The Pike's Peak Rush Part 34

"I sha'n't dig any more," she announced. "I'm tired."

"What have you got in your hand, Virgie?"

"A piece of my mine," and Virgie extended her prize. "I'm going to take a piece of my mine down to show papa."

"That's a good idea," approved Harry. "Take him a sample, so as to prove to him."

"Is it gold?" invited Virgie.

"I shouldn't wonder," said Harry, kindly. "It looks just like the pocket-piece I threw at Ike. Wait. I'll see."

But although he searched among the stones and bushes at the place where the pocket-piece might have bounded from Ike's back, he did not come across it, and neither did Terry nor George.

"It was the same kind of quartz, though," he insisted. "Where did you find your piece, Virgie?"

"Over there," answered Virgie, vaguely. "I don't remember. Can't I have it? Isn't it gold? That's a gold mine."

"Maybe it is gold, from the True Blue mine. You can tell your father you mined it," bantered Harry.

"Goody!" And Virgie tightly clutched it. "And I can buy Duke with it.

They're going to make him fight a bear and I don't want him to fight a bear."

"What's that?" Harry's voice rang sharply. "Who said so?"

"Sure," affirmed George. "We saw him, in a show. And there's a sign up telling folks to bring in a bear and have a match."

"Great Scotland! Why didn't you mention it before?" Harry was visibly disturbed.

"I did, to Terry."

"Yes, he did, but I'd forgotten," supported Terry. "I was intending to speak about it, but these other things put me off the track."

"What'd you sell him for?" taxed George. "Shouldn't think you'd have sold him. He's awful peaked, shut up there."

"Well, we didn't sell him for that, anyway," declared Harry. "Good-bye.

You fellows stay here. I'm going."

"Where?"

"Down there--to Denver and Auraria. We'll go and rescue Duke, won't we, Virgie?"

"_You_ don't need to go, do you? The folks can rescue him. We'll tell Virgie to ask them to," proposed Terry. "They'll do it."

"No, sir!" rapped Harry. "I got him into that mess and I'll get him out if it takes every cent we have. We can pay Father Richards by selling the mine, if necessary; but Duke sha'n't fight any bear. That wasn't the bargain." And he bolted into the cabin.

Terry gazed at George; George solemnly gazed at Terry. It was a day of sudden changes in plans.

"Shucks! Duke oughtn't to be made to fight a bear, though," murmured Terry.

"I should say not--I call that downright cruel," agreed George. "But the bear wasn't there yet. Anyway, maybe the man won't sell."

"He'll have to, if Harry once gets after him. And the folks will help now," reminded Terry, hopefully.

"I'll help," chirped Virgie. "I'll help with my mine."

Harry bustled out. He had his blanket and a small package in some sacking.

"Of course there's no use in the rest of you going," he said. "I've taken most of our 'pile,' Terry, but I've left you a pinch of dust and the two pies, and there's flour and stuff yet. I'll leave you Jenny, too. You and George and Jenny can be getting me a job while you're getting for yourselves. I'll be back as soon as I save Duke from being bear meat. If you can't find any paying jobs here, sell the blamed old claims, and we'll prospect in better diggin's. Climb on your pony, Virgie. Tell 'em good-bye."

"You mustn't sell my mine," objected Virgie, from the saddle of the Indian pony. "I don't want it sold."

"Well, they can sell the Golden Prize, if they have to," laughed Harry.

"So long, fellows. You'll see Duke and me later."

Away he strode at rapid limp--dear old Harry!--with Virgie on her ambling pony keeping pace beside him, into the gulch and on.

"Guess we'll have to rustle," spoke Terry, to George, as they watched him and Virgie out of sight.

CHAPTER XVIII

NEVER SAY DIE!

Gregory Gulch was now very different in appearance from that same gulch into which the Extra Limited had entered about a month ago. It resembled a noisy, booming new town. Almost every foot of lower ground was occupied. A great deal of the timber had been cut from the ridges and slopes, to be used in cabins and sluices and for fuel; and the axes were merrily ringing, in tune with the staccato of hammers and the thud of picks.

More families had arrived, so that women were frequently seen, and some of the cabins looked exceedingly "homey." There were many more grocery stores and general supply stores, in tents or log buildings. Where Editor William Byers' tent had stood, half-way up the gulch, town lots for the new Central City had been staked out and were selling as high as $500 apiece!

Flour was $20 a sack of 100 pounds, eggs were $2.50 a dozen, and milk fifty cents a quart. But money was very cheap, and prices seemed to cut little figure, for were not men digging, digging, digging, and emptying their dirt into rockers, or carrying it in gunny sacks and in sleds over pine-trunk tracks, to their sluices, and was.h.i.+ng out the dust (some of them) to the amount of $200 a day?

At night the hundreds of camp fires lighted the gulch redly from side to side; and already there had been a great forest fire, on the new trail in from the Platte, which had burned to death three men and a dog.

The trail itself was lively, said George, with gold-seekers still trudging into the mountains, singing, "I'm bound to the land of gold,"

and under Table Mountain had been started, on Clear Creek, a town named "Golden City." It contained about thirty cabins and nearly a thousand people, living in the cabins or camping!

And Denver and Auraria were booming, also.

Amidst such apparent prosperity it did seem as though persons anxious to work could find work that would pay. But the trouble was that Gregory Gulch had become over-populated. The newcomers a.s.serted that the old-timers, like the Gregory crowd, had located too much ground, and that the claims ought to be cut down from one hundred feet to twenty-five feet, so as to give more people a chance. This movement did not prove out, because when a miners' meeting was held, to make changes in the regulations, the old-timers put in their own men as officers and won.

Consequently, what with the high prices of food and lumber, and the many claims that yielded scarcely anything, and the constant rush to get other claims wherever possible, a lot of people were glad to turn their hands to any kind of work.

Terry and George tramped clear up the gulch, inquiring at sluice and rocker and prospect hole, and even at tents and cabins.

"Need any help?" Or: "Do you know of a job we can get?" Or: "Could you use a couple of husky boys around here?"

Some parties were so busy that they only shook their heads, without pausing. Others directed them on, or to right or left. But after having volunteered in vain as miners, carpenters, and even as wood-choppers, they reached the head of the gulch, and turned back.