In front of the tent flaps, and in the cabin doorways, men in boots, with trousers tucked in, and in flannel shirts, red or blue, were sitting, gazing abroad, but none of these was Sol. Further along, the road took on the semblance of a street--thronged with emigrants; booted, whiskered men in their flannel shirts, and wearing revolvers; Indians, Mexicans, oxen, and dogs. "I don't see Sol, though," commented Terry, searching about among those faces, every one of which was strange to him. "No, but I see plenty of men with buckskin patches on their breeches," answered Harry. "They're the old-timers, I reckon. Wonder if the name of any of 'em is Russell." The passage of the half-buffalo and the yellow mule hitched tandem attracted considerable attention, and a volley of bantering remarks. But a chorus of whoops and a general rush made Harry and Terry glance behind. "A stage is coming. We'd better get out of the way, hadn't we?" suggested Terry. "Right-o!" And Harry, driving, drew aside to a clear place opposite a long one-story canvas-roofed log building which announced: "Denver House." This was the hotel. The stage jingled up; and while the passengers piled out was surrounded by a jostling crowd of whiskered, red-shirted and blue-shirted and buckskin-shirted (as well as buckskin-patched) residents. As it rolled away again, to put up for the night, Terry heard himself and Harry hailed by a familiar voice, at last. "Well, I declare! Got through, did you--buffalo and mule and dog and all! What kind of a trip did you have?" CHAPTER IX NOW WHERE IS THE "ELEPHANT"? It was Journalist Villard, tanned and whiskered, and already booted and shirted and armed like the rest of the inhabitants. He shook hands vigorously with them. "Pretty fair," replied Harry. "We've just got in. You seem to be the only person we know here." "I won't be that only person long," laughed Mr. Villard. "The ends of the world are gathering here at the rate of a thousand a day. Why, by that very stage arrived a banker I used to know well in Cincinnati, and another friend at whose house in New York I've often eaten dinner. But the reason I met the stage was that I rather expected to find in it Horace Greeley and A. D. Richardson. They're on the way." "Not Horace Greeley of the New York _Tribune_?" queried Harry, as if astonished. "Yes; that's the Greeley. Mr. Richardson represents the Boston _Journal_ and some other Eastern papers. All we newspaper fellows will write the truth about the gold fields." "How near is the gold?" eagerly asked Terry. "Can you show us where to dig? Have you dug?" "Not very much. Not for a dollar and a half a day--and that's the most anybody is getting hereabouts. The whole creek bed is being turned upside down. But you see that line of pilgrims trailing out into the mountains, west across the Platte?" "Yes."