"No," Jim said. "I was 12 when I came to Hangtown. I remember a fellow they called Wheelbarrow John, because he made a better wheelbarrow than anyone else. He saved $3000 and went back East. He was John Studebaker. Made wagons first. Then autos.
"Young fellow named Phil Armour came. No luck. Pulled out. He did all right in Chicago though. Founded Armour Company.
"Did I ever tell you about the Digger Ounce? No? Well, it's history. The Digger Indians didn't know what gold was. Actually they'd been throwing nuggets at rabbits and couldn't believe their eyes when they saw miners exchange the same stuff for food and clothing at the store. The Indians had been getting it along the stream beds for ages. So they came in with their buckskin loin bags full of it. The merchant took it all right, but when he balanced his scales, he used a weight that gave the Digger only one dollar for every five he was entitled to. Then the Indian had to pay three prices for everything he bought. One miner loafing around the store, followed the Diggers one day, learned where they were getting it and cleaned up $40,000 in no time. That's history too.
"Crooked merchants used the same trick on drunken whites and anybody else who didn't keep their eyes open. So the Digger Ounce became a byword all along the Mother Lode."
But of all the stories about the Comstock this fine old gentleman told us, I like best one about Joe Plato. Young, strong, and handsome as Apollo, Joe craved a fling after months of toil in the gulches with no sight of woman other than the flat-faced Washoe squaws.
In San Francisco Joe saw a big red apple and he wanted it. A breath-taking girl sold him the apple and he wanted her. He acquired the girl also. His gambols over, Joe handed her five shares of ten he owned in a Comstock claim. 'A little token,' he grinned, never dreaming the beautiful wanton had a heart and loved him madly. So he forgot her. She didn't forget Joe.
Months later the ten shares were worth on the market $1,000,000. Joe remembered then. 'Too much for a girl like that.'
To beat the news and retrieve the stock, he braved Sierra storms, found her. In the battle of wits she played her cards superbly. "Of course," she said at last, "... if we were married...."