Chapter 7

After five weeks of ambling higher and higher into the mountains we still hadn’t found a decent spot to file a claim. We stopped at a few likely looking spots, panned and dug for a couple of days and would have very little to show for it. I think we were both getting discouraged when fate took a hand.

We sat our horses, looking at where the trail used to be. It had rained for almost ten days straight a couple of weeks before we entered the country, and a mudslide had pretty much wiped the trail out.

Zeke sighed. “Well, we ain’t going that way. Guess we’re turning around.”

I was lookin’ at a big blue spruce that was lying sideways across the trail. It just didn’t look right. I jumped down and walked up to it. The left side was completely blocked with trees and boulders, but the right looked a little softer. I slid under a branch and found myself standing on a trail that went over the ridge. By the looks of it, the only ones using it were wild horses. If a wild horse could travel it, so could we.

We sat down and made coffee while we talked it over. In the end neither of us favored backtrackin’, so we eased our animals around the branch. We tried not to disturb things too much because the last thing we were lookin’ for right then was company.

It was steep and downright scary in a couple of places but we were over the ridge, lookin’ down at a little hanging valley, probably no more than three thousand acres. There was a big stream runnin’ right down the center and a few branches fed it along the way. It looked like it had never been touched by human hands.

We found a likely place to camp, against a rock wall that had a little spring gushing out of it. There was also a cave that looked like it would be a decent place to shelter in with a little work, eliminating the need to build a cabin. Just around a bend was a larger cave that looked like a good place for the horses to get in out of the weather.

The first week was spent checking out the valley. There were plenty of deer tracks, some elk, and at least one bear. We didn’t see any tracks, but we did spot a few bighorn sheep on the rocks so it looked like we could suppliment our food pretty easily. There was also a small horse herd, maybe sixty, at the far end of the valley. The way we came in seemed the only way in and out, so they would have to go by us if they wanted to leave. We didn’t get close not wanting to spook them, but I knew we would be lookin’ soon.

After we explored we took out a pan and each of us hit a section of big creek. I went upstream and he headed down. We met at camp at the end of the day. Zeke was pretty bad disappointed. He’d found color but nothing to brag about. I just grinned and handed him a small pebble.

It looked like any other rock until he rubbed it and a dull yellow gleam appeared. He looked up. “This is the real deal?”

“Yep. I found quite a few flakes too. Wherever the source is, it’s up top. We just need to hunt it down. I vote we pan all we can get before the cold weather hits while we scout for the source. Then when it gets too cold to be in the water, we start diggin’.”

Zeke allowed as how that would be a fine idea so the next day we started the systematic exploration of the stream. We started at the point I found the pebble and worked our way downstream until gold started gettin’ scarce. It took a week, but by the end of that time we had what we estimated to be at least five hundred in dust, flakes, and pebbles. That was damn good money for a weeks’ worth of effort, almost two years wages for a cowpoke.

We made sure we rested one day a week, spending the day tending to equipment, hunting, and we made it a point to ride back up on the ridge to check things out. So far we hadn’t seen any sign of anything but horses but this was gold country and it didn’t pay to get lax. Men were murdered for claims a whole lot less than what ours was worth.

The next two weeks we worked our way upstream. The gold got thicker and chunkier as we progressed, suddenly stopping about a third of the way to the head waters. We then backtracked until it started again and looked around. By now the valley walls were quite narrow so it didn’t take us long to find where we thought the source was. The same rain that had destroyed the trail had caused a new fissure to open on the south wall. It opened a little spring and caused a twenty foot waterfall to form. The nearer we got to the falls the thicker the gold, until one day I picked up a three pound chunk of white quartz that was literally seamed with fissures of gleaming gold.