"His grave grows green to-day on the sunny hill-side 'neath the bending willow, and the soft, sweet breath that is sighing through the pines and stirring the delicate ferns beside the glassy depth of the mountain stream, is singing his requiem. [Perhaps, however, I am rushing the season for Leadville a little; if so the last refrain after the word 'presence,' may be wrapped up in warm flannels and stored away till July.]" RHETORIC VS. WOODTICK. Camp on the New Jerusalem Mine, June 15. |It is impossible at present to say anything about what the future of this district may bring forth. Every lead shows up beautifully, and so much so, in fact, that claim owners are working first one and then another in order to hold them under the new law, which requires an amount of work to be done on the lead within sixty days which is generally only required within one year. This new regulation, which is the act of the district of course, may not stand any very severe test, but at present the miners are respecting it. It is severe on me, however, and virtually leaves me out. What I need is a law that will not ride over and overthrow and freeze out the poor man. This law is passed in the interest of capital and in direct violation of the rights and privileges of the great surging mass of horny-handed workingmen like Brick Pomeroy and myself. I havn't the time to particularize or describe the different mines visited, and if I were to do so the chances are that I wouldn't cover myself or the district with glory. It is true that I know a foot wall from a windlass, with one hand tied behind me, but if I were buying a mine I would be about as apt to purchase a deposit of sulphurets of expectations, showing traces of free milling telluride of disappointment, as anything else. The camp has about 300 miners and prospectors now within the city limits. All up and down the picturesque valley of the swift-flowing river the low cabin and white tent dot the green sward, and far above the everlasting hills rear their heads on high, torn by the Titanic power of giant heat in the days of the long ago. I said this to Professor Paige, the scientific correspondent of the _Inter-Ocean_, who accompanied me. I thought that perhaps it would tickle him to know that I could reel off a sentence like that, but it didn't affect him in that way. On the contrary, he seemed to think that the heat must have affected me in some way. We climbed Jehu mountain on the evening that we arrived in camp. We thought it would be the proper thing to do, so we dug our toe-nails into the prehistoric granite and the micacious what's-his-name and climbed to the top. For a few minutes we didn't mind it much and got along first-rate, trying to make each believe that climbing mountains was our regular business.