CALIFORNIA ILLUSTRATED. 
,82 
accomplish more than ourselves. We shouldered our imple¬ 
ments and were soon on the margin of the river. As we were 
placing our machine, a miner came along and informed us that, 
on the previous day, a Mr. Eccle had got out in one hour 
$1,500. We had suspected all along that there were rich 
deposits in the vicinity, and now our suspicions were confirmed. 
Our machine was soon in operation, and as the $1,500 would 
flash across our imagination, I would strike my pick the deeper. 
Tracy would flourish his dipper, strike up some familiar air, 
and the cradle would rock as if propelled by the furies. If 
there had been anything in it except dirt Tracy would have had 
an accompaniment to his song. We washed through ten buck¬ 
ets, and raised the screen; it did not look very encouraging— 
we run through ten more—Tracy thought there wasn't quite as 
much as there was before —he began to lag, and I must confess I 
was obliged to recur often to the $1,500 to keep the necessary 
elasticity in my suspenders; we stopped a moment to rest, and 
speculate on the probable appearance of the spot where the 
above sum was obtained; we came to the conclusion that it 
must have looked very like the spot we were then at work in. 
Our machine was again in motion, and with renewed energy; 
Tracy was really outdoing himself; the $1,500 would flit 
through his imagination and he would almost throw the ma¬ 
chine into spasms; I expected every moment to see his panta¬ 
loons and red flannel shirt part company; the only connecting 
link was a single India rubber suspender which was stretched 
to its utmost tension. We resolved to run through one hun¬ 
dred buckets before dinner, and, by straining every nerve, 
accomplished it. We panned down our half-days’ work—it 
amounted to two dollars. It had been excessively hot, the 
thermometer rose to 106 3 , and when we arrived at our encamp¬ 
ment we were as wet as if we had been wading the river. We 
boiled some pork and sea-biscuit together in our camp-kettle, 
made coffee, and having placed two large stones against the 
rock, sat down to dinner. Our spirits were buoyant and our 
anticipations high. 
Soon after dinner our machine was again making its spasmo¬ 
dic movements, and continued them during the afternoon; we 
did not allow ourselves to forget the strong resemblance between 
