The Pike's Peak Rush; Or, Terry in the New Gold Fields

by Edwin L. Sabin

  CHAPTER XIII

  READY FOR BIG BUSINESS, BUT * * * !

  When after breakfast they started out, "for (as Harry said) the latestwrinkles in getting rich quick," the gulch was already astir and atwork. And a busy, inspiring sight it was, alive from side to side andapparently from end to end with cabins, completed or begun, someplank-roofed, some roofed with pine boughs; with dug-outs, tents,wagons, oxen, mules, and with men digging, burrowing, toiling at spadeand pick, squatting over gold-pans, or manipulating the boxes set onrockers, while the few women were attending to dishes or hanging out thefamily washing.

  "Washing $3 a dozen," announced a sign in front of one tent.

  The gulch was long and broken, and of course not half the sights were tobe seen from any one point.

  "Let's walk up a piece, first," suggested Harry.

  So they did, in confident manner. Only day before yesterday they hadcome in as tenderfeet--not knowing a thing and not owning a foot ofground. Now they were regular residents, actual miners, with a payingclaim and a cabin, and might hold up their heads. The very dirt on theirclothes proclaimed their rank. Terry felt like a wealthy citizen.

  The man who evidently owned the claim next above theirs paused to greetthem. He was another young man, with a blond beard, and a smile thatdisclosed white even teeth, and although he was roughly dressed inragged red flannel shirt, belted trousers and heavy cow-hide boots, hischest, showing under his shirt, which was open at the throat, was verywhite, and now as he rested his foot upon his spade and shoved back hisslouch hat, his forehead also was very white.

  "How are you, neighbors?" he accosted. "Made your pile yet?"

  "No, sir," promptly responded Harry. "But it's right there waiting forus. All we've done is a little panning, and with proper development workwe've got a bonanza."

  "We sure have," supported Terry. "We panned out five dollars in color,first thing. But that's too slow."

  The man smiled good-humoredly.

  "You're in luck, then." He wiped his brow. "I haven't seen my color yet,but I suppose it's around in here somewhere. Anyway, I'm getting plentyof exercise. We're all crazy together. I expect I'm as crazy as therest. You know what Virgil says--_facilis decensus Averni_, eh?" and heeyed Harry inquiringly. "Did you find that so?"

  "'Easy is the descent to Avernus,' eh?" translated Harry. "Hum! Well, wedid come down in here at a good gait. How we'll get out again is aquestion. But you must be a college man."

  "Yes, and also a preacher. 'Whom the gods destroy they first make mad'is another favorite reflection of mine, among these diggin's. Are you acollege man, too?"

  "Yes; University of Virginia."

  "I'm Yale. Glad to meet you. Well, it's a great place--all kinds of usjumbled and digging and sweating, talking gold and eating gold anddreaming gold, when most of us could accomplish more and make more wherewe came from."

  "I reckon the thing we don't know how to do always looks easier than thething we do know how to do," reasoned Harry.

  "Exactly. But where are you bound for?"

  "We're going to put in improvements," spoke Terry. "Do you know where wecan get a sluice?"

  "Make it, if you can buy the lumber. But you'll have to stand in lineand grab the boards as fast as they fall from the saw. By the way, youdon't object to my using that water, do you? I'm not certain whetherit's on your land or mine; it's pretty nearly between, as I figure."

  "We thought it was on our side, but use all you want, certainly,"replied Harry.

  They left the preacher to his digging and proceeded.

  The farther they went up the gulch, the more intense seemed the feverfor work, and the thicker the camps and people. Yes, and there was gold,too! Three men were operating a "rocker." This was one of those woodenboxes on rockers like a cradle; one man shoveled in dirt, another pouredin water, a third rocked the box from side to side, and the water anddirt flowed out through a slot at the lower end.

  The Golden Prize proprietors halted to watch. When the water and dirthad escaped, in the bottom of the box were to be seen several cleatsnailed across, and caught against these cleats was gold! The men figuredthat there was eight dollars' worth right there!

  Up here were a few sluices, too: the long troughs, also with cleatsnailed across the bottom inside, to catch the gold as the water and dirtflowed over. Into some of the sluices water had to be poured by hand,but others led from streams and the water flowed through without havingbeen dipped. The shorter sluices were called "Long Toms."

  "That's what we want," decided Harry. "A regular sluice, running rightacross our claim."

  "There's the wheel-barrow man!" exclaimed Terry.

  And so it was, standing in front of a tent which bore the sign, "W. N.Byers. The Rocky Mountain News," and nearby was a stake and a sign:"Central City."

  They shook hands with the wheel-barrow man.

  "What's this?" demanded Harry. "A town?"

  "Yes, sir! Mr. Byers has named it. It's the best location. Right in themiddle of the Gulch."

  "Is he going to stay here?"

  "Nope; but he's pushing things along. What's happened to you boys? Youlook as if you'd been prospecting."

  "We have," laughed Harry. "Haven't you?"

  "Yes, a little." And he suddenly called: "Hello, John. What's the matterdown there?"

  "They've got wind of another strike," answered the man, striding on. Hewas a black-bearded man, and seemed very busy.

  "That's John Gregory himself," explained the wheel-barrow man. "Theoriginal boomer of this gulch. But watch the people pile out, will you!"

  "Yes; there's a big strike south of here, I understand," from thedoorway of his tent spoke Mr. Byers himself: a stocky, pleasant-facedman, with a close-trimmed brown beard. The diggin's had as great avariety of beards and whiskers as it had of people.

  So he was the pioneer newspaper man, was he--the man who had brought aprinting-press, and a stock of paper already printed on one side atOmaha, clear from the Missouri River to Cherry Creek. But Terry wasgiven scant opportunity to stare. Harry clutched him by the sleeve:

  "Come on, quick! I've got an idea."

  Away they hastened, back down the gulch. Before, at the lower end, theconfusion was increasing. Outfits were hurrying away--drivers swingingtheir lashes, men footing fast; camps were breaking, and on their claimsminers and prospectors were shouldering pick and spade and pack andhastening after the procession now crossing the creek.

  The movement spread up the gulch, communicated from camp to camp andclaim to claim.

  "What'll we do? Get more land?" puffed Terry.

  "No, no."

  But the lower end of the gulch was not by any means deserted, as theyarrived. It was mainly the frothy overflow that had bubbled out, andwhen the eddy had settled there appeared to be almost as many people asbefore. Even the claims which had been abandoned were being quicklyre-occupied. However, Harry dashed to one man who had packed up and onhis cabin was tacking a sign: "Keep Off!" while his partner waited.

  "Going to leave?"

  "Mebbe so. Want to buy this claim? She's a humdinger."

  "No. But I'll buy your sluice. How'll you sell it?"

  "That sluice? Seventy-five dollars."

  "Whew!"

  "It's forty feet long, of three boards; that means 120 feet, andlumber's $300 a thousand feet and you have to put in your order a weekahead. With the props and the cleats and the nails there's over $40 ofmaterial in that sluice, and I reckon the labor of hauling and buildingis wuth the balance."

  "I'll give you $50," snapped Harry.

  "Sold. But hurry up. We can't wait long here to sell a sluice. There'stoo much doing 'round the corner."

  Harry fished out three gold pieces--two twenties and a ten--and passedthem over.

  "Better take it off this property quick or somebody else will," advisedthe man; and away he and his partner strode, for the strike in BobtailGulch just across a little divide south.

  "Lucky again!" jubilated Harry--who, Terry saw, h
ad been smart. "Cost alot of money, but we couldn't have made it much cheaper ourselves andwe'd have been held up waiting for boards. You sit on it while I go forJenny. We haul the whole thing at once."

  "Maybe we could have got it for nothing, after they'd left," proposedTerry, with an eye to the general grab-all as various persons swarmedover the abandoned claims.

  "It wasn't ours, was it?" retorted Harry. "But it is now." And he leftat a fast limp.

  He returned with Jenny, harnessed, and they triumphantly dragged awaythe sluice, carrying also the scissors props on which it had rested. Itsjoints indeed threatened to part, but by picking their path they arrivedwith it intact at the Golden Prize.

  Their preacher neighbor greeted them with a wave of hand and came overto inspect.

  "Looks as though you were going right into business," he asserted. "Ithought maybe you'd join the rush for Bobtail."

  "No, sir; we stick," assured Harry. "A bird in the hand's worth two inthe bush."

  "Well, depends on the bird," answered the preacher. "Now, my bird's anold crow, I'm afraid, and if I could see a fat turkey in the bush I'ddrop my crow pretty quick, like those other fellows."

  After dinner Harry rather ruefully examined his money belt. It was flatand limp.

  "Ten dollars left," he said.

  "And our dust, you know," reminded Terry. "We've the five dollars wewashed out, and we can wash out more whenever we want it."

  Harry brightened.

  "That's right. We're rich. You can try panning again, this afternoon,and I'll go down to the grocery and lay in provisions and any otherstuff we'll need, and then we can set up the sluice and pile up thegold. Get to have everything running before Father Richards and thatGeorge Stanton come in."

  "We can buy a claim for them, too," proposed Terry. "Or find one that'sbeen left."

  "No crows," corrected Harry. "Turkeys only."

  Terry went at his panning with enthusiasm, bound to make a showing.Panning was slow, but it was rather exciting because there always wasliable to be something yellow right under your eye, if you looked closeenough. Panning was a one-man job; you did it all yourself.

  The preacher strolled over to watch.

  "How's the dirt paying now?" he queried.

  "Pretty good. I've found _some_ more," truthfully answered Terry. "Abouta dollar's worth, I guess."

  "A pinch, eh? How'd you like to take over my claim?"

  "Haven't any money yet. I mean, we won't have money till we get thesluice to going."

  "I'll tell you what I'll do," proffered the preacher. "Just to make thetransaction binding, I'll sell you the claim for your next pan.Preaching is my business, not mining, you see. If you buy my claim, thennobody can accuse you of jumping it."

  "All right," accepted Terry.

  "Play fair, now," laughed the professor. "Take your dirt from a goodrich spot."

  Spots looked mainly all alike to Terry. The hole where he had beendigging was laying bare the hard rock, but he scraped up a quantity ofdirt and loose splinters from a crevice----

  "You're giving me principally rock, aren't you?" criticized thepreacher, good-naturedly. "But let it go. I'll be game."

  However, as the pan cleared and Terry threw aside the splinters, theyboth exclaimed. Yellow was plainly visible--and moreover there was ablackish, cindery fragment the size of a crushed hazel-nut that glintedand weighed suspiciously as Terry lingered in the act of tossing it awayalso.

  "Here! Hold on!" And the preacher took it. "Nugget, isn't it? Fifteen ortwenty dollars, I'll wager--and ten dollars more in flakes!"

  "That's a rich pan, boys, as I reckon," interrupted a voice, accompaniedby crunching footsteps and a growl from Shep.

  The speaker was a miner over six feet tall and broad in proportion--averitable giant of a man, in clothes as rough as the roughest, and witha revolver at his belt. In his black-whiskered face his eyes were smalland deep-set, and close together, or as close as an enormous nose wouldpermit. He was carrying a sack on his shoulder, which he deposited inorder to investigate the pan.

  "Yes, sir-ee. A $40 pan, countin' the nugget. Does all your dirt runlike that?"

  "No, sir; not yet," replied Terry. "But maybe it will when we sluiceit."

  "Goin' to sluice, are you?" The giant's close-set little eyes rovedabout inquisitively. "This your claim, is it?"

  "Yes, sir. This and the next one."

  "Where'd you get that lucky pan o' dirt?"

  "From that hole."

  The giant strode up, carelessly poked about in the hole with hisboot-toe, filtered some of the dirt through his fingers.

  "You're down to bed-rock already," he pronounced, returning. "Icalkilate you may have struck a leetle pocket, but I don't count much onthese shallow slopes. Some gold ketches, most of it's washed down. Heyour partner?" and he indicated the preacher.

  "No, sir. My partner's down to the store."

  "Older'n you?"

  "Some."

  "Waal," and the giant picked up his sack, "you'll have most of your workfor nothin'. May strike an occasional pocket, an' may not. You've gotone o' them pore locations. Mostly rock." With that he stumped on intothe little draw down which flowed the side rivulet. Once he paused, tocast a glance behind at the stream and the waiting sluice; and then hedisappeared around a shoulder up the draw.

  "We're no better off for _his_ opinion," quoth the preacher. "Don'tbelieve he's quite the style of a man I'd cater to, anyway. But ourbargain holds, does it? I'll make you out a bill of sale."

  "Sure," manfully assented Terry, trying not to regret that this was theone big pan.

  Harry presently arrived, laden with purchases.

  "Meat's fifty cents a pound," he panted. "We may have to eat Shep orJenny. Flour's snapped up at $15 a sack, and milk's fifty cents a quartfrom the cows of some of the emigrants. Whew! Couldn't find anygold-scales; we'll do our weighing at the grocery store till the expressoffice or post office is opened. Everything's payable in dust. But Iinvested in a treat for us; see?" and he produced a can of oysters!"That's our bank. The groceryman says oyster-cans are the popular thingsfor holding gold, in the diggin's. It cost two dollars, but it'll beworth a heap more than that when it's full. I'm nearly strapped, though.Have you added much to our pile?"

  "Added the preacher's claim," blurted Terry, and 'fessed up. "It was abig pan, too," he concluded. "I've found only a little color since."

  "Color helps," encouraged Harry. "That will be a claim for George. Good!We can work both with the same water."

  The preacher brought the bill of sale of the "True Blue" claim, as hehad named it; and that evening they had him in to join them in makingmerry over the can of oysters. Harry thoroughly washed out the emptiedcan and set it aside to dry, for the "bank."

  The "improvements" on the True Blue claim consisted of merely a fewholes and a lean-to of pine boughs covered with a piece of raggedcanvas. The preacher jovially carried away his personal belongings onhis back; he was, as he expressed it, "traveling light."

  Left in possession of both claims, the two partners decided to filltheir oyster-can from the Golden Prize first, and they jumped into thework of setting up the sluice.

  This proved to be a bigger job than it had appeared before beingtackled. The sluice was heavy and had to be moved about by sections; andto place it conveniently and yet give it the proper slant, the groundhad to be leveled or mounded or lowered; and a little dam had to bemade, with a race or ditch to supply the water to the upper end of thesluice: and what with disconnecting, and shifting hither-thither, andre-connecting, and all that, two days were consumed.

  There had been no time for panning, but now, at last, they might startin washing by wholesale, so to speak.

  They lugged the dirt on gunny sacking to the sluice, dumped the dirtinto the running water, and while Harry stirred it Terry followed downalong the sluice to throw out the rocks and clear the riffles or crosscleats. A back-breaking and also muddy job this sluicing was, for thesackings of dirt were heavy and th
e sluice of course leaked at the seamsand joints, so that the ground underneath was speedily soaked and madeslippery by the constant trudging.

  By noon the riffles were filled with gravelly mud, and Harry decidedthat they should be cleaned. So the water was turned off.

  Now for the test!

  "I see yellow! I see yellow!" asserted Terry, running from cleat tocleat, and eyeing the deposits against each; and indeed it did seem tohim that the little dikes glistened roguishly.

  "You see more than I do, then," retorted Harry, rubbing his long nose."What I see is more panning, after all, to sort that stuff."

  They dug the lodged stuff out with their knives, and panned severalcleatsful at a time. Harry found a nugget (small one); little by littlethe gold left in the pans increased (hurrah!), until, at the wind-up----

  "How much, do you think?" demanded Terry, excitedly.

  "Mighty near an ounce, and the nugget besides; say $40." Harry's dirtyface was abeam. "And we've washed as much dirt in half a day as we couldpan by hand in a week. At this rate we'll soon have both claims skinnedto the rock, and'll need others. But I reckon we can find 'em, or buy'em."

  "Looks as though we were going to be powerful rich, doesn't it?" saidTerry, awed by the very thought. "We'll fill our oyster can."

  "Shucks!" remarked Harry. "I saw one sluice where they'd cleaned up $138in a day--but there were four men working it, and they had more loosedirt than we've got. Our dirt's mostly rock. Anyway, we'll lay asidethat $100 we owe Father Richards and have something to show extra beforehe and mother and the Stantons come in."

  However, the afternoon clean-up netted them, although they had dug thedirt from a deeper place which looked very promising, scarcely color!And when early, before breakfast, in the morning, Terry sallied out tosurvey about and plan for a big day, to his astonishment the rivulet wasdry, except for a dribble!