“I know not, I ask not, if guilt’s in that heart, I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art,”—
and under its influence she linked her fortunes with those of the robber, murderer, and outlaw, in the holiest of human ties.
A quarrel, of which this young lady was the innocent cause, took place between Plummer and Cleveland before the marriage of the former. Their old friendship was never reëstablished. Often during their residence at Sun River an exchange of bitter epithets only relieved their pent-up wrath. Afraid of each other, neither would leave the farm alone. Accordingly they went to Bannack in company, early in the Winter of 1862–63. There we will leave them while we return to Florence to inquire after the fortunes of Cherokee Bob, whom we left a few chapters ago “settled in business.”
The decay of a mining town is as sudden and rapid as its growth, and the causes which occasion it as problematical. Few, comparatively, of the great number of placer camps in the Rocky Mountains, once peopled with thousands, survive beyond the third year of their existence. As soon as the placers fail to remunerate the miners, they are abandoned. The crowd departs, and if any remain, it is that sober, substantial class which is satisfied with small gain as the reward of unceasing toil. Intelligence of new discoveries brought to a failing placer will cause the immediate departure of great numbers engaged in working it. These stampedes are among the most notable features of mountain life. Sometimes when the discovery of a new placer is announced, the entire population of a mining town is on the alert, each man striving with the next to be the first to reach it. Horses are saddled, mules packed, sluices abandoned, and the long and unmarked route is filled with gold hunters. Away they go, over mountains, across streams, through cañons and pine forests, with the single object of making the first selection of a claim in the new location. Not infrequently it is the case that a single company is the first to learn of the discovery of a new rich placer. If the claim it has worked is abandoned the succeeding morning, it is received by the camp as incontestable evidence that a mine of superior richness has been found,—and hundreds start in pursuit of the missing company. Rumor is a fruitful cause of stampedes. Disappointments are more frequently the consequences than rewards. Instances are common where whole camps have been deserted to follow up a rumor, been disappointed, and glad to return at last. There is nothing permanent in the life of a gold miner,—and beyond the moment, nothing strong or abiding in his associations.