While I indulged in these idle fancies, the homely little engine by my side still worked on, though wondering perhaps at my long silence; twelve o'clock soon came, and with it the one who was to relieve me. I picked my way darkling across the rocky channel--ran rapidly up the river, and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
_Wednesday, Sept. 3._ Our claim being by this time nearly worked out, St. John sold his share for a few hundred dollars, and the next day I disposed of mine for the same price. Soon after we struck a rich streak, and I was extremely vexed at having sold. The purchaser, on learning that the company was in debt to a trifling amount, felt equally indisposed to the bargain, and the share returned into my possession.
_Two o'clock_, P. M. St. John sorry he sold--evening cloudy, night, a slight shower--Friday morning, more rain--very dismal--sorry I did not sell. The man who bought St. John's share comes to our tent in positive agony, and offers fifty dollars to be released from his bargain. Eleven A. M. brighter--ten P. M. water low--shares high--rich dirt--offered the same for my share as yesterday--refused.
It again rained during the night, and I had ample time to repent my indiscretion, but the next day the sun shone with unusual brilliancy, and I finally disposed of my share for the same price as before.
We had now nothing to keep us any longer in California--we sold our tent with all its furniture for fifty dollars, and then began the most successful mining we had yet had any thing to do with. We closed the door of our tent, still ours until we had left it, and commenced digging in the floor in places whose position we discovered by certain marks upon the wooden framework of the walls. I first brought to light a mustard bottle, now full, however, of a far brighter and more pungent dust--St. John at the same moment displayed an ancient vinegar cruet without a neck, so that it gave up all the more readily its precious contents. I then produced from a third place of deposit a vial that once contained, as the words blown into its sides declared, a vegetable elixir of wonderful virtues; but few, I believe, who would not have found the mineral panacea far more agreeable, unless indeed administered on homoeopathic principles. In no long time a whole apothecary's shop was arrayed on our little table, every vial, however different in shape, containing the same grand catholicon, that if it cannot cure all, will cure as many of the ills that flesh is heir to as all others put together.