One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of wore $6,000 worth
of diamonds in his bosom, and swore he was unhappy because he could not
spend his money as fast as he made it.
Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that often reached $16,000 a
month; and he used to love to tell how he had worked in the very mine
that yielded it, for five dollars a day, when he first came to the
country.
The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another of these pets of
fortune--lifted from actual poverty to affluence almost in a single
night--who was able to offer $100,000 for a position of high official
distinction, shortly afterward, and did offer it--but failed to get it,
his politics not being as sound as his bank account.
Then there was John Smith. He was a good, honest, kind-hearted soul,
born and reared in the lower ranks of life, and miraculously ignorant.
He drove a team, and owned a small ranch--a ranch that paid him a
comfortable living, for although it yielded but little hay, what little
it did yield was worth from $250 to $300 in gold per ton in the market.
Presently Smith traded a few acres of the ranch for a small undeveloped
silver mine in Gold Hill. He opened the mine and built a little
unpretending ten-stamp mill. Eighteen months afterward he retired from
the hay business, for his mining income had reached a most comfortable
figure.
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