When we reached Trinidad, the platform was covered with strikers and sympathisers, and many of us got off the cars or went to points of vantage to see the fun. The major commanding the troops detrained his men, and lined them up on the platform. He made a little speech to the strikers and passengers on the platform, saying he had to have the platform clear, and would give so many minutes for every one to clear out; and as he could not distinguish between passengers and strikers, all the former must get back into their cars, or they would be treated as strikers. At the end of the time stated he closed his watch, put it in his pocket, and the fun began. The soldiers, using the butts of their rifles as tampers, went up and down the line dropping them on people’s toes, and the platform was clear in a few minutes. Not a shot was fired, as the strikers knew better than to tackle the regulars, though they outnumbered them ten to one. The next day we went on to Lamy, where I took the train to Santa Fe, and from there on to Espinola. While we were tied up at La Junta, there happened to be a poor woman, wife of one of the strikers, who was travelling on a pass, and in consequence the railway company refused to issue her a meal-ticket, more especially as her husband was one of the strikers living in Trinidad. As soon as the local lodge heard of the matter, and that she was without funds, they took her over to their hall, fed her, and, hiring a buggy, took her overland to Trinidad. The Bucyrus dredging operations turned out a fiasco; for, though the gold is there, and probably millions of it, the sand running from 25 cents to 75 cents per cubic yard, it is fine flake gold, so fine and thin that it just floated on the water over the amalgam tables, and the plates caught nothing. I stayed there about three weeks, and then, being joined by Townsley and Sayers, we went on to San Francisco. There we took boat to Vancouver and on to Golden over the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the trip being well worth many days’ travel; but one may read all this in the guide-books issued by the Canadian Pacific Railway. From Golden we had to make arrangements for pack and riding animals to take us over to the mines, a distance of about eighty-five miles. CHAPTER X Golden—Pack-horse Difficulties—Camping out—Prospecting in British Columbia—On an Asphaltum Mine in Texas. At that time (1894) Golden consisted of three frame hotels, a smelter, post-office, a sawmill, the usual quota of saloons and dance-halls, and probably fifteen houses. Still, all the land was staked out into town lots and streets, and lots were valued at $250 up. I met a friend a short time ago who had just come from there, and he told me it was now a city of about 3000 people. It had three churches, a baseball club, chamber of commerce, mayor, aldermen, and all the appurtenances of civilisation.