The great Pike's Peak rush : $b or, Terry in the new gold fieldsSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
General
The great Pike's Peak rush : $b or, Terry in the new gold fields
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Gold mines and mining -- Fiction; Pikes Peak (Colo.) -- Fiction; Western stories
"You can shout there's a knack, Mister," agreed the other flap-jack
performer, who now had stepped over to watch. "You'll not be a true
miner till you can toss a flap-jack up the cabin chimbley an' ketch it
again outside, turned over. Where you boys from?"
"Blue River Valley, Kansas. We were the Pike's Peak Limited; now we're
the Extra Limited," explained Harry.
"The Russell brothers are somewhar in this hyar procession, aren't
they?"
"Are they? All of them?"
"So I heard tell. They left Aurary today, for the new diggin's."
"Are the Gregory diggin's full of gold?" eagerly invited Terry.
"Mebbe so, for people who know how to find it. Trouble is, this
country's fuller of people who don't know how to find it."
He went back to his own fire. Harry turned the rest of the flap-jacks
with a knife, and they were very good. He really had become an excellent
camp cook.
"Jiminy! Wish we could see Sol Judy at the diggin's," voiced Terry. "He
knows all about gold. He was in California."
"Yes, Sol knows gold, and I have an idea we don't," answered Harry, with
sober reflection.
"I suppose when we see something yellow we'll save it," hazarded Terry,
more hopefully.
Forward, march, with morning light, to Gregory Gulch! Clear Creek had to
be forded; and while, soaked to the knees, they trudged on behind the
shambling Jenny, and Terry was wondering how they were to climb Table
Mountain, the trail left the creek, veered to the right, and traversed a
deep narrow gulch whose rocky bottom, scored by wagon-tires, made rough
going.
"Great Cæsar's ghost!" uttered Harry, as they rounded a shoulder.
High above them, before, was a portion of the procession: wagons,
animals, and people, far aloft, zig-zagging up a mountainside by another
trail (or was it the same trail?), clinging for footholds and every now
and then pausing as if to breathe.
Several of the wagons were drawn by eight and ten yoke of oxen; several
of the wagons with one and two yoke were apparently stuck fast; teams
and people alike--particularly the pack animals and the people carrying
packs--seemed to be having all they could do to advance yard by yard.
Wagons also were descending, and raising immense clouds of dust.
"Do we go up there?" protested Terry.
"I guess," decided Harry, "that's where Jenny props herself with her
ears."
Yes, the start of the climb was only a short distance ahead. The canyon
almost closed, and at a sharp angle the trail zigzagged right up the
steep flank of the mountain--not Table Mountain, but another, higher.
Jenny pricked forward her long ears, in inquiring fashion, and halted of
her own accord to survey. Here at the base of the mountain other outfits
likewise had halted: wagons unloading, or waiting for teams to return
and help them up; pack animals having their packs readjusted; foot
travelers sitting and resting while gazing upward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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