Nevada. Baker George Melville
during the following scene, dropping it, and taking it up as Silas turns and watches him.)
Silas. Whitewash yourself? You took a big contract.
Tom. Stopping with the widow?
Silas. No: only a chance acquaintance. She came from Vermont.
Vermont. So did I.
Silas. Did you? Then, you're the man I've been looking for.
Vermont (starts). Eh?
Silas. My old man took it into his head about twelve years ago to start west, minin'; and we've never seen him from that day to this. Nice old fellow, the deacon, but queer. Started off without so much as a good-by, Hannah, and has been lost to his family, the church, and Switcham, ever since. But we heard from him occasionally in the shape of gold-dust to mother, but no word or clew to his whereabouts. Mother's worried so, I've come out here to look him up if he's alive. Any of you know Deacon Steele?
Jube. Deacon who? Golly! we's all out ob deacons: dey fall from grace when dey git out here.
Vermont. You're wasting time, youngster: the deacon's dead and buried.
Silas. You knew him?
Vermont. No: but deacons die young here.
Tom. Perhaps 'tis Nevada.
Vermont and Jube. Nevada!
Silas. Who's Nevada?
Tom. The mystery of the mines: you may meet him here to-day, to-morrow in some gloomy gulch, – a ragged, crazy miner, seeking, as he has sought for ten years, a lost mine.
Silas. A lost mine?
Tom (C.) This was his story as I have heard it from old miners. He was known among them a dozen years ago, as a quiet, reserved man, working by himself, wandering off prospecting alone. At times they missed him. He had been off for a week, when, one night, he came in staggering, faint from the loss of blood, with a deep wound in his head, and the wild air of a maniac. From his broken speech, they gathered this: He had found indications of gold, had opened a tunnel, and worked far in, all by himself, mind, following some theory of his own, when suddenly, with his pick, he loosened a stone above his head, which fell and crushed him; not, however, until he had caught one glimpse of a rich vein of gold. Poor fellow, he could never find his way back, and none of his mates could help him. They would have believed his story to be but the wild speech of his wandering mind, had they not found in his tangled hair, mingled with dirt and blood, flakes of gold.
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