There was no berth open in the Esmeralda Union, and besides I had always been such a slow compositor that I looked with envy upon the achievements of apprentices of two years' standing; and when I took a "take," foremen were in the habit of suggesting that it would be wanted "some time during the year." I was a good average St.Louis and New Orleans pilot and by no means ashamed of my abilities in that line; wages were two hundred and fifty dollars a month and no board to pay, and I did long to stand behind a wheel again and never roam any more--but I had been making such an ass of myself lately in grandiloquent letters home about my blind lead and my European excursion that I did what many and many a poor disappointed miner had done before; said "It is all over with me now, and I will never go back home to be pitied--and snubbed." I had been a private secretary, a silver miner and a silver mill operative, and amounted to less than nothing in each, and now-- What to do next?
I yielded to Higbie's appeals and consented to try the mining once more.
We climbed far up on the mountain side and went to work on a little rubbishy claim of ours that had a shaft on it eight feet deep.

Higbie descended into it and worked bravely with his pick till he had loosened up a deal of rock and dirt and then I went down with a long-handled shovel (the most awkward invention yet contrived by man) to throw it out.
You must brace the shovel forward with the side of your knee till it is full, and then, with a skilful toss, throw it backward over your left shoulder.

I made the toss, and landed the mess just on the edge of the shaft and it all came back on my head and down the back of my neck.
I never said a word, but climbed out and walked home.

I inwardly resolved that I would starve before I would make a target of myself and shoot rubbish at it with a long-handled shovel.
I sat down, in the cabin, and gave myself up to solid misery--so to speak.

Now in pleasanter days I had amused myself with writing letters to the chief paper of the Territory, the Virginia Daily Territorial Enterprise, and had always been surprised when they appeared in print.
My good opinion of the editors had steadily declined; for it seemed to me that they might have found something better to fill up with than my literature.