Late one evening, we just had time to roll over a large bolder and get a pan of sand and gravel, and pan it out. We dried the gold and weighed it and there was seventy-five dollars worth of gold in that one pan. We worked out this claim, but it proved to be a slate rock bed and was smooth and sleek, and the water washed all the gold away, only where a huge bolder was imbeded in the slate bed and the gold settled around the bolders. We did not get any more gold out of the rest of that claim, than I got in that one pan. We left Uncle Isaac at this claim and followed down Nelson Creek. Our party was composed of Crawford Bailey, Winston Crumly, Jack Alberts, Guss Parberry, Bird Farris and myself. There was a nice path beat down on the side of the creek, but the mountains on both sides stood almost straight up. We went down the creek, fifteen or twenty miles, when we suddenly came to a waterfall where the water dropped straight down about forty or fifty rods. There was no way for us to get down. We then thought the people who made the path, had to climb the mountains. We looked up on our right hand and could see the dirt crumbling out from between the rocks. It was straight up. We saw there was no show to go up on that side. We looked up on our left and could not see any dirt or rock crumbling off this mountain. We concluded that they must have climbed up over this mountain to get out. We started up. We could hardly keep from falling backwards. We held to little vines or little fine brush which grew out from between the layers of rock. Finally, after we had gone up a distance of perhaps a couple of miles, we could see above us a shelf of rock extending out over our heads. It then dawned upon us that the path we had followed down the creek, had been made by people who had come that far and were compelled to go back and that no one had ever gone up this mountain. We looked as far as we could see each way, but that shelf of rock stood out over our heads from three to six or eight feet. We were sure that when we got up to that shelf, we could not get over it, neither could we go back down again; for one can go up when one can see where to stick their toes, but cannot see to go down without falling. We began to think we were where we could not get away alive. We looked off to our left and saw one place in this shelf that was narrower than the rest, and we concluded to make for that place with the possibility that we might be able to break off some of the rock and get above. It was still a good ways up from where we were. We made for the narrow shelf, but when we got there, the rock was so hard that we could not pierce it with our picks, but the mountain was not quite so steep under this piece of shelf. My brother said to me: