GOODWIN' S WEEKLY. 3 H
MARINERS AND MINERS
., . By C. C. G.
YAPTAIN WILLIAM TAYLOR was long a su-
perintendent on the Comstock: first of the
Yellow Jacket later of the Savage. The Captain
was a fine business man; he ran a mine as he
had commanded ships for years, and everything
was in ship shape, no matter on what watch you
called.
But when the eight hells sounded and he was
off duty, he was a most kindly, genial gentleman,
and as the whole world had, on his voyages, been
photographed upon his mind, one had but to
awaken his memories, and then his talk was an
education to a landsman.
But ho had a great many sailor kinks. One
was to every day at noon "take the sun," as had
been his wont for so many years at sea. He
would never explain why he did it, but we suspect
it was not altogether through habit. As men
turn the meridian of life they begin, little by,
little,' to live over the scenes and events of earlier
days, and it is possible that even when at work,
and attending strictly to the business, for which
he had sold his time and energies, the other lobe
of his brain was at work calling up memories.
Looking from the Comstock off to the east, be
yond the near hills, stretches "the twenty-six-mile
desert" and it, with its changing pictures, now
amber under an amber sky; now swept by sand
storms in summer, or snow storms in winter;
now painted under refracted sunbeams with
P mirages; it must have often reminded the captain
j of different sea phases; so when he made his
noon observations, he was no longer in Virginia
I City, but somewhere out to sea, off stormy cape
or rounding bold promontories, or lying becalmed
under the lee of some island; ahd "to take the
sun" was enough to keep that subjective side of
liis mind recalling old pictures for hours, even as
when a man is at work he sometimes hums, un
consciously, a song of his childhood.
Captain Taylor had for his first assistant,
George Hopkins, one of the brightest men on the
lode. The Captain and Hopkins were warm
friends, but never missed a chance to joke each
other. One day at noon, just as the captain, who
had been making his observation, lowered his the
odolite, Hopkins came along and said: "Were
you aboard ship now, Captain, what would you
say? Simulating the old sea tone the captain
answered: "Go for'ard, you son of a lubber!"
. The captain made a stake on the Comstock,
invested it in San Francisco real estate, covered
the ground with houses and lived on the rentals,
and laid up enough to rebuild after the earthquake
and fire. But his life wore out at last and his
friends hope he has found a sunny island in sum
mer land, against which the low booming of the
surf will make for his soul an everlasting lullaby.
A good many sea captains were from time to
time superintendents on the Comstock. One of
the first was Captain B. H. Wller. He was not
only a mariner, but a mining engineer. A dozen
years before the Comstock was discovered he had
charge of the copper mines just back of Santiago,
Cuba. A little creek ran down from the mines,
through the city. Captain Wiler noticed this
creek and quietly took a lease on a vacant block,
built a high-board fence around it, picked up all
the scrap iron ho could find and put it in the
stream; then hired a colored woman to take out
the scraps daily, scrape them and put them back.
For a long time he obtained from this source daily
! about a barrel of chemically pure copper. After
a while the company discovered what he was
doing, smashed his monopoly and advised him to
i resign as superintendent.
The captain died in Salt Lake City only four
or five years ago, aged about ninety.
About fifteen years before ho died a youthful
Insurance agent called at his office and wanted to
I
write him a policy on his life. The Captain took
to the proposal kindly, kept the young man ex
plaining the special virtues of his company, and
the captain seemed more and more entertained
by the proposition; found out what a paid-up
policy for $20,000 would cost; but suddenly asked:
"Up to what age do you insure?" "Oh," was
the reply, "up to sixty years." The captain mourn
fully responded: "My friend, I am awfully sorry,
but really, you are twenty-one years tqo late."
As the chagrined agent left the office, the
captain said: "It Is good for babies to "holler,"
sometimes, It expands their lungs; that baby will
be all the better for his call on me."
Captain William Dall was a long-time superin
tendent of the Ophir. He, for years prior to going
to the Comstock, commanded the steamship Co
lumbia, plying between San Francisco and Port
land, Ore. On that ship Captain Ball's brother
was first officer and Jim Wooley, a great wag,
was chief engineer.
Wooley was wont, in later years, to tell of a
little Incident that happened one morning when
the steamer was lying at her wharf in the Wil
lamette. Wooley was standing in the doorway of
his engine room on the main deck, when a long
haired, stoop-shouldered, shy-looking man came
aboard and started around the deck, looking at
everything. Dall, the mate, came out of his room,
and roughly ordering the man to go ashore, aimed
a blow at him to accentuate his order. But the
blow never landed. The wild man Interposed
his elbow and the arm of Dall went high in the
air, at the same instant with an awkward sweep
the other hand of the stranger landed full on the
ear of the first officer and he went down as Jef
fries did in that final round under the left
hook of Johnson. Hearing the racket, Captain
Dall sprang out of his cabin, made a rush for the
stranger and aimed a terrific, scientific blow at
the intruder. But it, too, fell outside the breast
works. The stranger ducked and evaded it, and
in the same awkward way shot a stinger into the H
stomach of the captain which doubled him up H
on deck like a camp chair. H
Springing up the captain called to Wooley to
come and help out on tho fight, but Wooley as-
sured him that he had lost no fights, and tho
captain suddenly turned away and called to his
brother to quit and let the wild beast havo his
way. Both the Dalls went to their rooms and
the stranger camo over to where Wooley was
standing and explained that he was a Wrapper, H
just down from the hills, that he had nover seen H
a ship before, was just looking around, did not H
intend to steal the ship or its engines or either of H
its smokestacks. Wooley hastened to tender him H
the freedom of the ship, for he declared that
when tho "cuss" straightened up he was seven
feet tall, agile as a couger and with a hand on him H
like the hand of Providence.
Before being chief engineer on the Colum-
bia, Wooley held the same position on the old Cor- H
tez, that ran to Panama for years, Captain Crop-
per, commander. He said that one day when tho M
ship was at her pier in San Francisco, he was H
sitting on deck talking with the captain, and the H
first officer was training an awkward squad of H
sailors how to bend on and furl sails. Most of the H
sailors had run off to the mines, the ship was H
shorthanded and the mate was giving some wharf H
hobos that he had picked up an elementary les- H
son In handling sails, when a little short Irishman, H
full of grog; moreover, he was anxious to show
the captain, said: "I can bate oney man yes have M
aboard your ship at that work." H
"Very well," said Captain Cropper, go up and P
help take in that main sail, and if you do it well H
I will give you a job." Tho man went to the M
shrouds, climbed up, walked out on the yard and M
bent over to help haul in the sail. But he was M
full of grog; moreover, "he was anxious to show M
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