Little Raven insisted on shaking hands with Harry and with Terry. "G'bye," he grunted. "Heap boy. No run," when suddenly Terry cried, past him, to a figure on horseback:
"Get out o' there!"
During the leave-taking Thunder Horse had sidled in with the others, and pressing along the wagon, behind Harry (who had considerable to watch with one pair of eyes and one gun), was stealthily thrusting his arm in under the edge of the canvas hood.
"Get out o' there!" yelped Terry.
Harry turned hastily—but there was a snarl, a whoop, and back careened Thunder Horse, on his pony, with Shep hanging to his moccasin. The moccasin and the foot within it, extending below the cart, and so convenient, had been too much for Shep. Besides, their owner was up to mischief! Shep knew him of old.
Thunder Horse kicked vigorously—and while the other Indians laughed and shouted, and Shep held hard, shaking and worrying, he jerked his knife from somewhere—flung himself low and stabbed at his black shaggy tormentor.
"Shep!" called Terry, alarmed. "Quit it! Here!"
With a final dodge, Shep tore the moccasin loose and carried it under the cart. Glaring a moment at the cart, at Terry, at Harry, Thunder Horse, scowling blackly, rode on. The four Arapahoes, laughing among themselves, followed. The way with which Shep had astonished Thunder Horse amused them greatly.
The next noon, when the Pike's Peak Limited passed the stage station, the agent hailed with the question:
"Say! Was it your dog that bit that Kiowa in the foot?"
"Yes. He'd tried to steal from the cart."
"Well, served him right. 'Twasn't much of a bite, but he had a powerful sore foot when he and those 'Rapahoes went out this mornin'. They camped here all night."
"Teeth scurcely broke the skin; but he's been so pizened with whiskey that any least scratch on him's liable to make a bad sore," added the agent's helper.
"Did two men with a team and a wagon get here in a hurry, yesterday evening?" asked Harry. "Ahead of the Indians?"
"Yes, sir!" laughed the agent. "Those hunter greenhorns, you mean, flying from a massacre? We calmed 'em down, let 'em hide in the tent, and told 'em if they'd stay behind the massacre it wouldn't catch 'em. So they waited until the massacre left, then they left."
For the next week and more the Pike's Peak Limited kept hearing, from station to station, of Thunder Horse and his sore foot. His foot had swollen, his leg had swollen to the knee, it had swollen above the knee, it was still swelling—and he was very surly, and evidently in much pain, and drunk whenever he could obtain any liquor.
The hunters' wagon disappeared, between stations, as if on a short-cut to the Republican; and soon thereafter the Chief Little Raven squad, including the then much distressed Thunder Horse (whose leg, said the last agent, ought to be cut off), disappeared also.
The Pike's Peak Limited plodded along. At some time every day a stage or two stages from Leavenworth on the Missouri River passed, usually full, but occasionally half empty. The Valley of the Republican was close before, and behind was pressing nearer the van of that great procession.
"They're beginning to raise a dust," remarked Harry, gazing back.
"Yes; but you can see a dust ahead, too," said Terry. "Hope we get there first."
That night the camp-fires of the leading outfits on the trail behind were plainly visible, winking through the darkness; and down in the broad Republican Valley scattered other camp-fires were winking.
"An early start for us in the morning, remember," enjoined Harry.
It was almost noon when, just beating a faster-stepping team trying to overtake, the Pike's Peak Limited, first pilgrim outfit through by the new stage route, filed into the well-trodden, dusty trail made now by stage and gold-seekers combined up the wide valley of the Republican.
"Hee-haw!" exulted Jenny; but Duke the half-buffalo only flirted his little tail at sight of the new company.
Yes, plenty of company now. The procession had penetrated a short distance before, but stretched a farther distance behind or eastward: white-topped wagons of all descriptions, their canvases torn by hail, stained by rain and dingy with dust, drawn by ox-teams, mule-teams and even cow-teams, and accompanied by men, women and children afoot, a few ahorse, every individual and every animal striving to reach the Pike's Peak country and the Cherry Creek diggin's there.
The pilgrimage was about to "noon"; and with Duke and Jenny pulling bravely, making their best showing, the Limited skirted the line, while good-naturedly replying to the various welcomes.
Pretty soon the road ahead was blocked, as the overlanders spread right and left to cook and eat dinner.
"Let's drive off to the side, yonder, Terry," bade Harry. "That looks like a good spot near to that 'Root Hog or Die' outfit."
"How are you, boys?" greeted the proprietor of the "Root Hog or Die" wagon. "We're most of us from Ohio. Where are you from?"
"From the Big Blue Valley, Kansas Territory, farther east," answered Harry.
"We came by the stage trail," added Terry.
"I see. Well, we took a vote and decided on the Republican Valley, and a hard time we've had, but here we are. What do you say to cooking our dinner on the one fire, and we'll swap notes?"
He seemed to be an extraordinarily well-spoken man, notwithstanding his untrimmed beard and rough garb. Was a college professor, as happened, in Ohio; and was going to the mountains for his health as well as to make a fortune. So here he was, with his wife and little girl, accompanying a lot of other Ohio people.
Leaving Duke and Jenny to graze a little while longer, after dinner the "boys from the Big Blue" strolled about, to inspect other outfits and exchange information. The noon camp was rather quiet, with the men and women and children resting or finishing their dishes; but back down the trail there appeared to be a commotion—as of people gathering around a wagon from which a man was making a speech.
"Come on. We might as well see all the sights on the way," bade Harry.
The speech-maker's back was toward them. Terry figured that if he talked as rapidly as he flourished his arms, his speech would soon be ended for lack of words. However, the words were still flowing strong. Something in the loud tone, and the gestures, and the long unkempt black hair, and the high thick shoulders in the ragged shirt, and the greasy slouch hat, struck Terry as familiar.
"Pine Knot Ike!" he exclaimed.
"The very man—our valued acquaintance and fellow citizen, Ike Chubbers, 'half wild hoss and half grizzly b'ar,'" chuckled Harry. "We'll stand off and listen to his discourse."
They halted on the edge of the little throng, from where they could view Ike's hairy profile as, beating the air with his fists, above the up-turned gaping faces, he delivered his harangue.
"I air the only man who ever roped an' rid an alligator in its native swamps," he was proclaiming, and already he was quite hoarse. "I air the only man who fit off five hunderd of the wust savage Injuns that roam these hyar plains, an' killed nigh every one of 'em. Gentlemen an' feller citizens: Look at this hyar bar'l. Count the bullet-holes." And by main force Ike held aloft his whiskey barrel. It certainly was well peppered with holes. "When the savage Injuns come down on me I war alone, travelin' my peaceful way to help civilize the diggin's, but I war too tough to kill. Injuns make a mistake when they attack a man o' my nater, gentlemen, for I air slow to wrath, but I air a powerful fighter when anybody, red or white, goes to twist my tail. I air a ring-tail twister myself, gentlemen. So I tells my bulls to charge them Injuns, an' I forts myself behind this bar'l an' opens up with my pill-slingers. We fit for a runnin' mile, until this bar'l war as you see it now, gents, an' what Injuns warn't dead had fired all their shots an' skeedaddled. Then I gets out an' cuts off the head of the chief of 'em all, an' puts it in the bar'l, an' hyar it is on exhibition. The head complete of a real, native wild Injun, ladies an' gents—the actual head of old Roarin' Buffler, big chief o' the combined Sioux, Kiowa, Cheyenne an' 'Rapaho nations, most o' who air still layin' out thar on the desolate plains, sculped by my own hands. Old Roarin' Buffler hisself put seven holes in this bar'l 'fore his head went in. The head air nicely pickled an' perfectly natteral, ladies an' gents; an' for the privilege o' seein' it I ax only a small collection. Will you kindly cirkilate my hat, an' be keerful not to take out more'n you drop in."
Whereupon, having handed down his battered slouch hat, Ike paused, wiped his face with a dirty bandanna, and seated himself upon his scarred barrel.
"He put every hole in that with his own revolver, I bet you!" whispered Terry. "The old fraud!"
"A convenient way of drinking the whiskey," murmured Harry. "If the barrel wasn't his, he can claim the Indians did it, you know."
"Well, we can tell him about the first hole, all right," scolded the indignant Terry. "And so can other people."
"Now for the head," invited Harry.
The hat had been returned to Ike, who eyed the contents doubtfully, shook them over, and stowed them in his pocket with a scowl.
"Six bits air a mighty measley sum to pay for the privilege an' eddication o' seein' the actual head o' the biggest, fiercest Injun who ever terrerized the West till he tuk arter the wrong pusson, but I'll show him to you, jest the same."
So saying, Ike reached into the barrel, and extracting his prize, held it up. Harry nudged Terry; staring, Terry saw, recognized, gasped.
"Thunder Horse! Aw——"
"Do you know, I kind of expected that," alleged Harry. "I kind of felt it was coming."
The face of the severed head was assuredly the hideous face of Thunder Horse, the drunken Kiowa; and the hair was the Kiowa's hair.
"Thunder Horse died because of his leg, and Ike found him and cut off his head!" scoffed Terry. "I'm going straight to the wagon and show the whole thing up. We'll make Ike look sick—that old blow and his barrel and his 'big-chief' head!"
"No," opposed Harry. "Wait. There's no use in showing Ike up now. We'll save our ammunition."
"Well, I'm mighty glad old Thunder Horse is gone, anyhow," observed Terry, as they went back to the cart. "He was bad medicine."
The Ohio party were starting on. So the boys from the Big Blue put Duke and Jenny to work again and fell in with the procession wending broad way up the shallow valley of the Republican.
Once every day the procession opened to give passage to the stages westward bound on the trail; and at last stages eastward bound, returning to Leavenworth, were met. They were assailed with all kinds of questions, but they brought little news of importance, and apparently little gold.
Many people eastward bound, ahorse or afoot, also were met.
"Turn back, every one of you," they advised. "Folks are going out faster'n they're coming in. Some of 'em don't even stop to unhitch their teams. Picks and spades are offered at fifteen cents apiece, and no takers, and the man who makes fifty cents a day is lucky."
"Auraria's burned and we've hanged the boomers," proclaimed another squad.
And another squad, trudging along, warned earnestly:
"Look out for the man with buckskin patches on his breeches. He's the leader of the gang who's robbing the pilgrims. Remember the buckskin patches. There's no elephant—only jackasses."
Not few in the procession did turn back, especially when the water and fuel began to fail, as wider and more bare and sandy the valley became. Soon there were several marches without water at all, for the river had sunk into the sand. The choking dust floated high, the sun was burning hot. The majority of the animals were sore-footed, from the gravel and cactus and brush. Duke, who had been behaving nobly, seemed to have strained his shoulder and was limping. Jenny was gaunter than ever.
The trail had veered to the southwest—to strike, it was reported, some creeks, and Cherry Creek itself.
"That's another trail yonder to the south, isn't it?" spoke Harry, one morning.
"Yes; and wagons on it!" exclaimed Terry. "Maybe it's the Smoky Hill trail, or the people from the Santa Fe trail."
The "Root Hog or Die" professor, who tramped with them while his oxen followed of their own accord, consulted a map that he carried.
"I think they must be from the Smoky Hill route," he said.
The two lines of travel approached each other, and at evening were about to join. Terry uttered a cheer.
"I see the wheel-barrow man!" he cried. "They're the Smoky Hill crowd, all right."
"They look pretty well used up," remarked Harry. "Must have had a hard trip."
The wheel-barrow man, pushing bravely, was in the van. His barrow wobbled, and the wheel was reinforced with rawhide, but he himself was as cheery as ever when the Big Blue outfit welcomed him.
"Yes, terrible hard trip," he acknowledged. "Some of us near died with thirst, and I hear tell that several wagons were burnt for fuel, so's to cook food and keep the folks from starving. But those of us who are left are still going."
"Same here," asserted Harry. "How far to the mountains, do you reckon?"
"Better than a hundred miles, but we'll get there."
The next day the pilgrims from the Smoky Hill trail and the pilgrims from the Republican trail traveled on together, with every eye eagerly set ahead, for the first sight of the mountains.
"I see 'em! Hooray!
"There's the land o' gold, boys!"
"Those are the Rocky Mountains! We're almost through."
"They're awful small for their size, aren't they?" quavered a woman.
They did appear so. They were like a band of low hummocky clouds in the western horizon. But the next morning, when the outfits climbed over a gravelly ridge that grew a few pines, one after another they cheered joyfully again. Hats were waved, sunbonnets were flourished. The mountains seemed much closer—they loomed grandly in a semi-circle from south to north; their crests were white, their slopes were green and gray.
"Where's Pike's Peak?"
Everybody wanted to know that. The "Root Hog or Die" professor consulted his map, for information.
"I rather think Pike's Peak is the last peak we see, to the south," he mused. "That to the far north is called Long's Peak."
"Where are the diggin's, then?"
"Well, they're somewhere in between."
From the piny ridge the route descended along the side of a brushy valley pleasantly dotted with cottonwoods and other leafy trees, and struck the head of a creek course—and presently another trail on which, from the south, still other pilgrim outfits were hastening northward at best speed.
Where the trail from the east joined with this second trail from the south a signboard faced, pointing north, with the words: "Santa Fe-Salt Lake Trail. Cherry Creek Diggin's, 70 m."
"Cherry Creek at last!" affirmed Harry, that evening. "Whew, but that mountain air tastes good!"
Now this combined trail on northwest to the diggin's was a well-traveled trail indeed, deep with sand and dust. Occasionally it dipped into the creek bed, which in places was wide enough and dry enough for the teams. The mountains were on the left—distant thirty miles, declared the professor, although the greenhorns declared they were within a short walk. High rolling plains were on the right.
A few prospectors were encountered, already digging and washing in the creek, or scouting about. From the last night's camp a little bevy of lights could be seen, ahead—the diggin's at the mouth of the creek! During the next morning——
"There's the river! There's the Platte!" announced voices, indicating a line of cottonwoods before.
Wagons coming down from the north, by the Platte trail, also could be seen, making for a collection of tents and huts gathered near where the Cherry Creek apparently emptied into the Platte.
Much excitement reigned throughout the procession. The wheel-barrow man already had trundled ahead. Duke limped gamely, and Jenny kept her long ears pricked forward. Now it was every outfit for itself, in order to secure the best location and get to work.
In mid-afternoon the trail forked, and signs directed: "To the left for Auraria, the coming metropolis," and "Straight ahead for Denver City." Men were stationed here, beseeching the pilgrims to settle in Auraria, or in Denver, and make their fortunes. The men were red-faced and perspiring and earnest.
Auraria was the older, and on the mountain side of the creek—had the newspaper! Denver was the better built, and the more enterprising, was on the trail side of the creek and had the stage office.
"What'll we do, Harry?" panted Terry, as momentarily the Limited halted, held by the confused press in front, bombarded and undecided.
"Keep a-going straight ahead," said Harry. "That's been our program. If we don't like Denver we can cross to Auraria, but blamed if I can see much difference between 'em."
And that was true. On the flat ground along the shallow Cherry Creek lay sprawled an ugly collection of log huts and dingy tents and Indian tepees of buffalo hides, with people moving busily among them, and a host of emigrant wagons and animals and camps on the outskirts. All the flat on both sides of the creek was dingy and dusty, with the brush crushed down or gleaned clean for forage and fuel.
East stretched the wide plains; west was the cottonwood timber marking the Platte River, and beyond the river, some distance, were bare hills, grayish and reddish, and behind them the real mountains, rising rocky and high until their snow crests gleamed against the sky.
Distant, a line of gold-seekers with wagons and with packs seemed to be traveling into the mountains; and down along the Platte were entering Denver, from the north, other gold-seekers, to take their places.
A hum of voices welled, filling the air with excitement.
"Shucks! Is this all there is?" complained Terry. "I don't see any city. The whole thing isn't as big as Manhattan, even."
"And not half as good-looking," added Harry.
But there was not much space for halting to criticize. The procession was pressing on, jostling, crowding—spreading out, some of it to find camping spots at once, some to drive farther on. With the cart creaking, and Duke limping badly, Jenny stumbling and grunting, and Shep, dusty and burry, pacing soberly at the rear, the Pike's Peak Limited entered Denver City.
"Hope we see Sol," ventured Harry, as they threaded their way among the first tents, and several roofless cabins, located out where signs stuck in the bare ground proclaimed: "Denver City Town Co. Fine building lots for sale."
In front of the tent flaps, and in the cabin doorways, men in boots, with trousers tucked in, and in flannel shirts, red or blue, were sitting, gazing abroad, but none of these was Sol.
Further along, the road took on the semblance of a street—thronged with emigrants; booted, whiskered men in their flannel shirts, and wearing revolvers; Indians, Mexicans, oxen, and dogs.
"I don't see Sol, though," commented Terry, searching about among those faces, every one of which was strange to him.
"No, but I see plenty of men with buckskin patches on their breeches," answered Harry. "They're the old-timers, I reckon. Wonder if the name of any of 'em is Russell."
The passage of the half-buffalo and the yellow mule hitched tandem attracted considerable attention, and a volley of bantering remarks. But a chorus of whoops and a general rush made Harry and Terry glance behind.
"A stage is coming. We'd better get out of the way, hadn't we?" suggested Terry.
"Right-o!" And Harry, driving, drew aside to a clear place opposite a long one-story canvas-roofed log building which announced: "Denver House." This was the hotel.
The stage jingled up; and while the passengers piled out was surrounded by a jostling crowd of whiskered, red-shirted and blue-shirted and buckskin-shirted (as well as buckskin-patched) residents.
As it rolled away again, to put up for the night, Terry heard himself and Harry hailed by a familiar voice, at last.
"Well, I declare! Got through, did you—buffalo and mule and dog and all! What kind of a trip did you have?"
It was Journalist Villard, tanned and whiskered, and already booted and shirted and armed like the rest of the inhabitants. He shook hands vigorously with them.
"Pretty fair," replied Harry. "We've just got in. You seem to be the only person we know here."
"I won't be that only person long," laughed Mr. Villard. "The ends of the world are gathering here at the rate of a thousand a day. Why, by that very stage arrived a banker I used to know well in Cincinnati, and another friend at whose house in New York I've often eaten dinner. But the reason I met the stage was that I rather expected to find in it Horace Greeley and A. D. Richardson. They're on the way."
"Not Horace Greeley of the New YorkTribune?" queried Harry, as if astonished.
"Yes; that's the Greeley. Mr. Richardson represents the BostonJournaland some other Eastern papers. All we newspaper fellows will write the truth about the gold fields."
"How near is the gold?" eagerly asked Terry. "Can you show us where to dig? Have you dug?"
"Not very much. Not for a dollar and a half a day—and that's the most anybody is getting hereabouts. The whole creek bed is being turned upside down. But you see that line of pilgrims trailing out into the mountains, west across the Platte?"
"Yes."
"That's a rush to some new diggin's. They're following a new strike. It's reported on good authority that a Georgian named John Gregory has found the mother vein, as they call it, about forty miles out. It's a pound-a-day strike, according to the say, and the gold down below has been washed from that vein. The people are flocking in by the five hundred at a time. I haven't been up there myself yet, but I hope the news is true. Another month and we'd have had a riot in these Cherry Creek diggin's. As it is, about half the in-comers have pulled out for California, or home—and there's been talk of hanging D. C. Oakes, who issued a 'Pike's Peak Guide' last winter, and Editor Byers, of theNews."
"Are those new diggin's on the Platte?" asked Harry, keenly.
"No. There're up Clear Creek, and nowhere near the Platte."
"Oh, jiminy!" sighed Terry. "Aren't there mines closer than that? My father was out here last summer and found one just a few miles away, up the Platte River."
"A Fifty-eighter, is he? Is he here now, and where's his mine?"
"No, sir; he came home sick, at Christmas; and he doesn't remember. But he had some dust."
"Those early claims didn't amount to much, as I understand," stated Mr. Villard. "That's what has fooled the people."
"Are any of the Russell brothers hereabouts?" asked Harry.
"The original boomers? Yes, they're all here now. Dr. Levi Russell has spent the winter here; but Green Russell and J. Oliver have just got in from Georgia with another party of some one hundred and fifty. You'll find them over at Auraria, though. You know, Green Russell located Auraria and named it for his home town in Georgia. The Aurarians and Denverites don't mix much, except when the stage comes. The Russells will likely be at the Eldorado Hotel this evening."
"And where's Archie Smith? Did you bring him through all right?"
"Yes. We landed him here. But I think he's joined the rush into the mountains. What are you boys intending to do now? Camp and refit, I suppose, before you look for your mine. Which are you going to be—Denverites or Aurarians?"
"Both," laughed Harry. "But Auraria's flying the United States flag, I see."
"That's over their hotel, the Eldorado. Mrs. Murat made it. Her husband claims to be an Italian count. He does barbering, and she takes in washing—and together, at the prices they charge, they're getting rich a great deal faster than most of these gold-seekers. Auraria's proud of that flag, because it's the only one in the state. Denver pretends to poke fun at it, and says it's a laundry sign, manufactured from old red and blue shirts and Mrs. Murat's white petticoat."
"What state?" demanded Harry.
"The new State of Jefferson—the future new state. Things move fast out here. A convention was held last month by the miners, to organize for another convention on June 8 when a state constitution will be adopted and sent to Congress. Some people wanted the state named Pike's Peak. You'll see the convention call in theRocky Mountain News. Ah——!" and Mr. Villard gazed aside. "There's a man I ought to talk with. Good-bye; meet you later, I hope."
"I don't believe we'll wait for that convention," proposed Harry. "And I don't believe we ought to put in much time hunting for your father's mine. We'll get right into the new diggin's before every spot's taken." Harry evidently was catching the fever. "First, though——"
"Paper?Rocky Mountain News!Fresh off the press! Buy a paper, Mister? Tell you all about the latest strikes, and where to go."
He was a very slim, tall young man whose trousers were finished off below the knees with gunny sacking, in order to cover his long legs.
"Yes. Let me have one," responded Harry. And added, to Terry, while handing out a dime: "That'll give us the quickest information."
The tall slim young man was turning the dime over and over in his palm.
"No good," he said. "Nothing less than a quarter goes, out here."
"But they told us picks and spades are fifteen cents."
"In trade, maybe. But these papers are a quarter, Mister. Two bits. That's the smallest change in camp. Dust or coin."
"Hum!" grunted Harry, producing a quarter. He scratched his nose as he glanced at the paper. "At this rate we'll soon be busted."
The paper was entitled "Rocky Mountain News, Cherry Creek, K. T."—the initials standing, of course, for Kansas Territory. W. N. Byers was proprietor. It was printed on a coarse brownish paper—seemed to be full of items about gold being brought in from "gulches"—a number of advertisements and announcements—had the convention call—
"We'll read it in camp," quoth Harry. "Gwan, Duke! Jenny! Haw!"
"Want to sell that buffalo, stranger?" interrupted another voice.
This man was a square, stubbly faced, red-faced and red-haired individual, in a faded cotton shirt and old army trousers belted at the waist with a rope.
"Why—I don't know," replied Harry, reflectively, scratching his nose.
The man walked around Duke, scrutinizing him.
"He's got a buckskin patch on. We'd better watch out," whispered Terry, to his partner. So he had: the whole seat of his trousers was buckskin coarsely stitched in place.
"Half the men in camp have buckskin or other patches," chuckled Harry. "That gives me an idea."
"Offer you $25, dust, stranger," abruptly spoke the man. "He's lame. You can't use him. He'll be no good in the diggin's."
"What'll you do with him, then?" questioned Harry.
"Put him in my show. He won't have to work. And he's too tough for butchering. But he'll be all right on exhibition."
"Hum!" mused Harry. "My partner and I'll talk it over. We're going to camp over night before going on."
"If you're aiming for the mountains, you'll have to leave him, anyway. The trail is straight up—takes twenty oxen to haul half a ton. I'll give you $35, dust, for buffalo and cart. I'll exhibit 'em both."
"We'll talk it over," repeated Harry.
"So long, then. You can find me. Name of Reilly."
"What do you say, Terry?" queried Harry, as they continued on to a camping spot. "Duke's yours."
"No, he's part of the outfit. We're in together, aren't we? But I'd hate to sell him unless he'll be treated well. Maybe we ought to sell him; he's lame. Haven't we any money left?"
"Mighty little. And we're nearly out of grub, too. If newspapers are twenty-five cents each, what'll a sack of flour cost? I was thinking of a shave and a hair-cut, but——! I'll shave myself and we'll cut each other's hair."
"If that mine is somewhere around yet, we may not have to sell him."
"And we'll need the cart to pack our gold in," added Harry. "But Duke and the cart wouldn't be much good up in the mountains, I should think."
They were fortunate in finding a camping place, with wood and water, near the mouth of Cherry Creek, at the Platte, and there tied Duke and Jenny out. The first thing to do was to wash—the next thing to write home—and the next, to have an early supper.
"We'll go back in before the post-office closes, look for some of the Russells, and do all that we can; and be ready to start right along somewhere or other in the morning."
"That's it," agreed Terry. "Whew, but there must be a lot of people hunting gold. Wonder if all of those on that trail are bound for the Gregory diggin's! We'll have to hurry." For he was getting the fever, too.
"We will," promised Harry.
When they had left Shep on guard and had hastened back into Denver, a line of men extended for one hundred yards from the window in the stage office labeled "Letter Express." Harry stood in the line until almost sunset. He returned to Terry with puzzled face.
"We got a letter, all right, but it cost twenty-five cents extra, and the one I mailed cost another twenty-five cents, just up to Fort Laramie on the North Platte. Then the government takes it on. There's only a private express out of here, for mail, and it's doing a great business."
However, that letter from the Big Blue was worth the twenty-five cents.
Now, with the approach of night, Denver and Auraria, its neighbor, were lively. The Denver House hotel seemed to be devoted mainly to drinking and gambling. The long bar was crowded with all sorts of people; and behind the card tables sat men, some of them in white silk shirts and black broadcloth suits, urging bets.
Across the street was a collection of Indian tepees—an Arapahoe village, according to report. The women and children stayed among the lodges, but their husbands and fathers strolled everywhere, in blankets and buffalo robes, saying little and seeing much.
"There's Chief Little Raven—and Left Hand, too!" exclaimed Terry. "Wait a second. I'm going to ask them about Thunder Horse."
Little Raven and Left Hand soberly shook hands with their former acquaintances.
"Thunder Horse he dead from his leg," explained Left Hand. "Dog bite poison him—mebbe he poison dog. Whiskey bad, make him fool. One day he die; the two foolish men who run away in that wagon take him on in wagon and sell him same day to one big-mouth man near the Republican trail. Now his head is in Aurary. You want to see?"
"Pine Knot Ike's come!" asserted Terry, as he and Harry proceeded to Auraria, whither they were bound anyway. "I don't want to see him."
"I'd a heap rather see Sol," answered Harry. "But we'll try to see the Russells. That's important."
The creek was so nearly dry that several tents and log shacks had been placed in its sandy bed. The banks were about four feet high here, and a shaky log foot-bridge crossed from town to town.
Auraria was larger than Denver City, but the buildings were rougher, whereas the Denver City logs had been surfaced and trimmed. Still, Auraria seemed to have the principal store building, as yet—a story and a half high, with a lumber roof. The upper floor was occupied by theRocky Mountain News. Through the glass window the printers might be seen setting type. Under them was a noisy saloon.
Miners, emigrants, Mexicans, Indians—flannel shirts, heavy boots, moccasins, much whiskers and long hair: in this respect the Auraria out of doors was like the Denver out of doors.
"I hear Ike," said Terry.
At the corner just beyond the Eldorado Hotel somebody stationed beside a flaring pitchy torch was declaiming in a loud voice, before a large tent. But it wasn't Pine Knot Ike. It was the red-headed Mr. Reilly. On a placard across the tent front was the announcement, rudely charcoaled:
"SEE IT! SEE IT! SEE IT!The Ferocious Head of Chief Bloody Knife!Cannibal of the Plains!Slain in Hand-to-Hand Conflict by the NotedFrontiersman Black Panther!
Admission 50c gold."
Admission 50c gold."
Evidently this was the show to which Mr. Reilly had referred. Standing on a barrel, and occasionally coughing from the smoke of the torch fastened to an upright against the barrel, he strenuously invited the public inside. He accepted the price, and waved each patron to pass within. However, business was not at all brisk; and suddenly catching the eye of Harry, he beckoned.
"Go inside, gentlemen," he bade. "It's my treat. Walk in; view the ferocious cannibal head and the equally ferocious scout who cut it off after killing the wearer of it."
"Aw——!" attempted Terry; but Harry, with a nudge, interrupted him.
"Go on in, Terry. I'll talk with Mr. Reilly a minute."
The tent contained several whiskered, booted miners and emigrants, gazing at the hideous head of Thunder Horse, also on a barrel—Ike's barrel—and on a stool beside the barrel was seated Ike himself, alias the "noted frontiersman, Black Panther." Ike's thick black hair and whiskers were shaggier than ever. He was attired in the same greasy slouch hat, but furthermore in a shabby, red-flannel-trimmed buckskin shirt whose gaudy fringes fell to his boot-tops. Around his waist were belted two revolvers and a butcher-knife, and against his knees rested a battered, large-muzzled yager or smooth-bore musket—fortunately harmless by reason of lacking a trigger.
From amidst his hair and whiskers Ike stared before him fiercely and fixedly, occasionally slowly blinking in the light of a tallow candle lantern.
It all was so perfectly absurd that—but hold on! Look out! Bang! Bang! Without a word a red-shirted miner who had been intently gazing and swaying as if drunk had whipped out his revolver and fired. At the first shot, away spun the head, and simultaneously with the second shot away, uttering a loud shout, had dived Black Panther the noted frontiersman—half through the tent and half under the tent, disappearing while almost tumbling the canvas on top of the company. He was gone before his stool had ceased rolling.
"Set 'em up ag'in!" roared the red-shirted miner. "Fetch on the rest o' that Injun! Whoop-ee! Whar's that air Panther man? I want to show him some shootin'! I'm an Injun killer myself from Pike County, Missoury!"
Into the tent, now filled with shouts and laughter and powder smoke, rushed Mr. Reilly, close followed by the alarmed Harry. The miner's friends led him out. Mr. Reilly picked up the head, which, weathered as hard and as dry as a mummy's head, now was drilled right through from nose to back of skull—which did not improve its face any. But Mr. Reilly seemed delighted.
"That bullet hole's the best thing yet," he declared. "I'll have to change the name of the scout to Dead-Shot Bill. But wait till I ketch that other man—the measley rabbit, ripping my tent to pieces and disgracing the clothes I lent him. How'd one of you boys like to be Dead-Shot Bill, for a spell?"
"Nope, thank you," laughed Harry. "Come on, Terry. We've got more business to 'tend to."
"Well, we can sell him the cart and Duke for $50," informed Harry, outside. "He's getting together a show. It will be a soft job for Duke; no heavy hauling, just standing 'round and eating and looking wild."
"I wouldn't sell him Duke if Ike's to be in the show, too," declared Terry.
"Ike," assured Harry, "will never be back. He's probably running yet. And maybe we won't have to sell Duke. Now for the Russells, anyway. We'll try the Eldorado."
But they were relieved from entering the crowded Eldorado by encountering Journalist Villard and another man just stepping out.
"Ah!" spoke Mr. Villard, recognizing them, in the dusk. "If you wish to ask Mr. Green Russell anything, here he is."
"Yes; we want to ask him if he remembers a man in his party of last summer by the name of Jones," said Harry, quickly, for it was apparent that Messrs. Villard and Russell were in a hurry.
"I shorely do," responded Mr. Russell. He was a broad-shouldered man, with sparse beard and long-pointed moustache—had a cool eye and a deliberate speech.
"He is this boy's father," continued Harry. "He came home with some dust and claimed to have located a mine about a day's travel from here, on the Platte."
"If that was Fifty-eight, 'tain't wuth looking after now," decided Mr. Russell. "Too close in. I reckon it was yonder whar we had some dry diggin's that we-all worked out, 'round Placer Camp."
"Captain Russell's an old miner, you know," put in Mr. Villard. "He's prospected through here pretty closely, since he came out first, and so have his brothers; and they're convinced that the only paying mines will be found in the mountains."
"Yes," drawled Mr. Russell. "These hyar sandy creeks peter out. You have to get up higher, into the gravel and rock."
He and Mr. Villard passed on, only to be repeatedly stopped and questioned in their progress.
"That settles us, I think," said Harry, as he and Terry turned for their camp. "We'll pack Jenny and light out for the Gregory Gulch region. We've got to have a mine ready for your father when he comes, so as to pay him back the 'grub-stake.'"
"And another ready for George to work," reminded Terry. "He'll expect an elephant, too."
As the two partners recrossed the foot-bridge into Denver City, night had cloaked the mountains in the west and had enfolded all the plains. Down here lights flickered in tents and through the chinking of windowless, floorless and sometimes roofless cabins, twinkled among the other gold-seekers' camps spread over the broken brush, and on the trails in north and south and yonder for Gregory Gulch.
"What'll we do with all our gunny sacks?" queried Terry, when after an early breakfast they drove across for Auraria, to deliver Duke and the cart and make their purchases.
"They don't weigh much, but they take up a lot of room. I have a scheme, though," answered Harry.
Early as they were, the emigrant camps on the plain, and Denver City and Auraria in the midst, were astir: smoke was welling from camp-fires and chimneys, shouts and calls arose as outfits prepared to journey onward, people were moving busily, and the procession beyond the Platte was wending in a long file mountain-ward.
Already another announcement was displayed on Mr. Reilly's show tent. "Also (it said) the Only Genuine Wild Buffalo Now in Captivity, and the Identical Wagon That He Drew Across the Plains."
Mr. Reilly was working on the first announcement, to make it read, "The Bullet-Pierced Head of the Ferocious Chief Bloody Knife," and to change the frontiersman's name from "Black Panther" to "Dead-Shot Bill."
"It's a pity one of you fellers won't hire out to be my scout," he proffered. "'Tother one might take in the tickets at the door. I got the shirt and weepon back from that man Ike, but he won't work again. Anyhow, you can unhitch and help me get that buffalo inside this tent, out of sight. We'll tie him to a stake, and roll the wagon in afterward."
This was done, after the flaps had been thrown wide. Duke limped in rather gladly, was stationed at the far end beside the head of the late Thunder Horse, and the wagon, unloaded of its few goods, was pushed and pulled to another position.
"You might stay with Jenny and the stuff, while I do our marketing," proposed Harry to Terry, as he shouldered the big roll of gunny sacks, for some mysterious purpose, and lugged it away.
He disappeared in the doorway of the store under theNewsoffice. Jenny hee-hawed after him. She missed him and Duke.
Harry soon returned jubilant, without the sacks.
"All right. We're fixed," he proclaimed. "I traded them in for a sack of dried apples. The man didn't appreciate their value, at first, but I explained. Value No. 1: Most of the cabins hereabouts have only dirt floors; the sacking will be fine for carpets to keep the dust down. Value No. 2: It will be handy for covering windows, to keep out the wind. Value No. 3: It will be useful to patch pants with, instead of buckskin. Value No. 4: It will lengthen pants—in fact, the pants of thatRocky Mountain Newspeddler gave me the idea. Value No. 5: It will make good ticking for straw mattresses. To tell the truth, it is so valuable that I wouldn't part with any of it except for dried apples. Now we can have pie!"
They bestowed on Duke and the cart a friendly good-luck slap, shook hands with Mr. Reilly, and proceeded to the store with Jenny. The purchases amounted to considerable. First, a pack-saddle, not brand new, but of ash and rawhide in excellent condition; a sack of flour, the sack of dried apples, a quarter of antelope meat—the only cheap meat, at four cents a pound; five pounds of coffee (very dear), soda, salt, sugar, soap, a square of rawhide for soling their boots, two miner's pans for washing out the gold, etc., etc.
These, with the picks and spades, and the bedding, and the cooking and eating utensils made quite a problem. No wonder that Jenny groaned when the saddle was cinched upon her.
However, with her pack bulging on either side and atop, the tools projecting and the cooking utensils jingling, she accepted her fate, and stepping in cautious, top-heavy fashion submitted to being headed out of town into the trail for the Platte River crossing.
Terry, the shot-gun upon his shoulder, and Harry, shouldering a pick and spade that had not fitted anywhere, followed close after. So did Shep, who carried nothing but his shaggy coat. On the whole, no one could deny that this was a real prospecting outfit.
"Forty miles, they say, to those Gregory diggin's," remarked Harry. "Wonder if they mean forty or four hundred? You see that flat-top mountain—the first mountain in the northwest? How far do you think it is?"
"Five miles," asserted Terry.
"Well, it'seighteenmiles! They call it Table Mountain. That's where we go in. So when a fellow's looking five miles, in this country, he's looking eighteen, and that makes forty miles about one hundred and fifty."
The trail was becoming crowded as other outfits converged from the right and left for the Platte crossing. It was a procession much like the procession on the Pike's Peak trails—oxen, horses, mules, cows, dogs, wagons; and men, women and children either afoot or riding. But there were more men with packs on their backs and more animals packed like Jenny.
The long-legged Jenny, her pack swaying and jingling, could be urged past the slower travelers—and well that was, for ere the Platte was reached, the wagons in the procession had stopped. They formed a waiting line several hundred yards in length. Forging to the front, Terry and Harry might see the occasion. The Platte evidently was to be crossed by means of a flat-boat ferry, running back and forth on a cable. So the wagons need must bide their turn.
Harry went forward to investigate. He came back with a rueful face.
"Two dollars and a half for a wagon outfit; a dollar and a half for our outfit," he reported. "The ferry's run by a couple of Indian traders named McGaa and Smith. Wonder if we can't ford."
"Nary ford, this time o' year, strangers," reproved a red-shirted miner. "See those wagons; they'll be out o' sight by noon! Quicksand!"
Several wagons foolishly had tried to ford; and there they were, abandoned, some of them even only a few rods out. Already just the tops of two were visible above the surface.
"Guess we won't risk it," agreed Terry.
So they paid their fee, and squeezing in aboard the ferry, were carried across.
The trail continued, entering amidst low rolling swells of sandy gravel and sparse, tufty grass and stiff brush, between which and over and on toiled the pilgrimage for the new diggin's where one John Gregory and others were harvesting their pound of gold a day. The Gregory claim was said to be so marvelously rich and yellow that no strangers had been permitted to see it.
From the high places glimpses were given, on the right, of a creek course below, bordered by willows and cottonwoods. This was that Clear Creek on whose headwaters in the mountains the Gregory strike had been made. But the landmark of Table Mountain drew near so gradually, in spite of the haste by everybody, that not until evening did it loom close at hand, shadowed with purple and rising a wall-like six hundred feet.
Here the trail ran along Clear Creek itself, and the procession was halting for night camp, to water and graze the animals and to rest. On both sides of the creek prospectors had settled, to wash out gold; but now the most of them had quit work and in front of their tents and bough lean-tos were preparing supper.
"Better stop off, boys," warned a hairy miner, who, squatting over a little fire, was deftly cooking flap-jacks—tossing them one by one from a fry-pan into the air and catching them other side down. "You can't go much farther till mornin'. There's a trail ahead so steep your mule'll have to turn over an' prop herself with her ears to keep from slidin' backwards."
"Sounds like good advice," accepted Harry. "You going on in, or are you making your pile here?"
"Makin' a pile o' flap-jacks, if those hungry partners don't eat 'em faster'n I can cook. Yep, we're goin' on somewhere, if this creek doesn't pan out better. We've been followin' the gold all the way from Pike's Peak an' the Boilin' Springs, an' the best diggin's alluz seem forty miles ahead."
"Where are the Boiling Springs?" asked Terry. "Do they boil?"
"Haven't you heard o' them yet? They're down at the foot o' Pike's—tremenjous good water, sody an' iron both an' a lot o' other minerals, I reckon; bubblin' an' poppin', an' liable to cure anything. Sacred to the Injun, they were, but they're powerful good for white man."
Jenny, her pack removed, took a hearty roll, and a shake, and a long cold drink, and fell to browsing. Terry built a fire and prepared camp; Harry got out their own fry-pan and the coffee pot, and while the water in the pot was coming to a boil he proceeded to mix batter.
"What'll it be?" queried Terry, hungry.
"Flap-jacks."
"I didn't know you could make them."
"I didn't, either, to date. But I can."
The first flap-jack stuck confoundingly, and would not turn at all except by pieces. So it burned, and they gave it to Shep. The next sailed free and high, and landed, dough side down, in Terry's lap. Terry started to laugh, but changed his tune and frantically tore the hot dough loose, then executed a war-dance while he sucked his fingers.
"Too much flap," commented Harry. "Once again."
This flap-jack flew straight for his face and he ducked only just in time to prevent being plastered.
"Everything goes to Shep," he complained. "I can make 'em, all right, but I haven't the knack of turning 'em."
"You can shout there's a knack, Mister," agreed the other flap-jack performer, who now had stepped over to watch. "You'll not be a true miner till you can toss a flap-jack up the cabin chimbley an' ketch it again outside, turned over. Where you boys from?"
"Blue River Valley, Kansas. We were the Pike's Peak Limited; now we're the Extra Limited," explained Harry.
"The Russell brothers are somewhar in this hyar procession, aren't they?"
"Are they? All of them?"
"So I heard tell. They left Aurary today, for the new diggin's."
"Are the Gregory diggin's full of gold?" eagerly invited Terry.
"Mebbe so, for people who know how to find it. Trouble is, this country's fuller of people who don't know how to find it."
He went back to his own fire. Harry turned the rest of the flap-jacks with a knife, and they were very good. He really had become an excellent camp cook.
"Jiminy! Wish we could see Sol Judy at the diggin's," voiced Terry. "He knows all about gold. He was in California."
"Yes, Sol knows gold, and I have an idea we don't," answered Harry, with sober reflection.
"I suppose when we see something yellow we'll save it," hazarded Terry, more hopefully.
Forward, march, with morning light, to Gregory Gulch! Clear Creek had to be forded; and while, soaked to the knees, they trudged on behind the shambling Jenny, and Terry was wondering how they were to climb Table Mountain, the trail left the creek, veered to the right, and traversed a deep narrow gulch whose rocky bottom, scored by wagon-tires, made rough going.
"Great Cæsar's ghost!" uttered Harry, as they rounded a shoulder.
High above them, before, was a portion of the procession: wagons, animals, and people, far aloft, zig-zagging up a mountainside by another trail (or was it the same trail?), clinging for footholds and every now and then pausing as if to breathe.
Several of the wagons were drawn by eight and ten yoke of oxen; several of the wagons with one and two yoke were apparently stuck fast; teams and people alike—particularly the pack animals and the people carrying packs—seemed to be having all they could do to advance yard by yard. Wagons also were descending, and raising immense clouds of dust.
"Do we go up there?" protested Terry.
"I guess," decided Harry, "that's where Jenny props herself with her ears."
Yes, the start of the climb was only a short distance ahead. The canyon almost closed, and at a sharp angle the trail zigzagged right up the steep flank of the mountain—not Table Mountain, but another, higher.
Jenny pricked forward her long ears, in inquiring fashion, and halted of her own accord to survey. Here at the base of the mountain other outfits likewise had halted: wagons unloading, or waiting for teams to return and help them up; pack animals having their packs readjusted; foot travelers sitting and resting while gazing upward.
The wagons descending were dragging behind them huge boughs, as brakes. These boughs raised the dust. From the zigzag the grinding of iron tires, the popping of whips and the shouting of drivers echoed incessantly.
Along the line in the canyon welled a cheer; and accompanying it there forged past, for the climb, a large party who must have numbered one hundred and fifty, mostly men. They were well equipped with horses, oxen, wagons and pack mules. Two men rode confidently in the lead. One was Captain William Green Russell; the other looked a little like him, but had whiskers that flowed down upon his chest. A third man, who looked a little like both, but whose whiskers flowed clear to his saddle-horn, brought up the rear.
"The Russells!"
"Those are the Russell brothers and their party!"
The man who rode beside Captain Green Russell was said to be Dr. Levi J. Russell. The long-whiskered man at the rear was the other brother, J. Oliver Russell.
On and up toiled the Russell company, bound for the Gregory diggin's; and encouraged by the sight, the halted procession bestirred to follow.
"Jenny," appealed Harry, "are you good for it, if Terry and I shove?"
Up, up, up, with Jenny digging in her toes, snorting and puffing and picking her way over the roughness of the worn rocks. Occasionally there was a brief level spot where one might stop and pant and rest. Indeed, this was a hard trail for anybody, man or beast, and Terry felt considerable sympathy for the laboring ox-teams and the straining horses that drew the jolting, groaning wagons.
The outfits descending seemed to have almost as difficult a time, for the wagons, their heavy brake-shoes smoking and their boughs dragged behind, enveloping them in dust, threatened to run over the teams.
But it was a stirring scene, although whether any of the people coming down were bringing gold could not be learned amidst such racket and confusion.
Part way up another friend was encountered. He was the wheel-barrow man, halted to breathe so as to be able to push his barrow to the next resting place.
"Tough sledding," he wheezed, as he sat upon his barrow handles and wiped his brow with a bandanna handkerchief. "Wust yet, but I'm bound to get there."
They left the wheel-barrow man behind. At every turn they expected to see the summit beyond, but the climb required over an hour and a half of steady work.
Here, on the top, they were high above Table Mountain.
"Whew!" gasped Harry. The top was flat, and they drew aside, while they rested. Everybody halted here to rest. It was a fine view. Down below, whence they had come, was the trail, with other outfits zig-zagging up; and farther was the trail along Clear Creek, and farther, the Platte River; and farther, the plains, and Cherry Creek, and Denver and Auraria, all wonderfully sharp in the perfectly transparent air. The people at the foot of the trail and beyond looked like pigmies, and the wagons like toys.
Before, the trail stretched across the mountain top and appeared to aim straight into a tremendous wild country of much higher mountains, timbered with evergreens and capped with snow.
The gold-seeker companies were again starting on.
"Do we reach Gregory gulch today?" inquired Harry, of a returning party.
"No, sir; not by a long shot. 'Tisn't any use, anyhow. Every foot of ground is taken up. There are two thousand people in that gulch already, and the same in the other gulches. The Gregory folks have the best claims. Nothing left for us later comers."
The trail continued to follow a high ridge, amidst pines and bright flowers and grass; crossed icy cold streams where the ridge dipped; and by night had arrived nowhere in particular. So camp was made, the pleasantest camp of the whole trip from the Big Blue valley, because the air was so fresh and pure, and the water and wood abundant, and the grass so sweet for Jenny.
"I reckon we're getting into the Promised Land," hazarded one of the Extra Limited's neighbors.
The next noon the mountain divide seemed to have been crossed; for at one side, far down, was Clear Creek again, like a silver thread traversing a dark seam that was a canyon. About two miles ahead it divided, and over the north branch hung a thin bluish film of smoke. The sounds of ax and hammer and ringing pick—yes, the faint sound of voices—drifted up.
Gregory Gulch? That must be it, under the smoke, for the procession was hastening, and presently down, down, down they all plunged, for the bottom where the north branch of the creek glimmered. This trail was as steep as the zigzag trail on the east slope. The wagons used boughs as drags; oxen and horses held back hard; and Jenny, bracing her forefeet, slid and pitched and grunted. Faster and faster they all moved—could not stop—until in twenty minutes they fairly tumbled, one after another, into the water and the mouth of Gregory Gulch!
"Well, I should say she was crowded!" exclaimed Harry.
He and Terry gazed, consternated. Gregory Gulch extended westward from the North Clear Creek; it was narrow and quite long, and all up and down the creek and as far as eye could see up the gulch, people were swarming like bees, while the newly arrived gold-seekers looked on, bewildered.
Tents had been erected, cabins were rising, bough lean-tos served as other shelters; men were feverishly delving with spades, washing out the dirt in their pans, or dumping dirt and water into wooden boxes that rocked like cradles; and other men were searching the bottoms and slopes for vacant spots and there hurriedly driving in stakes. A few women were in sight—one woman was helping her husband dig; several were sitting in doorways or trying to tidy their premises.
No wonder that the newly arrived people were bewildered. Some grew gloomy at once and discouraged, but some waxed the more excited.
"First thing is to find a camping spot," proposed Harry, briskly. "And then to find our mine."
"How'll we find it?" asked Terry. "Where is the gold? I don't see any."
"This is Gregory gulch, is it?" queried Harry, of the nearest miner—a red-headed, red-stubbled little man squatting in mud to his ankles beside a trickling stream, and twirling a gold-pan. He was muddied all over his tattered trousers and red shirt, and also to his elbows.
"It is; at laste it's the Gregory diggin's." He spoke with a strong Irish brogue.
"Have you found lots of gold?" invited Terry.
"Oi? Not a cint, b'gorry—an' here's another empty pan." As if in disgust the little man straightened up and surveyed them. "But that's not sayin' Oi won't. Oi've got a foine claim right under me feet. Did yez jist get in? Would yez like to buy a nice claim?" He eyed them shrewdly with his twinkling eyes set in his grimy, sweaty face.
"Not yet, thank you," responded Harry. "Where's the gold?"
"Gold? Faith, all yez got to do is foind it. Sure, ain't it here in Gregory gulch, an' don't yez see all the people diggin'? Didn't Gregory an' five men take out $972 in wan week from their vein, an' afterward sell for $2,100 an' lend the men who bought it $200 so they could go ahead?"
"Where are they? Where is that vein?"
"Up yonder on the side o' the gulch; but yez can't get annywhere near it, for the people an' the stakes. They don't want visitors. Jist drive your stakes where yez can, an' begin work. My name's Pat Casey. What might yez be called?"
They told him.
"Well, Oi'll see yez ag'in, boys," promised Pat, grasping his spade to refill his pan. "Who knows but in a few days we'll all be rich together?"
"All right, Pat," laughed Harry. So they left Pat engaged with his spade, hoping to strike it with the next pan full.
They toiled along, eyes alert for a camping spot. A tent bore the sign: "Groceries for Sail." Another was announced as "Miners' Hotel"—although where it slept its guests was a problem. Another tent, through the flaps of which might be glimpsed a woman, stated: "Back East Biscuits."
Dinner of course was a hurried affair. Other gold-seekers were still descending the hill and spreading out wherever they could. So no time was to be lost. They each slung on a gold-pan by means of a thong tied through a hole in the rim; and with pick and spade (Shep staying to mount guard) they sallied forth.
"I reckon," mused Harry, "we'll have to do like the rest do: scout about and whenever we see a goldish-looking spot, try it out."
"Dad showed us how to work a gold pan. I don't suppose we've forgotten," panted Terry, as they hustled.
"Yes, but he didn't show us how to find the gold," reminded Harry. "We ought to locate near water."
For an hour they trudged up and down, and never sunk a spade or tried a pan. All the creek and all the side streams seemed occupied. Once they halted and were just about to dig, when a voice bawled: "Get off my ground!"
"Excuse me," apologized Harry. The owner of the voice was some distance away. "Is this your claim?"
"You bet you! The best claim in the diggin's."
"How big is a claim?" demanded Harry.
"Well, a hundred feet by fifty and as much more as I can get. Now vamoose."
They "vamoosed."
"Two thousand people, claiming a hundred feet and as much more as they can get, doesn't leave much room for the rest of us," sighed Harry.
"Hello, there!" hailed another voice, more cheery. It was the "Root Hog or Die" professor. He also was equipped for mining, but he appeared to be a wanderer like themselves.
"Have you struck anything?" asked Terry, as soon as they had shaken hands.
"Not a sign. Have you?"
"No. Can't find a place to dig in, even."
"This prospecting is more of a science than I had thought," confessed the professor. He looked tired out. "I've been at it since morning. I had an idea the gold would show on the surface."
"So did we," admitted Terry. "But the ground all looks alike—just common dirt!"
"Yes, even where they're actually washing gold out," said the professor. "I've seen some gold, though. I saw one miner with a pan that gave about a dollar and a half, and I saw a clean-up in a sluice that netted eight dollars."
"What's a sluice? One of those wooden troughs?"
"Yes; but lumber for them is hand-sawed and costs a dollar a yard, and people are asking as high as a thousand dollars for a claim. I believe it's cheapest to hire somebody to locate a good claim for a fellow. The Russells and Gregory and some others who have had experience are hiring themselves out at $100 a day, I understand. There goes Green Russell now."
"A hundred dollars a day! Whew!" gasped Terry.
Captain Green Russell halted in passing.
"Got here, did you?" he greeted, in friendly fashion. "Made your fortune yet?"
"We may be standing on it, for all we know," answered Harry.
"For all you know, you may," drawled Mr. Russell. "That's the trouble. The people come in here, like they do at Cherry Creek, and think the gold shows at grass-roots. But Gregory didn't find his lode by any pure luck, and the rest of us old-timers are here to teach the folks how, if they want to learn."
"Could you put me on a good claim?" inquired the professor, eagerly.
"Yes, sir; I'll prospect for you at $100 a day. You'd save time and probably money."
"All right. I'll go with you and we'll talk it over." And on strode the professor and his instructor.
"Hum!" remarked Harry. "The secret of making money is to have something the other fellow will pay for: sometimes that's goods, and again it's knowledge."
The gulch really was a fascinating place. Such a hive of industry—saw and hammer at work, as well as pick and spade; but amidst it all there seemed to be no place for the Extra Limited. A general disappointment was in the air, with so many persons working hard and as yet getting nothing.
"We'll travel 'round to Pat," quoth Harry, after a time. "He may have struck something by this."
As they approached Pat, he suddenly uttered a loud whoop, and danced a jig. His neighbors dropped their tools and rushed for him.
"Sure, Oi'm rich!" cheered Pat. "There's gold in my pan! Hooray! Rich Oi am. Half o' yez can look at a time till yez all are done, an' the other halves kape away so yez won't carry off me gold on yez feet."
Yes, in the bottom of Pat's pan was a trace of yellow, not to speak of a pebble about the size of a pea which he proclaimed to be gold also.
Scarcely hearing the congratulations, Pat fell to work again.
"Jiminy!" protested Terry. "We've got to stake out a claim somewhere, and have a mine ready for dad and George. Let's go clear up the gulch."
Pat's success was encouraging, at least. But as up the gulch they went, the crowd was no thinner, and presently Harry stopped.
"This pick and shovel weigh a ton," he said. "And so do my feet. I vote we knock off work, quit locating gold and try to locate supper. First thing we know it'll be dark and we can't find even Jenny and Shep."
"W-well," agreed Terry. "And tomorrow we'll start out again early. Wish I knew just what kind of dirt had the gold in it."
"That," quoth Harry, "evidently is the secret."
Scarcely had they turned to retrace their steps when another call hailed them. Somebody was running for them, from the other side of the gulch. He was a slim, muddy figure, in boots and trousers much too large for him, with long hair flapping on his bared head.
They paused and stared.
"Aren't you the Pike's Peak Limited fellows?" panted the boy.
"Why, Archie Smith! Hello, Archie!"
"I thought it was you, but I wasn't sure." Archie was completely out of breath, and very red in his thin cheeks. He panted and coughed. "What are you doing? Prospecting? Have you struck anything? Do you want a claim?"
"We're looking 'round. No, we haven't struck anything yet," they answered. "Have you? How long have you been here?"
"Do you know of any good place to claim?" added Terry.
"Yes. And you won't have to drive a stake! When did you get in? Where's your camp?"
"Down yonder somewhere. We got in this morning."
"Gee, but I'm glad to see you," panted Archie. "Hurrah! Let's go to your camp and move your stuff. What you got? The cart? Didn't buy a tent, did you?"
"No. We came in with just the mule. Expect we'll fix up a bough hut till we strike it rich," explained Terry.
"No, you needn't. You're to stay on my place. I've got a cabin and a stove and—and——" here Archie lowered his voice, "boys, I've struck it rich, myself! I've got the best claim in these diggin's!"
"You have! How long have you been here?"
"About two weeks. Come on and I'll tell you about it. Do you know anything about mining?"
"No," they confessed, ruefully.
"I didn't, either," admitted Archie, as together they pressed on for Jenny and Shep and the packs. "So I bought a claim. There was a man here who couldn't stay—he had to go down to Denver; and I bought his claim for only $500. First I'd prospected for myself, and didn't find anything, and then I came across him just in time. Gee, I was lucky. He wouldn't have sold, only he was obliged to get out. Of course, I panned samples of it before I bought, and in the very first pan there was four dollars' worth of gold! He sold me his cabin and stove and everything. Boys——" and Archie's voice sank again, "you may not believe it, but I've already taken out near $80, by myself, and I can't dig very long at a time, either."