In the Heart of the Rockies: A Story of Adventure in Colorado

by G. A. Henty

  CHAPTER XIII

  A FRESH START

  In the evening they camped on the banks of the Green River, here astream of but small size, except when the melting snow swelled itswaters into a torrent. At the spot where they halted a rivulet ran intothe stream from a thickly-wooded little valley. It was frozen, butbreaking the ice with their axes they found that water was flowingunderneath. They had observed that there was a marked difference intemperature on this side of the mountains, upon which the strength ofthe southern sun had already in many places cleared away the snow.

  "It is a comfort to be able to sit by a fire without the thought thatred-skins maybe crawling up towards you," Sam Hicks said heartily, "andto sleep without being turned out to stand watch in the cold.

  "You say the country ahead is bad, chief?"

  "Bad lands both sides of Green River. Deep canyons and bare rock."

  "Well, we need not follow it; it don't make any difference to us whetherwe get down to the fort in a fortnight or six weeks."

  "None at all," Harry said. "We have agreed that when summer fairly setsin we will try that place I hit on just as the Utes came down on us. Itis the richest place I have ever seen, and if the Indians will but letus alone for a month we ought to bring back a big lot of dust; and if wedo, we can sell our share in it for a big sum, and take down enough mento thrash the Utes out of their boots if they interfere with us. By ourreckoning it is the end of March now, though we don't at all agree as tothe day; but at any rate, it is there or thereabouts. That gives us agood six weeks, and if we start in the middle of May it will be timeenough. So I propose that we strike more to the west, or to the east,whichever you think is the best, chief, and try and pick up a few morepelts so as to lay in a fresh stock of goods for our next trip."

  "Bad hills everywhere," the chief said; "better go west, plenty of gamethere."

  "No fear of Indians?"

  "Indians there peaceable; make good trade with whites. Ten years agofight, but lose many men and not get much plunder. Trappers here goodfriends with them. Traders bring up powder and cloth and beads. Indiansno give trouble."

  For the next six weeks, therefore, they travelled slowly, campingsometimes for two or three days on a stream, and then making a longmarch until they again came to water. The beaver traps had been leftbehind, but they were fortunate enough to come upon several beavervillages, and by exercising patience they were able to shoot a goodmany, getting in all some fifty skins. Tom used to go out in the eveningand lie down to watch the beavers at work, but he would not take a gun.

  "I could not shoot them down in cold blood, uncle. It is almost likelooking at a village of human beings at work. One can shoot a man who iswanting to shoot you, without feeling much about it, but to fire at aman labouring in the fields is murder. Of course, if we wanted the fleshfor food it would be different."

  "I did not see you refuse that beaver-tail soup we had last night, Tom."

  "No, and it was very good, uncle; but I would very much rather have gonewithout it than shoot the beaver the tail belonged to."

  "Well, Tom, as we have all got guns, and as none of us have any scruplesthat way, there is no occasion whatever for you to draw a trigger onthem. They take some shooting, for if you hit them in the water theysink directly, and you have got to kill them dead when they are on land,otherwise they make for the water at once and dive into their houses anddie there."

  They killed a good many other animals besides the beaver, includingseveral wolverines, and by the time they got down to the fort in themiddle of May they had had to give up riding and pack all the animalswith the skins they had obtained. None of these were of any great value,but the whole brought enough to buy them a fresh outfit of clothes, afresh stock of provisions and powder, and to give them a hundred dollarseach.

  The evening after the sale was effected Tom wrote home to his sisters,giving them a brief account of what had taken place since the letter hehad posted to them before starting for the mountains, but saying verylittle of their adventures with Indians. "I am afraid you have been in agreat fright about me," he said, "but you must never fidget when youdon't get letters. We may often be for a long time away from any placewhere we can post them, or, as they call it here, mail them, though Icertainly do not expect to be snowed up again for a whole winter. Owingto the Indians being hostile we did not do nearly so well as weexpected, for we could not go down to hunt in the valleys. So aftergetting a fresh outfit for our next journey our share is only a hundreddollars each. I did not want to take a share, for of course I was not ofmuch use to them, though I have learnt a lot in the last six months, andcan shoot now as well as any of them, except the two Indians.

  "However, they all insisted on my having the same share as the rest.Uncle wanted me to take his hundred dollars and send them home to youwith mine, but I told him that I would not do so, for I know you havemoney enough to go on with, even if your school has turned out afailure. So I think it would be as well for us to keep our money in handfor the present. There is never any saying what may happen; we may loseour horses and kit, and it would be very awkward if we hadn't the moneyto replace them. As soon as we get more we will send it off, as you knowI always intended to do. I have still some left of what I brought outwith me, but that and the two hundred dollars would not be more thanenough to buy an entirely new outfit for us both.

  "I hope you got the five hundred dollars uncle sent you. He told me hesent it off from Denver, and it ought to have got home a few weeks afterI left. It is horrid to think that there may be letters from you lyingat Denver, but it serves me right for being so stupid as not to put inthe short note I wrote you from here before I started, that you hadbetter direct to me at Fort Bridger, as I shall almost be sure to comeback to it before I go to Denver. I like uncle awfully; it seems to methat he is just what I expected he would be. I suppose they all put inequal shares, but the other men quite look upon him as their leader.Sometimes when he is talking to me he speaks just as people do at home.When he talks to the men he uses the same queer words they do. He istaller than father was, and more strongly built. What I like in him is,he is always the same. Sometimes the others used to get grumbly when wewere shut up so long, but it never seemed to make any difference in him.

  "I told you when I wrote from Denver that he was called 'StraightHarry,' because he always acted straightforwardly, and now I know him Ican quite understand their calling him so. One feels somehow that onecould rely upon his always being the same, whatever happened. LeapingHorse is a first-rate fellow, and so is Hunting Dog, though of course hedoes not know nearly as much as the chief does, but he knows a lot. Theother three are all nice fellows, too, so we were a very jolly party.They know a tremendous lot of stories about hunting and red-skins andthat sort of thing. Some of them would make all you girls' hairs standon end. We are going to start off in two or three days to hunt up a goldmine uncle found three years ago. The Indians are going, too; they willhunt while the rest of us work. It will be quite a different journey tothe last, and I expect it will be just as hot this time as it was coldlast. We may be away for four months, and perhaps we may not come backtill the snow sets in, so don't expect a letter till you see it."

  This was by far the longest letter Tom had ever written, and it took himseveral hours to get through. He had the room to himself, for the otherswere talking over their adventures with old friends they had met at thefort. His uncle returned about ten o'clock.

  "Where are the others?" Tom asked.

  "In the saloon; but they are not drinking, that is, not drinking much. Itold them that if they were to get drunk one of them would be sure toblab as to where we were going, or at any rate to say enough to excitesuspicion among some of the old miners, that we knew of a good thing,and in that case we should get a lot of men following us, and it wouldinterfere with our plans altogether. A party as small as ours may livefor months without a red-skin happening to light on us, but if therewere many more they would be certain to find us. There would be too muchnoise
going on, too much shooting and driving backward and forward withfood and necessaries. We want it kept dark till we thoroughly prove theplace. So I made them all take an oath this morning that they would keeptheir heads cool, and I told them that if one of them got drunk, or saida word about our going after gold, I would not take him with us. I havegiven out that we are going on another hunting party, and of course ourhaving brought in such a lot of skins will make them think that we havehit on a place where game is abundant and are going back there for thesummer."

  Two more pack-ponies had been added to the outfit. They might be awayfor five or six months, and were determined to take a good supply offlour this time, for all were tired of the diet of meat only, on whichthey had existed for the last six months, having devoted by far thegreater part of the flour to the horses.

  When they started next day they turned their faces north, as if theyintended to hunt in the mountains where they had wintered. They made buta short march, camped on a stream, and long before daybreak startedagain, travelling for some hours to the west and then striking directlysouth. For two days they travelled rapidly, Tom going out every morningwith the Indians hunting, while the others kept with the pack-horses.Ben had now quite recovered from the strain which had crippled him forthe first three weeks of their march down to Fort Bridger. They were nowfairly among the Ute hills, and at their third camping-place Harry said:

  "We must do no more shooting now till we get to our valley. We have gota supply of deer-flesh for a week at least, and we must be careful infuture. We heard at the fort that several miners have been cut off andkilled by the Utes during the winter, and that they are more set thanever against white men entering their country. Everyone says thoserascally Saints are at the bottom of it. We must hide our trail as muchas we can. We are just at the edge of the bad lands, and will travel onthem for the next two days. The red-skins don't go out that way much,there being nothing either to hunt or to plunder, so there is littlefear of their coming on our trail on the bare rocks, especially as noneof the horses are shod. On the third day we shall strike right up intotheir mountains."

  "Are you sure that you will know the place again, Harry?"

  "I reckon I could find it, but I should not feel quite certain about itif I had not the chief with me. There is no fear of his going wrong.When a red-skin has once been to a place he can find his way straightback to it again, even if he were a thousand miles off."

  "You said when we were talking of it among the hills, uncle," Tom said,as he rode beside him the next morning, "that Leaping Horse and you eachtook two shares. I wonder what he will do with his if it turns outwell."

  "He won't do anything with it, Tom. The chief and I are like brothers.He does not want gold, he has no use for it; and, besides, as a rule,Indians never have anything to do with mining. He and Hunting Dog reallycome as hunters, and he has an understanding with me that when theexpedition is over I shall pay them the same as they would earn from anyEnglish sportsman who might engage them as guides and hunters, and thatI shall take their shares in whatever we may make. I need not say thatif it turns out as well as we expect, the Indians will get as manyblankets and as much ammunition as will last them their lives. You can'tget a red-skin to dig. Even the chief, who has been with us for years,would consider it degrading to do work of that kind; and if you see anIndian at mining work, you may be sure that he is one of the fellows whohas left his tribe and settled down to loaf and drink in thesettlements, and is just doing a spell to get himself enough fire-waterto make himself drunk on.

  "The Seneca would be just as willing to come and hunt for us fornothing. He would get his food and the skins, which would pay for histobacco and ammunition, and, occasionally, a new suit of leggings andhunting-shirt, made by an Indian woman, and with this he would be happyand contented. He doesn't mind taking money in return for skins, and heand Hunting Dog had their full share in the division at the fort. When Ilast talked to him about this business, he said, 'Leaping Horse doesn'twant money. Of what use is it to him? He has got a bagful hidden athome, which he has been paid when he was scouting with the army, and forthe skins of beasts he has shot. It is enough to buy many horses andblankets, and all that a chief can want. He is going with his friend tohunt, and to fight by his side if the Utes come; he wants none of thegold.' I explained the matter to him, and he said carelessly: 'LeapingHorse will take the two shares, but it will be for his brother, and thathe may send it to the girls, the sisters of his friend Tom, of whom hespoke one night by the fire.'

  "Hunting Dog is like Leaping Horse, he will take no gold. I have toldthe three men how matters stand. Of course, it makes no difference tothem whether the Indians keep their share or hand it over to me, but atthe same time I thought they ought to know how we stood. They said itwas no business of theirs; that as I was the discoverer I had a right tosell the whole thing if I chose, and that they thought I had done thefriendly thing by them in letting them in as partners. So you see it isall right and square. It is like enough, too, that we shall find someother lodes, and of course there they will come in on even terms withus. So they are pleased with the look-out, and know well enough it islikely to be the best strike they ever made in their lives."

  They kept near the edge of the bad lands, as had they gone farther outthey would have been obliged to make long detours to get round the headof the canyons made by rivers running down into the Colorado. They hadfilled their water-skins at the last stream where they had camped, andhad taken with them enough dried wood for their fires. These they liteach night in a hollow, as from the upper slopes of the Ute hills a viewcould be obtained for a great distance over the flat rocky plateau. Tomwas heartily glad when the two days' journey was over. Not a livingcreature had met their eyes; there was no grass on which beasts couldexist, no earth in which prairie-dogs could burrow; even birds shunnedthe bare waste of rock.

  "It is a desolate country," he said, as they sat round the fire; "itwould be enough to give one the horrors if one were alone. It is hotnow, and in the height of summer the heat and glare from the rock mustbe awful."

  "It is, Tom; many and many a man has died of thirst in the bad lands.And what makes it more terrible is, that they can perhaps see water athousand feet below them and yet die from the want of it."

  "When we were camped on the Green River, uncle, you said that no one hadever followed it down."

  "That is so, lad. One knows whereabouts it goes, as men driven by thirsthave followed canyons down to it; and in some places it runs for manymiles across low land before it plunges into another canyon. Then it cutsits way for two or three hundred miles, perhaps, through the hills, withwalls two or three thousand feet high. No one, so far as I know, hasgone down these big canyons, but it is certain there are rapids andwhirlpools and rocks in them. Two or three parties have gone downthrough some of the shorter canyons to escape Indians, and most of themhave never been heard of again, but one or two have got down somedistance and managed to escape.

  "No one has followed the course by land. They could not do so unlessthey carried all their provisions, and drink and food for their animals,and even then the expedition would take months, perhaps years to do; forevery spring from the hills runs down a canyon to the river, sometimesfifty miles, sometimes a hundred long, and each time the party came uponone of these they would have to work up to the mountains to get roundit. It is over a thousand miles in a straight line from the place wherethe Green River first enters a canyon to where the Colorado issues out onto the plains, and it may be quite twice that distance if one couldfollow all its windings. Some day when the country fills up attemptswill no doubt be made to find out something about it; but it will be abig job whenever it is tried, and may cost a lot of lives before thecanyons are all explored."

  In the morning they started westward for the hills. The greatest carewas observed on the march. They took advantage of every depression, andwhen obliged to pass over level ground moved at a distance apart, as aclump or string of moving animals would be made out at a d
istance fromwhich a solitary one would be unnoticed. By noon they had left the barerock, and were travelling up a valley clothed with grass and dotted withclumps of trees. In the first of these they halted.

  "We will stay here until it begins to get dusk," Harry said, "and thenmove on as fast as we can go. If we don't lose our way we shall be therebefore morning."

  There was no moon, but the stars shone brilliantly, and the mountains,with their summits still covered with snow, could be seen ahead. Thechief went on in front. Sometimes they proceeded up valleys, sometimescrossed shoulders and spurs running down from the hills. They moved inIndian file, and at times proceeded at a brisk pace, at other times moreslowly; but there was no halt or sign of hesitation on the part of theirleader. At last, just as morning was breaking, the chief led them into aclump of trees. He moved a little distance in, and then reined in hishorse and dismounted.

  "Does my brother remember that?" he said to Harry, pointing to somethingon the ground.

  "Jee-hoshaphat!" Harry exclaimed; "if that ain't my old pack-saddle!This is the very spot where we camped, boys. Well, chief, you arecertainly a wonder. I doubt whether I could have found my way here inthe daytime. Half a dozen times to-night it seemed to me that you weregoing in the wrong direction altogether, and yet you bring us asstraight to the spot as if all the time you had been following a mainroad."

  "Bully for the chief!" Jerry said warmly. "I am blamed if that ain't afust-rate piece of tracking. Waal, here we are at our journey's end.Can we make a fire?"

  "Make small fire, but must put screen round."

  "Very well; we will leave the fire to you, and we will unpack thecritters. There is a bundle of dry wood left, so we sha'n't have thebother of looking for it now."

  Before lighting the fire the two Indians stretched some blankets somesix feet above it, to prevent the light falling upon the foliage; thenby their directions Sam cut a dozen short poles, and fixed them in acircle round the fire. Half a dozen more blankets were fastened to thepoles, forming a wall round the fire, which the chief then lighted. Thenights were, at that height above the sea-level, cool enough to make theheat pleasant, and there was just room for the seven men to sit betweenthe blanket wall and the fire.

  "Do you mean this to be our permanent camp, Harry?"

  "What do you think, Leaping Horse?"

  "Wait till me go up gold valley," the Seneca said. "If can't find a goodplace there better stay here; if go backwards and forwards every daymake trail Indian squaw would notice."

  "That is so, chief; but by what Harry says it is a mere gully, and thehorses will have to range."

  "Horses must feed," the chief said. "If we find a place up there, makehut, take saddles and outfit there. Tie up horses here, and let themloose to feed at night. No regular track then. But talk after sleep."

  "It will be broad daylight by the time that we have finished our meal,"Jerry said, "and I reckon none of us will be wanting to sleep till wehave got a sight of Harry's bonanza."

  As soon as they had finished their meal, the mining implements, whichhad been carefully hidden among the rest of their goods when theystarted from the fort, were brought out. Among these were a dozen lightpick-heads and half a dozen handles, as many shovels, a flat iron platefor crushing ore upon, and a short hammer, with a face six inches indiameter, as a pounder; also a supply of long nails, to be used infastening together troughs, cradles, or any other woodwork that might berequired; three or four deep tin dishes, a bottle of mercury, a saw, anda few other tools. Three of the pick-heads were now fastened to theirhandles, and taking these, a couple of shovels, two of the tin basins, asledge hammer, and some steel wedges, and the peculiar wooden platter,in shape somewhat resembling a small shield with an indentation in themiddle, called a vanner, and universally used by prospectors, the fivewhites and Leaping Horse started from their camp for the spot whereHarry had found the lode. It lay about a mile up a narrow valley,running into the larger one. A rivulet trickled down its centre.

  "I reckoned on that," Harry said. "Of course it was frozen when we werehere, but I could see that there was water in summer. You see thishollow runs right up into that wood, and there is sure to be water in itfor the next three months anyhow."

  They had gone but a short distance up when they stopped at a spot wherethe streamlet widened out into a pool.

  "Let us try here," Jerry said, "and see if there is any sign."

  Half a shovelful of sand was placed in the vanner with a small quantityof water, and while Harry and Sam proceeded to wash some gravel roughlyin the pans, Tom stood watching Jerry's operations. He gave a gentlemotion to the vanner that caused its contents to revolve, the coarserparticles being thrown towards the edges while the finer remained in thecentre. The water was poured away and the rougher particles of graveland sand swept off by the hand; fresh water was then added, and theprocess repeated again and again, until at last no more than a spoonfulof fine sand remained in the centre. A sideway action of the vannercaused this to slope gradually down towards the edge. At the very bottomthree tiny bits of yellow metal were seen. They were no bigger thanpins' heads. It seemed to Tom that this was a miserably small return forfive minutes' labour, but the others seemed well satisfied, and werestill more pleased when, on the two pans being cleaned out, severallittle pieces of gold were found, one of which was nearly as large as asmall pea.

  "That is good enough," Ben said; "it will run a lot richer when we getdown on to the rock."

  At two other places on their way up they tried the experiments, withincreasingly good results.

  "There is some tall work to be done here with washing," Harry said. "Nowcome on to the vein. I only saw one of them, but there must be a lotmore or you would not find so much metal in the sand. However, the one Isaw is good enough for anything." They went on again to a point wherethe rock cropped boldly out on both sides of the valley; Harry led thema few paces up the side, and pointed to some white patches in the rock."That is where I chipped it off, lads, three years ago."

  The face of the lode, discoloured by age and weather, differed butlittle from the rock surrounding it; but where it had been broken off itwas a whitish yellow, thickly studded with little bits of dull yellowmetal sticking out of it. Tom was not greatly impressed; but he saw fromthe faces of his companions that they were at once surprised anddelighted.

  "By gosh, Harry, you have done it this time!" Sam Hicks exclaimed. "Youhave struck it rich, and no mistake. I thought from the way you talkedof it it must be something out of the way, but I am blamed if I thoughtit was like this."

  "Stand back, you chaps," Jerry said, lifting the heavy sledge hammer;"let me get a drive at it. Here is a crack. Put one of them wedges in,Ben."

  The wedge was placed in the fissure, and Ben held it while Jerry gave afew light blows to get it firmly fixed.

  "That will do, Ben; take away your hand and let me drive at it."Swinging the hammer round his head Jerry brought it down with tremendousforce on the head of the wedge. Again and again the heavy hammer roseand fell, with the accuracy of a machine, upon the right spot, until thewedge, which was nine inches long, was buried in the crevice.

  "Now another one, Ben. Give me a longer one this time."

  This time Ben held the wedge until it was half buried, having perfectconfidence in Jerry's skill. It was not until the fourth wedge had beendriven in that a fragment of rock weighing four or five hundredweightsuddenly broke out from the face. All bent eagerly over it, and theminers gave a shout of joy. The inner surface, which was white, butslightly stained with yellow, with blurs of slate colour here and there,was thickly studded with gold. It stuck out above the surface in thin,leafy plates with ragged edges, with here and there larger spongymasses.

  "I reckon that is good enough," Jerry said, wiping the sweat from hisforehead. "Ef there is but enough of it, it is the biggest thing thatever was struck. There ain't no saying how rich it is, but I will bet myboots it's over five hundred ounces to the ton. It ain't in nature thatit is going to run far l
ike that, but it is good enough for anything.Well, what is the next thing, Harry?"

  "We will break it up," Harry said, "and carry it down with us to thecamp. If the Utes came down on us tomorrow, and we could get off withit, that would be plenty to show if we want to make a sale."

  It took them a long time to break up the rock, for the quartz was hard,and was so bound together by the leafy gold running through it that eachof the four men had several spells with the hammer before it was brokenup into fragments weighing some twenty pounds apiece. As soon as thiswas done the men collected earth, filled up the hole in the face of therock, and planted several large tufts of grass in it, and poured four orfive tins of water over them; then they smeared with mud the patcheswhere Harry had before broken pieces off.

  "What is all that for, Jerry?" Tom asked.

  "It is to hide up the traces, lad. We may have to bolt away from hereto-morrow morning for anything we know, and before we come back againsomeone else may come along, and though we shall locate our claims atthe mining register, there would be a lot of trouble if anyone else hadtaken possession, and was working the vein when we got back."

  "It is not likely that anyone else would come along here, Jerry."

  "Waal, I reckon that is so, but one ain't going to trust to chance whenone has struck on such a place as this."

  The Seneca had been the only unmoved person in the party.

  "What do you think of that, chief?" Harry asked him.

  "If my white brother is pleased Leaping Horse is glad," he replied. "Butthe Indian does not care for gold. What can he do with it? He has a goodgun, he does not want twenty. He does not want many hunting suits. If hewere to buy as many horses as would fill the valley he could not ridethem all, and he would soon tire of sitting in his lodge and beingwaited upon by many wives. He has enough for his needs now. When he isold it will be time to rest."

  "Well, that is philosophy, chief, and I don't say you are wrong fromyour way of looking at it. But that gold means a lot to us. It meansgoing home to our people. It means living in comfort for the rest of ourlives. It means making our friends happy."

  "Leaping Horse is glad," the chief said gravely. "But he cannot forgetthat to him it means that the white brother, with whom he has so longhunted and camped and fought bad Indians, will go away across the greatsalt water, and Leaping Horse will see him no more."

  "That is so, chief," Harry said, grasping the Indian's hand warmly, "andI was a selfish brute not to think of it before. There is one thing Iwill promise you. Every year or so I will come out here and do a coupleof months' hunting with you. The journey is long, but it is quickly madenow, and I know that after knocking about for twenty years I shall neverbe content if I don't take a run out on the plains for a bit everysummer. I will give you my word, Leaping Horse, that as long as I havehealth and strength I will come out regularly, and that you shall seeyour white brother's friendship is as strong as your own."

  The Seneca's grave face lit up with pleasure. "My white brother is verygood," he said. "He has taken away the thorn out of the heart of LeapingHorse. His Indian brother is all glad now."

  The quartz was placed in sacks they had brought with them to carry downsamples, and they at once returned to the camp, where, after smoking apipe, they lay down to sleep; but it was some time before all went off,so excited were they at the thought of the fortune that seemed beforethem.

  In the afternoon they took one of the pieces of stone, weighing, by aspring balance, twenty pounds, and with the flat plate and thecrushing-hammer went to the stream. The rock was first broken with thesledge into pieces the size of a walnut. These were pulverized on theiron plate and the result carefully washed, and when the work wasfinished the gold was weighed in the miner's scales, and turned thefour-ounce weight.

  "That is nearly five hundred ounces to the ton," Harry said, "but ofcourse it is not going to run like that. I reckon it is a rich pocket;there may be a ton of the stuff, and there may be fifty. Now let's go upand have a quiet look for the lode, and see if we can trace it. We oughtto see it on the rock the other side."

  A careful search showed them the quartz vein on the face of the rocksome fifty feet higher up the valley, and this showed them the directionof the run of the lode. It was here, however, only six inches wideinstead of being two feet, as at the spot where it was first found. Somepieces were broken off: there was gold embedded in it, but it wasevident that it was nothing like so rich as on the other side. A pieceof ten pounds was pounded up, it returned only a little over apennyweight of gold.

  "About twelve ounces to the ton," Harry said. "Not bad, but a mightyfalling off from the other. To-morrow morning we will follow the lode onthe other side and see if we can strike an outcrop."

  The next day they found the lode cropping up through the rock somethirty yards from their great find. It was about nine inches wide. Theydug it out with their picks to a depth of two feet so as to get a fairsample. This when crushed gave a return at the rate of twenty ounces.

  "That is rich enough again, and would pay splendidly if worked bymachinery. Of course the question is, how far it holds on as rich as wefound it at the face, and how it keeps on in depth? But that is justwhat we can't find. We want drills and powder, as picks are no sort ofgood on this hard quartz. Supposing it goes off gradually from the faceto this point, there would be millions of dollars in it, even supposingit pinched in below, which there is no reason in the world to suppose.We may as well take a few of these chunks of rock, they will show thatthe gold holds fairly a good way back anyhow."

  A few pieces were put aside and the rest thrown into the hole again,which was stamped down and filled up with dust. The party then went backto dinner, and a consultation was held as to what was next to be done.

  "Of course we must stake out our claims at once," Harry said. "In thefirst place there are our own eight claims--two for each of thediscoverers and one each for the others. Hunting Dog will not have ashare, but will be paid the regular rate as a hunter. Then we will taketwenty claims in the names of men we know. They wouldn't hold water ifit were a well-known place, and everyone scrambling to get a claim onthe lode; but as there is no one to cut in, and no one will know theplace till we have sold it and a company sends up to take possession andwork it, it ain't likely to be disputed. The question is, What shall wedo now? Shall we make back to the settlements, or try washing a bit?"

  "Try washing, I should say," Jerry said. "You may be some time beforeyou can sell the place. Anyone buying will know that they will have tosend up a force big enough to fight the Utes, and besides they will wantsomeone to come up here to examine it before they close the bargain. Ivote we stick here and work the gravel for a bit so as to take enoughaway to keep us till next spring. I reckon we shall find plenty of stuffin it as we go down, and if that is so we can't do better than stick toit as long as there is water in the creek."

  "I agree with you there, Jerry; but it will never do to risk losingthose first samples. I am ready to stay here through the summer, but Ivote we sew them up in deer-hide, and put two or three thicknesses ofskin on them so as to prevent accidents. Two of us had best go with themto the fort and ask the Major to let us stow them away in his magazine,then, if we have to bolt, we sha'n't be weighted down with them.Besides, we might not have time for packing them on the horses, andaltogether it would be best to get them away at once, then come whatmight we should have proofs of the value of the mine."

  This proposal was cordially agreed to, and it was settled that on thefollowing morning Harry himself should, with Hunting Dog and twopack-horses, start for the fort, following the same route they came,while the rest should set to work to construct a cradle, and troughs forleading the water to it.