of theirs, it had caved in. It was generally understood that
Robert J. Walker, United States Secretary of the Treasury, was then
a partner in this mining company; and a vessel, the bark Gray
Eagle, was ready at San Francisco to sail for New York with the
title-papers on which to base a joint-stock company for speculative
uses. I think the alcalde was satisfied that the law had been
complied with, that he had given the necessary papers, and, as at
that time there was nothing developed to show fraud, the Governor
(Mason) did not interfere. At that date there was no public house
or tavern in San Jose where we could stop, so we started toward
Santa Cruz and encamped about ten miles out, to the west of the
town, where we fell in with another party of explorers, of whom
Ruckel, of San Francisco, was the head; and after supper, as we sat
around the camp-fire, the conversation turned on quicksilver in
general, and the result of the contest in San Jose in particular.
Mason was relating to Ruckel the points and the arguments of
Ricord, that the company should not suffer from an act of God,
viz., the caving in of the mouth of the mine, when a man named
Cash, a fellow who had once been in the quartermaster's employ as a
teamster, spoke up: "Governor Mason, did Judge Ricord say that?"
"Yes," said the Governor; and then Cash related how he and another
man, whose name he gave, had been employed by Ricord to undermine a
heavy rock that rested above the mouth of the mine, so that it
tumbled down, carrying with it a large quantity of earth, and
completely filled it up, as we had seen; "and," said Cash, "it took
us three days of the hardest kind of work." This was the act of
God, and on the papers procured from the alcalde at that time, I
understand, was built a huge speculation, by which thousands of
dollars changed hands in the United States and were lost. This
happened long before the celebrated McGarrahan claim, which has