About $500,000 worth of gold was taken out in 1858, but it had cost the miners a good deal more than that in the getting. The next year’s yield was estimated at $1,500,000. This, however, was only a preface to the volume of riches quickly opened to a wondering world. In 1860, a young Nova Scotian named Macdonald, and two Americans named Dietz and Rose, left the Fraser and Thompson rivers behind them in search of virgin gold-fields farther north. In consequence of the discoveries they made, an unknown and uninhabited wilderness of forest and ravine sprang into fame as an Eldorado to which the miners of California and Australia and amateur gold-hunters from all the world were madly rushing. In seven years this Cariboo district, about fifty miles square, yielded gold worth $25,000,000. In one day five men washed $1,200 out of the soil; four men in the same short time got $1,850. An old river bed was found where nuggets could be picked up to the amount of $1,000 per square foot. The mountain lion and grizzly bear looked on in wonder as mushroom towns sprang up in the silent hunting grounds and the rocks re-echoed with the white man’s oath and pistol. Provisions still had to be carried up from the coast on mule-back, and were often intercepted and devoured by miners travelling the same road. In the winter of 1861, flour in Cariboo cost $72 a barrel, and bacon 75 cents a pound. Next year men came in so much faster than meal that the population was brought to the verge of famine. The miners were a rough set for the most part, given to furious gambling on the gold-fields and to excesses of every sort when they returned to the comparative civilization of Victoria or San Francisco. Still, the mining towns had their well-filled reading-rooms, their concerts and debates, and the authority of law was uncommonly well respected. “Gold commissioners” were appointed to deal out justice promptly in every camp, and over this whole system presided a judicial genius whose name was a terror to evildoers. “Old Judge Begbie soon made them understand who was master,” says an old miner. “I saw a fellow named Gilchrist, who had killed two men in California, on trial. He killed a man on Beaver Lake, in the Cariboo country, who was gambling with him. Whilst sitting at the table, a miner came in, threw down his bag of gold, bet an ounce, and won. Gilchrist paid. The man bet again, and won again, flippantly inquiring of the gambler if there was any other game he could play better, as he drew in the stake. Gilchrist took offence at the remark, and, lifting his pistol, shot him dead.