And there ended the dream of the glory trail back to the France he loved. Those who believe in the jinx will find something to sustain their faith in the record of John LeMoyne's mine.
After LeMoyne's death, Wild Bill Corcoran who had made and lost fortunes in the lush days of Rhyolite, set out from Owens Valley to relocate it. Never a ranting prohibitionist, Bill believed that the best remedy for snake bite was likker in the blood when the snake bit. When he reached Darwin he was not feeling well and stopped long enough for a nip with friends and to get a youngster to drive his car and help at the camp.
It was midsummer, with record temperature but Bill wanted John LeMoyne's mine. Becoming worse in the valley he stopped in Emigrant Canyon and sent the boy back for a doctor. Bill crawled into an old shack under the hill. When the boy and the doctor came, they found Bill Corcoran on the floor, his hand stretched toward a bottle of bootleg liquor. His soul had gone over the hill.
One after another, five others followed Bill to file on LeMoyne's claim and each in turn joined Bill over the hill.
LeMoyne's Christian name was Jean. His surname has been spelled both Lemoigne and Lemoine. The claim from which Indians had formerly taken lead was filed upon by LeMoyne in 1882.
Joe Gorsline, a graduate of Columbia, with a background of wealth, came to Ballarat during the rush, looked over the town. "Wouldn't spend another day in this dump for all the gold in the mint," he announced. He had a few drinks, heard a few yarns, eyed a few girls in the honkies. It was all new to Joe, but something about the informalities of life appealed to him and in a little while he was renamed Joe Goose.
Then the town's constable shot its Judge and Ballarat chose him to succeed the deceased. Not liking the laws of the code, he made a batch of his own, which were never questioned. While watching the flow of time and liquor, he "went desert" and put aside the things that might have been for the more alluring things-as-they-are.
When Ballarat became a ghost town, Joe Gorsline took his body to the city, but his soul remained and years afterward when he died, a hearse came down the mountain and in it was Joe Gorsline, home again. He is buried in a little cemetery out on the flat and in the spring the golden sun cups, grow all around and you walk on them to get to his grave.