The prospector then takes the right-hand gulch and soon finds other pieces of float and knows that he is on the right trail. By and by he finds his quartz vein outcropping, or he has the good luck to uncover it. He examines the rock carefully and obtains some promising specimens and proceeds to test them. In his mortar he grinds the specimens to a fine powder. This powder he roasts in a big iron spoon till it is cherry red. He finds that the ore fuses, indicating a metal of some kind, so he drops a bit of blazing paper into it and notes that the flame burns brighter. That indicates the presence of nitrates and chlorides. Then he takes some of the oxidized ore and puts it into a tin cup and covers it with iodine. After it has stood two or three hours he soaks a piece of filter paper in the solution and sets fire to it. If it gives out a purple color in burning he knows there is gold in it. How much must be determined by assay, but it is encouragement enough to lead him to select the most promising location and stake his claim thereon. Then he loads his burro with specimens of his ore and returns to civilization to seek an assayer. If the assayer finds large proportions of gold in the ore the prospector has little trouble in finding capital to interest itself in his property to the extent of developing it for an interest, and perhaps his fortune is made. On the other hand, the assay may prove unfavorable and show returns so small as to make it unprofitable to mill the ore, and the matter ends there. The prospector then starts out after another will-o'-the-wisp. With many it is a lifelong chase, with a pauper's grave at the end of the course. It is a fascinating life, however, and once a prospector is, in most cases, always a prospector. To some, fortune comes on the brink of the grave, to some never, and now and then the most inexperienced "tenderfoot" stumbles upon wealth at the very outset of his search. There was the notable case of Dave Moffatt. He had no technical knowledge of mining and absolutely no experience. He started out in the hills prospecting and chanced upon a deer's horn lying upon the ground. [Illustration: AN AËRIAL FERRY--PROSPECTORS CROSSING COLORADO RIVER From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.] "That's a sign of good luck," reasoned he, and he fell to digging where had lain the horn. He struck it rich, named his claim the "Deer's Horn," sold out for forty thousand dollars--and got cheated.