It takes a great deal of money to work a mine payingly, especially a _quartz_-mine; and often a poor miner is compelled to sell a rich find for very little. Rich companies watch these opportunities, to take the advantage. In the summer-season, when the snows are melted down, parties of one, two, and three persons, with tools and provisions packed on burros,--and sometimes on cattle,--are roaming all through the mountains,--down the slopes and up the gorges, from the pine-forests below to the barren, snow-capped peaks above,--toiling in the day-time and by moonlight, greedy and anxious for gold. There are many inexperienced persons going into the mountains every year to prospect; and though the old miners have many tests and a great knowledge as to the sign of ore, a greenhorn often makes a find in his very tracks; for the old miner passes over, depending greatly on his ability to tell almost at sight, while the greenhorn comes along turning every curious-looking stone and digging wherever anything glitters. The following are a few such instances: In the year 1878 two brothers named Sisson, living at Granada, were at Pueblo court as witnesses. They testified in the forenoon, and taking a pick and shovel, in the afternoon, they started out among the hills toward Pike’s Peak to prospect. When they were four or five miles from town their attention was attracted by the peculiar color of the rocks and gravel on the slope of a little hill; and though they knew nothing whatever about _mining_, they thought there must be metal there. So with pick and shovel they dug away, and by the moonlight they still worked. In the morning they were satisfied that they had struck rich ore, though they had dug but eight feet deep. One of them stayed there and the other went to town to report. That very evening the boys were offered twenty thousand dollars for their find. This place had been trod over many times, and the pick and spade had turned the soil on all the surrounding slopes. One of the best mines at _Leadville_, also, was discovered by a poor, ignorant Swiss, who took his tools on his back, to make or break. Some miners, while prospecting among the hills, were attracted by fresh dirt, and going to the place they found the old Swiss sitting in the bottom of a hole seven or eight feet deep, with his head upon his hands, and so weak that he could hardly stand. He had run out of grub, and, knowing that he had made a find, he was afraid to leave it lest some other person should get _possession_; and thus he was starving to death. This proved to be an immense fortune for the old fellow; and, wiser than _most_ miners, he was content to take good and let better alone; and he sailed for his motherland, where the crystal lakes nestle in the Alpine folds, there to rest and enjoy his treasure.