Produced by Justin Gillbank, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE WEDGE OF GOLD BY C.C. GOODWIN, EDITOR DAILY TRIBUNE 1893 TRIBUNE JOB PRINTING COMPANY SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH CONTENTS I. The Mineral Kingdom II. Indications III. Making Money at $4 per day IV. Smiles and Tears V. The Voyage VI. Bonanzas VII. A Dinner Party VIII. Ways that are Dark IX. How Miners are Caught X. Enchantment XI. Going to Epsom Downs XII. Westminster Abbey XIII. Two Kinds of Sorrow XIV. Tears and Orange Flowers XV. Sinister Successes XVI. A Trip to Africa XVII. On Their Travels XVIII. The Soul in Clay XIX. The Wedge of Gold XX. The Occident and the Orient Meet XXI. Shipping a Quartz Mill XXII. A Lost Trail Discovered XXIII. Back to England XXIV. Dealing in Mining Shares XXV. A Wedge of Gold Indeed XXVI. Fever Visions XXVII. Selling Stock Short XXVIII. Convalescent XXIX. Springing a Trap XXX. Grand Opera XXXI. Marriage Bells XXXII. Fruition THE WEDGE OF GOLD. CHAPTER I. THE MINERAL KINGDOM. The splendor of the world is due to mining and to the perfectness of man's ability to work the minerals which the mines supply. The fields of the world give men food; with food furnished, a few souls turn to the contemplation of higher things; but no grand civilization ever came to an agricultural people until their intellects were quickened by something beyond their usual occupation. How man first emerged from utter barbarism is a story that is lost, but when history first began to pick up the threads of events and to weave them into a record, the loom upon which the record was woven was made of gold. One of the rivers that flowed through Eden also "compassed the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good." "Tubal Cain was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." Abraham and Jacob bought fields with money, and when Pharaoh sought to make Joseph next in power to himself, he took the ring from his finger and put it upon Joseph's finger; and he put a chain of gold about Joseph's neck. Thus the grandchildren of Adam, in Holy Writ, were artificers in brass and iron, and when civilization in Egypt began to make an impression upon the world, its sovereigns had already discovered the omnipotence of gold. Assyria, that came next to be the concernment of mankind, had men who could perfectly fuse gold and glass, and their work is still an object of wonder to the world. Their queens wore raiment which was woven from threads of gold.