[COYNE] KICHARD MAURICE BUCKE— A îSKETCH 169 



to leave it, and walk over a ridge to and across another large stream. 

 The travellers were famished and their strength was almost gone. The 

 snow now did not average a foot deep. Brush was so weak, that Bucke 

 walked in front to make the tracks for his feet. " Exhausted and 

 despairing, I sat down, and, weeping, proposed to give up and lie 

 down and die where we wore." But Allen was determined to push 

 through, and encouraged the despairing hoy, reminding him of their 

 friends in the East. When the}^ camped at night, they were too weak 

 to talk much. The younger hardly expected to live till morning, and 

 thought that even if he survived the night, he would he unahle to 

 walk. " Let us make up our hed for the last time," he said to Allen, 

 '' for we shall never leave this place." But Allen still cheered him a? 

 liest he could with the hope of reaching shelter somewhere yet. They 

 slept but little. 



Xext morning, after " horrible and extravagant dreams .... 

 we were barely able to crawl along, and went almost as much on our 

 hands and knees as on our feet." The snow was now only a few 

 inches deep. Once Allen said he heard a dog bark; Maurice refused 

 tc believe it. Then they came to a ditch with running water, and 

 knew they were near a mining camp. In a few minutes Allan said, 

 '• There is smoke." They had walked or crawled just three-quarters 

 of ,a mile that day. 



The miners showed their proverbial generosity; but the exhausted 

 youths could not eat. Next day they were unable to walk. In a 

 few days they became delirious. On the twelfth day Allen Grosh died. 



" Xo knowledge survived of the work of the Grosh brothers in 

 Gold Caiïon and its neighbourhood, except the bare fact that they 

 had found silver. Two years afterwards in 1859, this knowledge, by 

 making the miners watch for indications of silver, led to the finding 

 of the Comstock lode, and that discovery to others, until the faint and 

 soon almost extinguished spark of knowledge, struck from the rocks of 

 Utah by the intelligence and perseverance of these two young men, 

 resulted in the enormous silver-mining industry of western Nevada." ^ 



Maurice's powerful physique stood him in good stead under the 

 trying ordeal he was called to pass through. He was obliged to lie 

 in bed all winter. The miners sent down the mountains for a 



' A letter, signed Duncan Gordon, published in the New York Sun, 

 November 29, 1897, and entitled, " The Tragedy of the Comstock," was 

 contradicted or varied in many of Its statements by Dr. Bucke in an inter- 

 view published in the London (Ont.) Adirrtiftrr of December 16, 1897. Gor- 

 don connected the Groshes and Dr Bucke more closely with the discovery 

 of the Comstock than the facts, according to the latter, appeared to justify. 



Sec. II., 1906. 12 



