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The Cave of Gold

Everett McNeil




  THE CAVE OF GOLD

  A Tale of California in '49

  by

  EVERETT McNEIL

  Author of "Fighting with Fremont," "In Texas with Davy Crockett," "WithKit Carson in the Rockies," Etc.

  New YorkE. P. Dutton & Company681 Fifth Ave.

  First Printing, January, 1911Second Printing, August. 1919Third Printing, June, 1926Printed in the U.S.A.

  TO THE DESCENDANTS YOUNG OR OLD OF THE HARDY FORTY-NINERS THIS STORY OFTHE EXCITING DAYS OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA IS HOPEFULLYDEDICATED

  "YOU LIE!" AND THE HARD FIST LANDED SQUARELY ON THE MAN'SCHIN.]

  FOREWORD

  On a cold January morning of 1848, James Wilson Marshall picked up twoyellow bits of metal, about the size and the shape of split peas, fromthe tail-race of the sawmill he was building on the South Fork of theAmerican River, some forty-five miles northeast of Sutter's Fort, nowSacramento City. These two yellow pellets proved to be gold; and soon itwas discovered that all the region thereabouts was thickly sown withshining particles of the same precious yellow metal. A few months laterand all the world was pouring its most adventurous spirits into thewilderness of California.

  This discovery of gold in California and the remarkable inpouring of menthat followed, meant very much to the United States. In a few months itcleared a wilderness and built up a great state. In one step it advancedthe interests and the importance of the United States half a century inthe policies and the commerce of the Pacific. It threw wide open thegreat doors of the West and invited the world to enter. It poured intothe pockets of the people and into the treasury of the United States avast amount of gold--alas! soon to be sorely needed to defray theexpenses of the most costly war of the ages. Indeed, when the length andthe breadth of its influence is considered, this discovery of gold inCalifornia becomes one of the most important factors in the developingof our nation, the great corner-stone in the upbuilding of the West;and, as such, it deserves a much more important place in the history ofthe United States than any historian has yet given to it.

  In the present story an attempt has been made, not only to tell aninteresting tale, but to interest the younger generation in thisremarkable and dramatic phase of our national development, possibly themost picturesque and dramatic period in the history of the nation: topicture to them how these knights of the pick and the shovel lived andworked, how they found and wrested the gold from the hard hand ofnature, and to give to them something of an idea of the hardships andthe perils they were obliged to endure while doing it.

  The period was a dramatic period, crowded with unusual and startlinghappenings, as far removed as possible from the quiet commonplacenessand routine life of the average boy and girl of to-day; and the readeris cautioned to remember this--if disposed at any time to think theincidents narrated in the present tale too improbable or too startlingto have ever happened--that they could not happen to-day, even inCalifornia; but they might have all happened then and there inCalifornia.

  The author is one of those who believe that the boys and the girls ofto-day should know something of the foundation stones on which thesuperstructure of our national greatness rests, and how and with whattoils and perils they were laid; and, it is in the hope that the readingof this story will interest them in this, the laying of the greatcorner-stone in the upbuilding of the West, that this tale of theDiscovery of Gold in California has been written.

  No nation can afford to forget its builders.