This spot on Clear creek seemed to be the turntable for the gold-seekers. They either went up the mountain to the mines or became discouraged and turned around and went home, and I do not believe that one out of ten ever left the creek to go up the mountain. The way from Clear creek to the mines at Russel's gulch was through the mountains, with nothing but a trail to travel on and the roughest country to try to take wagons over I ever saw. I do not know how many miles it was, but I do remember that we had a hard day's ride from Clear creek to Russel's gulch, and we did not ride a half a mile without seeing more or less wagons that had been left beside the trail, and in many of the broken wagons the outfit that the owner had started with was in the wagon. [Illustration: I bent over him and spoke to him, but he did not answer.] CHAPTER XII. The night we struck the mines, we camped near the head of Russel's gulch. The next morning, after we had eaten our breakfast, we started out to take a look around, and Bridger said, "Where in the name of common sense do these people come from?" For look in any direction we would, there was a bunch of men with pick and shovel slung over their backs, and every little while we came on a bunch of men digging a hold in the ground. Later in the forenoon we went to Green Russel's cabin, he being the man who had discovered the gold in that country. He had never met Uncle Kit before but had heard a great deal about him. When Carson told him his name, he invited us into his cabin. After we had talked with him awhile, he said, "I suppose you all think that I am to blame for all of this excitement, but if you think so, you are mistaken, so I will clear your mind and vindicate myself. A year ago last spring my brother, myself, and five other men came out here to prospect for gold. After we had prospected all over the country, we discovered this gulch, and we struck good pay dirt in the first hole we sank. We fixed up a couple of rockers and went to work, and the first week we took out a hundred dollars to a rocker. I told the boys that this was good enough for me, so each one of us staked off a claim, and to prove that each of us had a good claim, we sank a prospect hole on every claim, and we found that one claim was as good as another. There was only one of the party who had a family, that was my brother, the doctor, and as we all thought that we had a good thing, my brother concluded that he would go home and fix up his affairs this winter and bring his family out here in the spring, and he agreed to keep our finding a secret from everyone but his own family, but it seems that he did not keep his word but spread the news of our luck broadcast as soon as he struck the first white settlement, and the waste and destruction which you saw all along the trail from Clear creek to the gulch are the effects of his folly, although I believe that there are other mines as good as this in other parts of this country, but