Comstock Lode (Nev.) -- Fiction; Miners -- Fiction; Virginia City (Nev.) -- Fiction
Sincerely yours,
TOM CARLIN.
Wright read next as follows:
VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
JOE:--I make a poor hand at writing. I have been banging
hammers too many years. But what I want to say is, you had
better, so soon as your visit is over, come along back. There
wasn't a bit of sense in your going away. Your absence breaks
up the equilibrium of the Club amazingly. The whole outfit is
becoming demoralized, and the members are growing more
garrulous than so many magpies. We shall look for you within a
week. We all want to see you.
Your sincere friend,
ADRIAN WRIGHT.
The Colonel responded next.
VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
MILLER:--You made a precious old fool of yourself, rushing off
as you did. Are you the first man who has ever been deceived by
Comstock "dead points?" If you think you are, try and explain
how it is that while some thousands of bright fellows have
devotedly pursued the business during the past fifteen years,
you can, in five minutes, count on your fingers all that have
saved a quarter of a dollar at the business.
The whole Club join me in saying that you ought to return
without delay.
Yours truly,
SAVAGE.
The Professor's letter, which was next read, was as follows:
VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
DEAR MILLER:--We do not like your going away. The act was
deficient in candor, and seems to have a look as though you
estimated yourself or the Club at too low a figure. Suppose you
did get a little off; the true business would have been to have
told us all about it. We would have "put up the mud" and
carried the thing along until it came your way. But what is
done is done. The thing to decide now is what it is best for
you to do. Austin is no place for you. The mines there are
rich, but the veins are small and the district restricted. In
that camp the formation makes impossible the creation of a big
body of ore; the fissures are necessarily small. You would die
of asphyxia within a month or go blind searching for a place
where an ore body "could make." Eureka is open to other
objections. It would require six months for you to become
acclimated there, and the chances are that within that time you
would be tied up in a knot with lead colic. The proper course
to pursue is to come back. The Club are all agreed on that
proposition.
Yours truly,
STONEMAN.
Ashley's letter, in these words, followed:
VIRGINIA CITY, August 13th, 1878.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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