The Pike's Peak Rush Part 24

"Well, I'll bet we've got something just as good," declared Terry, confidently.

Immediately after a hurried breakfast they started in to pan their own claim, under the direction of Archie.

"I've always found the most gold in that spot there," he instructed.

"There was another spot, where I panned first, but it's quit on me.

Expect, though, you'll find a lot of 'em. Let's dig and try out some of the dirt in our pans."

Into the spot Terry plunged the spade. The dirt was gravelly and soft--two strokes of the blade were more than enough to loosen sufficient for the three pans. The pans were sheet-iron and about the size and shape of a large milk-pan. In a moment they three were trailing down to the little creek, each with some two inches of the dirt in the bottom of his pan. They squatted to fill the pans with water, and carefully twirled to slop it out again along with the dirt that ought to float off.

This was an anxious process. Archie finished first, because he was in practice.

"I didn't get anything this time," he announced, gaily. "But I don't care. I'm going out."

Terry's dirt had practically all flowed off. He picked out the bits of gravel--they were only pebbles and flakes of rock. He peered for yellow--yes, there it was! A glint mingled with a seam of coa.r.s.e sand.

"I've got some!" he yelled. "See here? I've got some!"

Archie looked in.

"That's right. Let me finish it for you. I'll flirt that sand out."

So he did, with a dexterous twirl that sent part of the sand out and the rest against the sides, and left the heavier yellow in the middle.

"Reckon I've landed a little, myself," remarked Harry.

He had! Perhaps a trifle more than Terry, and the two pans together weren't enough to cover the point of the knife-blade with which they sc.r.a.ped the yellow up and carefully deposited it in Father Richards' old buckskin bag, brought for the purpose.

"Gold's worth $21 an ounce and that's about a pennyweight, I guess,"

encouraged Archie. "Ninety cents--but it's a beginning. Of course, where you dug I'd been digging before. You'll find a better place. You see, I've already taken out $80. So go ahead and keep panning, and I'll travel."

Archie had arranged to leave with a wagon outfit who were disgusted because they'd discovered nothing. The two new proprietors of the Golden Prize stopped operations long enough to bid him good-bye, and watch him trudge away, his pack on his back.

"When you want some of your gold, come back or let us know," called Harry, after.

"It's all yours," he retorted. "That's why I bought the mine."

"Jiminy!" exclaimed Terry. "That's big pay for what little we did--just giving him a drink of water and toting him in a cart."

The next few pans didn't yield anything at all; then Harry made a "strike," as he called it, and sc.r.a.ped out as much yellow as would cover a finger-nail. He'd got the dirt from a new spot, "for luck," and from the same spot Terry managed to extract about as much.

"We'll have to try about," counseled Harry, "until we find spots like those of Archie's. We've got a lot of s.p.a.ce yet."

As Archie had said, this digging and panning was hard work. At every stroke the spades clinked against rock--a boulder or a ledge--and to chip away with a pick was about as bad. And then, to trudge back and forth with the pans! But Harry hit upon the idea of dumping the dirt upon a piece of gunny sacking and thus carrying several spadesful at a time, to be panned.

They scarcely stopped for dinner, and by evening had greatly widened the trench. When they knocked off for supper and sleep the buckskin sack was apparently as flat and as light as in the early morning, and they were mud from soles to waist. But nevertheless, the sack contained gold!

Peeking in, one might see it!

"We'll have to get a pair of scales," proclaimed Harry. "And we'll have to go about this more scientifically. Panning's too slow."

"How much did we find, do you think?" invited Terry.

"Five dollars' worth, maybe--and we're hungry enough to eat five dollars' worth of grub. But that's all right. We're just starting in, and we own all the ground from the cabin to that little creek, and from half-way up the hill down to the bottom. Hooray!" He grabbed Terry and they war-danced, while Shep barked gladly.

"I'd rather dig gold than potatoes, wouldn't you, now?" demanded Terry.

"We're liable to make a hundred dollars 'most any day. We haven't done much more than scratch."

"What do you want for supper?" asked Harry. "Let's celebrate with antelope steak and apple pie."

"Sure!" cheered Terry. "We don't have to save on grub."

They were sitting down, on the stool and the edge of the bunk, to a sumptuous supper, when a step and a grunting sounded outside, Shep growled, and into the half-open doorway was thrust an inquiring face. It was the red face of Pat Casey.

"Good evenin' to yez," he proffered, blinking.

"Come in, come in. Glad to see you. Sit and have a bite." And Harry changed from the stool to the bunk-edge beside Terry.

Pat, muddy like everybody else, clumped in, agrin.

"Sure, Oi've had my supper, but Oi'll set a bit," he answered. "Oi've been a-lookin' for yez. An' are yez at home already?"

"Yes, sir-ee," p.r.o.nounced Harry, triumphantly. "Here we are."

"An' have yez located? 'Tis the sick boy's property, ain't it? Oi saw him goin' out this mornin'."

"All ours now, till he comes back again; cabin, claim, everything."

"And we're to have all we find," added Terry. "We've panned over five dollars already and we're only learning. He took out $80, but there's the whole claim left yet: tons of it! We're going to put in a sluice and do a lot other improving and fix things up right."

"B' gorry, mebbe yez have a bonanzy," congratulated Pat. "Gold is where yez find it. Oi've washed out a matter o' wan dollar an' sixty-siven cints meself, but didn't Oi tell yez we'd all be rich together, some o'

these days?" He sniffed and gazed over the table. "Faith, is that a pie?

A genuyine pie?"

"That's what. Have a piece, Pat?"

"'Tis wan thing Oi can't refuse," admitted Pat, modestly. "'Specially apple pie."

Harry cut him a generous piece, and having dissected it with his knife into large mouthfuls, he accepted the invitation to finish the half; Harry and Terry ate the other half.

"Ye made it?" he inquired, of Harry. "Glory be! Sure, now, Oi wish ye were in the business. Couldn't ye make me a pie, occasional? Oi'll pay ye two dollars apiece annytime."

"Can't promise that yet, Pat," laughed Harry. "But whenever we have a pie you're welcome to help us eat it."

"Not me," protested Pat. "A rale apple pie is worth two dollars of anny man's money; an' if that ain't enough Oi'll pay ye more."

But of course pie was a small item in comparison with a gold mine that might yield $100 a day, under proper management. However, Pat lighted his short black pipe and spent the evening, and they all talked gold, gold, gold.

"I think," said Harry, after Pat had left, with much good-will and another reference to pie, and the two partners prepared for bed, "that tomorrow we'll make a tour around the camp, to see what other folks are doing, and then we'll know how to go about it the quickest way. Panning is too slow for _us_."