“If I did not dig more than $2 pr day I would try a new spot, and so it was a new spot all the while.”

-Alonzo Hill, 1854

INDEPENDENT GOLD MINER

Back at the riverbed, you unload your shovels and pans, set down your camping gear, and wade into the stream.  Men work shoulder-to-shoulder, bucket-to-bucket.

You scoop, you dump, you pan, and you repeat it again and again.

It’s laborious, backbreaking work, and you don’t see a speck of gold that day, or the next.

The second day, you converse with a young Scotsman named Borthwick, who spends half his time digging and the other half writing in a leather-bound journal.

“I heard men in town… the real pay dirt is out in Soldier’s Gulch,” Borthwick says.  “In the valley of some kind of dead volcano.  I’m thinking about heading out there tomorrow, and if I don’t hit it there, off to San Francisco.”

The two of you camp for the night.  By the firelight, you talk about your lives back home — the drudgery of your job in New York, and Borthwick’s classical education and privileged youth in Scotland.

“So what made you come all the way out here?” you ask, looking at his expensive leather valise and the brass hardware on his boxy trunk.

“Same as you, I’m sure.  The adventure of a lifetime.”  He sees you eye his luggage, and he pulls the hinged box onto his lap.  “Care to see something of interest?”

Borthwick opens the trunk.  Inside is a miniature casino, complete with tiny spring-driven roulette wheel, dice, poker chips, and table felt.

“Been taking this kit all over gold country,” he continues.  “Most of these places don’t have gambling halls in town, so I take this into saloons, split the profits with the owner.”

“Why weren’t you running games down in Hangtown?” you ask.

“Did you see the men gambling in public?  Used to be only on Sundays, but now you can play just about every day,” he explains.  “Things run a little hot in Hangtown.”

“Doesn’t it scare you, having to carry so much specie?” you ask.

“Not with this,” Borthwick explains.  At the sides of the chip tray are two small rings that you had not noticed.  Borthwick grasps the rings and pulls out the tray, revealing a Paterson Colt revolver, several sheathed knives, and dozens of rounds of ammunition.  “Beautiful set-up, is it not?”

You nod in agreement.

“Just a way to keep the wagons moving,” he says, “and finance my little hobby.”  He shows you a few sketches in his book.

Did everyone come west so prepared?  Were you a fool to have left home with just a cabin trunk and a pocketful of coins?

Conversation turns to your families back home, overland travel versus sea passage, and the multicultural experience of the American West.

The heat of the crackling fire warm on your face, you drift off to sleep.

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