taken
out of that great upright seam, that still hung open above us on crazy
wedges. Then the ledge pinched out, and there followed, in quest of the
remainder, a great drifting and tunnelling in all directions, and a
great consequent effusion of dollars, until, all parties being sick of
the expense, the mine was deserted, and the town decamped. According to
the second version, told me with much secrecy of manner, the whole
affair, mine, mill, and town, were parts of one majestic swindle. There
had never come any silver out of any portion of the mine; there was no
silver to come. At midnight trains of packhorses might have been
observed winding by devious tracks about the shoulder of the mountain.
They came from far away, from Amador or Placer, laden with silver in
"old cigar-boxes." They discharged their load at Silverado, in the hour
of sleep; and before the morning they were gone again with their
mysterious drivers to their unknown source. In this way, twenty thousand
pounds' worth of silver was smuggled in under cover of night, in these
old cigar-boxes; mixed with Silverado mineral; carted down to the mill;
crushed, amalgamated, and refined, and despatched to the city as the
proper product of the mine. Stock-jobbing, if it can cover such
expenses, must be a profitable business in San Francisco.

I give these two versions as I got them. But I place little reliance on
either, my belief in history having been greatly shaken. For it chanced
that I had come to dwell in Silverado at a critical hour; great events
in its history were about to happen--did happen, as I am led to believe;
nay, and it will be seen that I played a part in that revolution myself.
And yet from first to last I never had a glimmer of an idea what was
going on; and even now, after full reflection, profess myself at sea.
That there was some obscure intrigue of the cigar-box orde