4 CHRONICLES OF THE CARIBOO

superstitious awe and reverence for the rare, precious metal. This
gold and not “fool’s geld,” as some of them, until then had suspected.
Anyway, they decided to take the chances of the venture. Then, too,
the river would be rising to drive the miners off. the bars, and if the
venture proved a failure they could return when the water went down
and resume the bar mining.

While the party is dropping down the river in their boat is as
good a time as any to describe them:

Peter Curran Dunlevey was born in Pittsburgh, Pa.., USA, Octo-
ber 21st, 1834, so he was in his twenty-fifth year at the time of which
we write. He was of Trish descent and “proud av it,” yet thoroughly
American in his allegiance and feelings; so much so, in fact, that he
never renounced his United States citizenship. Regarding this he
used to say: “No, I was born an American citizen and by: God I'll die
one”—and he did. He was about five feet nine inches tall and would
in his prime weigh about a hundred and seventy-five pounds; of light -
complexion, fair straight hair and blue eyes. Mostly he used to wear
the Yankee beard, or chin whisker as it was called, sometimes with
a@ moustache, but usually not. I have seen him clean-shaven also.

In his younger mining days he wore the conventional miner's
garb: heavy, mostly blue, woolen shirt and corduroys, but always of
good material. After he quit active manual mining for a business-
man’s life he was never seen except in a white shirt with a stiff
starched front, the “boil’d shirt of the time, but without collar or tie
— unless the occasion demanded a coat — with a vest always open
except for one or two buttons at the bottom, and carrying a gold
watch and heavy gold chain and gold-mounted magnifying glass. But
so rarely as to be almost never did he wear a coat in his own house.
And there were many Americans like him in those days, who seemed
to consider the boiled shirt stood for everything in the businessman’s
conventional dress. He prided himself on his personal appearance,
but had his own notions of what a gentleman should wear.

Yet among his other occupations he was first, last and all the
time a miner, so, to distinguish him and his ilk from the manual
miner, he was known in those days as “Pete, the gentleman miner.”
He would grubstake anyone in whose character he had confidence to
go prospecting on a fifty-fifty basis, and it mattered not at all to him
that the man knew nothing of mining. To his friends who would
remonstrate with him for this he would say:

“What's the odds? It’s alla gamble anyway. I love the element
of chance in it and I’m willing to pay for it, and besides they say ‘a
fool for luck.’ So, if he’s a fool as a miner, and I’m a fool for staking
him, why then there’ s two fools, so we should have double luck. That’s
sound logic, isn’t it? Anyway it’s what I’m betting on.”

And in that attitude to the miner's life and fortunes you have
Dunlevey’s character portrayed. You can see from this what great
persuasive force he had, even though at times his arguments were
pure sophistry like the above. But sophistry or not » he could always