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persons.
    My sojourn in the city was going well enough. Whether at work or at leisure, I felt a certain enjoyment in the company of my peers. In the evenings, men would eat and drink in crowded saloon bars, or stand around open fires on the backstreets, or just sit on the planks of the sidewalks and talk pleasant nonsense, but I found myself spending much of my time in quiet contemplation.
    On one particularly pleasant evening I was standing outside the back door of Top George’s saloon, watching a group of fellows toss coins. I fell into conversation with the fellow next to me, a miner of some years’ experience named Ben, whom I had met briefly on a previous occasion. He had the habit of cursing so foully and continuously that I dare not transcribe his exact words, but he expressed great surprise when I happened to mention that I was not working my claim at present.
    â€œThere’s plenty good gold country all different directions,” he suggested. “Head yourself out and find a new claim if the first one don’t work out!”
    â€œOh, I don’t suppose I’d be likely to do much better at any other spot.”
    â€œThen you wasn’t gettin’ totally left dry at your claim?”
    â€œNot at all.”
    â€œYou was makin’ wages?”
    â€œGood wages, sure enough.”
    â€œThen you’re plain stupid, ain’t ya?”
    Ben had a way of saying this that made it seem unlike an insult. In fact, I had a good laugh over it, even while I tried to defend my actions. “Looking for gold is not the only thing a man can do in the world,” I said. “Right now I’m making good money as a carpenter. I’m enjoying the job, too. It’s something different.”
    â€œIt won’t be something different after you done it for a week or so,” Ben replied, and I had to agree.
    â€œThere’s always something new to try my hand at if I get fed up with building hotels, though.”
    â€œBut why would you come all the way up to the goldfields to do that for? That’s plain stupid! You think you’re gonna get lucky and get yourself rich in one day, poundin’ nails? Not a chance! But you get back to workin’ that claim of yours, and you just might!”
    And with that, Ben proceeded to launch into an hour or more of stories of miners who had been on the verge of abandoning their efforts when they finally made the big strike.
    I returned to Binder Creek the next day, and the inference might easily be taken that the old mucker had convinced me of the error of my ways. In reality, he had only reminded me of what I already knew to be true, and I would soon have followed that route with or without his advice.
    I was being paid six dollars per day—three times what I would make in San Francisco—but good wages were not what I came north to find. I had come for excitement, plain and simple, and it was the idea of sticking a pan in the ground and lifting it up as a suddenly rich man that had seemed exciting. Ben’s stories had been effective in one way, of course. As I trudged my way back up the valley, I was once again filled with a dreamy sort of expectancy. Unfortunately the attitude did not last. Within a few days of my return, I had reverted to my habit of spending every third or fourth day away from the business at hand—hunting when I really had no need of meat, or exploring territory I had no real need to know.
    My creek-bank operation rewarded me well enough—yielding some days an ounce and a half of gold, which at sixteen dollars per ounce amounted to ten times a good day’s wages where I was born and raised. Still, it was too predictable for me, and I say this to my discredit, for I know I should have been more than happy to spend every waking moment toiling for those returns. I did not, though—usually leaning my shovel against the sluicebox long before darkness compelled me to do so, and spending the