which the bag had been deposited. One of the party suggested to search the gopher's hole. A shovel was brought and the side drift carefully followed. After tracing it about ten or twelve feet, there was found a little ante-room or chamber of about six inches deep, made in the side of the main road or hole, with a neatly paved floor of lumps of gold, and in the rear of this extravagantly furnished apartment was found a portion of the old man's leathern bag.
The den of the robbers had evidently been found, but only a small portion of the gold—where was the rest ? Following the trail of the robber a little farther, they came upon a succession of apartments or niches, and found each one as regularly and beautifully paved with gold as if done by the hand of man, while in each was found a small portion of the leathen bag, as if used as a lounge or mattress. Not a single particle of gold was found along the line of the main road ; all had been carefully carried into and deposited in the side rooms. The whole amount was weighed, and found to be exactly equal to the gold the old man had buried in the bag. The gopher succeeded in escaping unharmed. Such is the gopher story of the Stanislaus.
We' have another gopher story. "Last Monday our usually quiet burgh was awakened by the intelligence that new diggings had been discovered within a few hundred yards of the town, paying twelve dollars to the pan. Hundreds immediately flocked with picks and spades to the place, and in a short time had staked off" the whole hillside. They worked very diligently until evening, when the discoverers,let some of their friends into the secret. They had buried bags of gold dust there last spring, and in digging for it found that the gophers had eaten the buckskin bags, obliging them to wash the surrounding earth. Ten minutes after this announcement there was not a miner or tool to be seen about the new diggings."
