Throughout the United States newspapers gave full notice to the new boom, while a "Pike's Peak Guide," based on a journal kept by one of the early parties, found a ready sale. No single movement had ever carried so heavy a migration upon the plains as this, which in one year must have taken nearly 100,000 pioneers to the mountains. "Pike's Peak or Bust!" was a common motto blazoned on their wagon covers. The sawmill, the press, and the stage-coach were all early on the field. Byers, long a great editor in Denver, arrived in April to distribute an edition of his _Rocky Mountain News_, which he had printed on one side before leaving Omaha. Thenceforth the diggings were consistently advertised by a resident enthusiast. Early in May the first coach of the Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express Company brought Henry Villard into Denver. In June came no less a personage than Horace Greeley to see for himself the new wonder. "Mine eyes have never yet been blessed with the sight of any floor whatever in either Denver or Auraria," he could write of the village of huts which he inspected. The seal of approval which his letters set upon the enterprise did much to encourage it. With the rush of prospectors to the hills, numerous new camps quickly appeared. Thirty miles north along the foothills and mesas Boulder marked the exit of a mountain creek upon the plains. Behind Denver, in Clear Creek Valley, were Golden, at the mouth, and Black Hawk and Central City upon the north fork of the stream. Idaho Springs and Georgetown were on its south fork. Here in the Gregory district was the active life of the diggings. The great extent of the gold belt to the southwest was not yet fully known. Farther south was Pueblo, on the Arkansas, and a line of little settlements working up the valley, by Canyon City to Oro, where Leadville now stands. Reaction followed close upon the heels of the boom, beginning its work before the last of the outward bound had reached the diggings. Gold was to be found in trifling quantities in many places, but the mob of inexperienced miners had little chance for fortune. The great deposits, which were some months in being discovered, were in refractory quartz lodes, calling for heavy stamp mills, chemical processes, and, above all, great capital for their working. Even for laborers there was no demand commensurate with the number of the fifty-niners. Hence, more than half of these found their way back to the border before the year was over, bitter, disgusted, and poor, scrawling on deserted wagons, in answer to the outward motto, "Busted! By Gosh!"