During the receding of the waters after one of the annual spring freshets, I saw several hundred dollars in gold dust washed out near the base of a pine tree on the river’s bank, between Hawkins’ and Swett’s Bar, where probably it had years before been buried by some unknown miner. That is, I saw it after it had been washed out and found by another more fortunate miner. In all probability there are many thousands of dollars in dust so dug by hard-working hands and so buried in California, there to remain until the Last Day perhaps longer. Where’s the utility of resurrecting the “Root of all Evil” on the Last Day, just at the time when people in heaven or elsewhere are presumed to be able to get along without it? Yet it is a mysterious Providence that impels any poor fellow to dig his pile bury it for safekeeping, and then go off and die in some out-of-the-way place without being able to leave any will and testament as to the exact hole where his savings lay. Regarding buried treasure, there is a hill near Jamestown concerning which, years ago, there hovered a legend that it held somewhere thousands of dollars in dust, buried in the early days by a lone miner, who was, for his money’s sake, murdered in his cabin. They said that by the roots of many trees on that hillside it had been unsuccessfully dug for. Anyway, the miner left a memory and a hope behind him. That’s more than many do. If you want to leave a lasting recollection of yourself behind drop a hint from time to time ere you depart for “The Bright and Shining Shore” that you have interred $10,000 somewhere in a quarter section of land, you will then long be remembered and your money dug for. CHAPTER XVII. RED MOUNTAIN BAR. The California mining camp was ephemeral. Often it was founded, built up, flourished, decayed, and had weeds and herbage growing over its site and hiding all of man’s work inside of ten years. Yet to one witnessing these changes it seemed the life of a whole generation. Of such settlements, Red Mountain Bar was one. Red Mountain lay three miles above Swett’s Bar, “up river.” I lived “off and on” at the “Bar” in its dying days. I saw it decay gently and peacefully. I saw the grass, trees, and herbage gradually creep in and resume their sway all over its site as they had done ere man’s interruption.