It grieved me greatly that my husband should be compelled to associate, and to transact business with such scoundrels as the men about him. His partner, especially, was as worthless a scamp as there was in the district; and, as I felt certain that he would in time be held responsible for some of the doings of this fellow, I persuaded him to give up mining, and to seek a home in some locality that offered greater advantages for living, as decent people ought to live, than Austin did.
My husband accordingly sold out his interest in the mines, and we removed to California, where we purchased a lovely place in the Sacramento valley. This was just such a home as I had always sighed for, and I was perfectly happy in the idea of settling down, and living a quiet contented life for the rest of my days.
It was not to be, however. My husband had the gold fever, and he found it impossible to be satisfied with what would have satisfied most reasonable people. He was restless and irritable, and was all the time anxious to be off to the mines again.
We had not been settled in our new home more than a few months, when, to my infinite regret, he insisted on starting off for the new Eldorado in Utah. He then passed a year prospecting in Bingham Canon, Camp Floyd, Eureka, and Tintic, and expended all his money without achieving anything. He was then compelled to accept the foremanship of a mine in the Lucine district, and after he had been working in that capacity for some time, was promoted to superintendent.
One of the members of the firm by whom my husband was employed was a gentleman, and was honest, as honesty went in that region. The other was a drunkard, and a fraud of the worst kind. This man, some time before this, had started a settlement, which he named after himself, and had built a smelting furnace, all for the purpose of selling some bogus mines. He also perpetrated an infamous swindle on some English capitalists, in relation to a mine in Nevada.
A "Salted" Mine.
The way the thing was done was this, and it will serve as an illustration of the kind of swindles that were constantly being perpetrated in connection with mines.
He sent to Virginia and purchased some rich ore from the Comstock mine, for the purpose of salting the mine which he
