Adventure, June 1911 — page 99: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Adventuring in Tiburon out by the facts. Our gulch is short, steep, and bare from where we are working on up the hill. From there up, the rocks of the sidehills are simply barren and rotten schist bedrock. A hundred yards below the machine our gulch debouches into the great dry-wash, where the bed-rock is buried under hundreds of feet of sand, pebbles and boulders. As it now stands, our rich chan- nel is being buried deeper and deeper at every foot that we mine downhill. Up the gulch there is neither earth nor gold—only the bare, rotten schist. Dec. 24—Gosh-wa and Ah-chit-wéh are back. They report that they left Castafieda in sight of Encinal. ‘They took him to the top of the last sand ridge and told him to c6 Git" 39 “Did he try to follow you back?’ I asked. ‘No,” said Gosh-wa, “he no come.” _.That night Ahté said to me: “If my brother will promise not to be angry, I will ‘givé him some news.” When I promised, he continued: “‘When Gosh-wa and Ah-chit- wéeh took the Mexican away, they saw that his heart was bad, for he had secretly made ‘Small Holes in his bandage so that he could see th trail. When they started, Gosh-wa had ten arrows in his quiver and Ah-chit- weh twelve. Gosh-wa returned with nine arrows and Ah-chit-wéh with ten. We Simangitos are careful of our arrows, since Straight stems are very scarce. We recover the arrows when we shoot game. We de- stroy them when a man dies, or when we slay an enemy.” “T am sorry to hear this, Ahtdi,” said I, “vet at the same time it may be for the best, since Castaiieda was, as you say, an evil man.” Sa OY) Dec. 25—This is Christmas Day. o We have made a great feast and I have told the Indians the story of the death of the Christ. They said that they had heard this story long ago from their fathers, who had heard it from Mission priests. ‘They had not believed the story, however, since if God had the power, he need not have slain his son, when his sim- plest wish would have made all men good. They were content with the religion of their fathers, since the story of “Tse-huh,” and the ‘‘ Great Turtle” seemed more reasonable. Jan. t—Our rich streak is worked out as far as the heavy overburden will permit. If we had a steam hoist, timbers and heavy 285 boards, we would attempt to go under thé deep sands of the great dry-wash; as it now stands it would be courting death to attempt it. Our rich dirt has spoiled us for the $12-a-day diggings, so we are going to leave here and look for the rich pearl- bank Castafieda told of. We have told fhe Indians and they are very sad, Ahtt and his younger brother, To-weé, are going with us. ‘Where you go,I go,” said Ahtti. Mrs. Ahtté and Mrs. Charles Kanaka are out off». the ridge, howling mournfully under the stars. The grief of Mrs. Ahtt isin A Minor, while that of Ma-hat-mf is G Major. Both ladies are like Mrs. Noah—they want to go in the boat. ©) sat dejectedly on the beach as we rowed the boat out into the offing. Mrs. Ahti and Mrs. Charlie Kanaka ran distractedly up and down the beach, making the air resound to their cries. I steered the boat and Charlie pulled the oars. Ahtu and To-weé sat stoically silent in the bow. All at once Charlie dropped-.the oars and stood erect. He was much affected, for-twice he started to call to his Indian wiié, and twice his voice broke. ‘Tell her, Ahtu, that I am coming back to her, to stay,”’ said Charlie in a choked voice. Ahtdi stood up, and putting his hands to his mouth, gave a peculiar call. Both women were at once silent, listening with strained attention. Ahti now: called to,the women that Charlie said he would surely come back to Ma-hat-mi and that when he came back, it iil Jan. 5—Twenty and two Simangitos | ——~ would bé to stay. Ma-hat-mi now ran into the water and cried out joyfully: ‘“Charlow say come back. Charlow no lie; him come, me wait!” She then turned back to Ahtt’s wife and began to comfort her. An hour later all the small black specks on the beach climbed the face of the cliff and disappeared. Jan. 14—We are unable to find the good bank of pearls. We have cruised as far south as the Animas and San Lorenzo Is- lands, yet have taken only ten inferior pearls. The pearl oysters are plentiful, but they are fat and hearty. To-weé took a fine pearl yesterday, a blue-black one, worth perhaps $200. We are going to look fora harbor on the east side of San Lorenzo Island, hoping that on the reefs we may do better. COmiICLOOokKs (C@