NEVER SAY DIE!
Gregory Gulch was now very different in appearance from that same gulch
into which the Extra Limited had entered about a month ago. It resembled
a noisy, booming new town. Almost every foot of lower ground was
occupied. A great deal of the timber had been cut from the ridges and
slopes, to be used in cabins and sluices and for fuel; and the axes were
merrily ringing, in tune with the staccato of hammers and the thud of
picks.
More families had arrived, so that women were frequently seen, and some
of the cabins looked exceedingly "homey." There were many more grocery
stores and general supply stores, in tents or log buildings. Where
Editor William Byers' tent had stood, half-way up the gulch, town lots
for the new Central City had been staked out and were selling as high as
$500 apiece!
Flour was $20 a sack of 100 pounds, eggs were $2.50 a dozen, and milk
fifty cents a quart. But money was very cheap, and prices seemed to cut
little figure, for were not men digging, digging, digging, and emptying
their dirt into rockers, or carrying it in gunny sacks and in sleds
over pine-trunk tracks, to their sluices, and washing out the dust (some
of them) to the amount of $200 a day?
At night the hundreds of camp fires lighted the gulch redly from side to
side; and already there had been a great forest fire, on the new trail
in from the Platte, which had burned to death three men and a dog.
The trail itself was lively, said George, with gold-seekers still
trudging into the mountains, singing, "I'm bound to the land of gold,"
and under Table Mountain had been started, on Clear Creek, a town named
"Golden City." It contained about thirty cabins and nearly a thousand
people, living in the cabins or camping!
And Denver and Auraria were booming, also.
Amidst such apparent prosperity it did seem as though persons anxious to
work could find work that would pay. But the trouble was that Gregory
Gulch had become over-populated. The newcomers asserted that the
old-timers, like the Gregory crowd, had located too much ground, and
that the claims ought to be cut down from one hundred feet to
twenty-five feet, so as to give more people a chance. This movement did
not prove out, because when a miners' meeting was held, to make changes
in the regulations, the old-timers put in their own men as officers and
won.
Consequently, what with the high prices of food and lumber, and the many
claims that yielded scarcely anything, and the constant rush to get
other claims wherever possible, a lot of people were glad to turn their
hands to any kind of work.
Terry and George tramped clear up the gulch, inquiring at sluice and
rocker and prospect hole, and even at tents and cabins.
"Need any help?" Or: "Do you know of a job we can get?" Or: "Could you
use a couple of husky boys around here?"
Some parties were so busy that they only shook their heads, without
pausing. Others directed them on, or to right or left. But after having
volunteered in vain as miners, carpenters, and even as wood-choppers,
they reached the head of the gulch, and turned back.
"Well, guess we'll go down to the other end," sighed Terry.
"This sure is a tough proposition," said George, using professional
language. "Anyway, we've got enough to live on for a day or two, haven't
we? Wonder when Harry'll be back."
"He won't come back till he has Duke; you can depend on that. Maybe he
hasn't money enough."
"He can borrow from the folks."
"He won't, though. He'd rather work and earn some more."
"You can sell your mine, can't you, if you have to?" asked George. "He
said sell it. And we can sell the True Blue. I'd as lief."
"We gave it to Virgie," reminded Terry.
"Aw, she wouldn't care. It's no good, is it? It doesn't own any water."
"Well, 'tisn't as good as the Golden Prize," admitted Terry. "Maybe
we'll sell the Golden Prize and find something better. But I'd like to
wait till Harry comes. I'd hate to sell it to that Pine Knot Ike gang."
"They offered you $100, though, didn't they?"
"Y-yes," admitted Terry. "It's better than nothing, of course."
They two (for Shep had been left to guard the cabin) were retracing
their steps by a slightly different route down the opposite side of the
gulch, so as not to miss any chances, and now came upon the wheel-barrow
man.
"Why, hello, young Pike's Peak Limited," he greeted. "How's the
gold-seeking business?"
"We're not gold-seeking, we're job-seeking," explained Terry. "Do you
know of a job for a couple like us?"
The wheel-barrow man appeared to have packed up. His blanket roll and a
fry-pan and tin cup were laid ready in front of his closed cabin.
"What's the matter? Didn't your prospects pan out?" he queried.
"We haven't any water, so we quit. Then I worked for Pat Casey, and he
quit, and we can't even sell pies," confessed Terry.
"Where's your other partner?"
"He went down to Denver and Auraria, to buy our buffalo back. They're
trying to match Duke against a bear."
"Pshaw! That so? I'm going down to Denver myself, to look about in time
before snow flies. I understand it begins to snow up here in September,
and everybody'll be driven out."
"What'll you do with your mine? You've got one, haven't you?" asked
George.
"Sure pop, young man. And it's recorded, too, on the district books; and
if anybody jumps it while I'm gone there'll be a heap of trouble for
him. It's in black and white, described according to miners' law.
Say--if you boys really want to work, you go on to Gregory Point, near
the mouth of the gulch, and maybe you can get a day's work, or several
days' work, on the new church they're putting up there for a preacher."
"Come on, George," bade Terry. And--"Much obliged," he called back.
"Where's your wheel-barrow?"
"Played out at last. Don't need it, anyway. Can carry all I've got on my
back."
"What's 'recorded'?" queried George, as they hurried off. "Are our
claims recorded?"
"Don't think so," puffed Terry. "Nobody told us to record 'em. They're
ours, and we've been sitting on them right alone. I'll ask Harry when he
comes back."
"Or we can ask Pat Casey," proposed George.
They did not find Pat. His pit was idle and he was away--hunting
witnesses to the sale by which he had bought the prospect. But they
found the church, or rather the site of the church, on Gregory Point, as
that was called, near the mouth of the gulch. Already a platform like a
floor had been constructed; several men were busy hauling logs and
leveling the ground with spades for another building; and the Yale
preacher from the True Blue claim had his sleeves rolled up and was
working with the rest. It was to be his church!
He warmly welcomed Terry, and shook hands with George also.
"Yes, indeed; plenty of work here," he jubilated--and Terry's heart beat
expectantly. "We need strong arms. Bring along ax and spade, and pitch
in. But," he added, "everything is donated, of course. The labor,
material, ground--all is a gift to help the good cause. The people in
the gulch are mighty generous, and their payment will come in this
opportunity regularly to worship God instead of always worshipping gold.
They can't live in a civilized fashion without a church. So the quicker
we have such a place, the better. What do you say? Want to help?"
Terry looked at George; George looked at Terry.
"I'd rather do that than do nothing," blurted George. "Only----"
"So would I," answered Terry. "But you see," he said, to the preacher,
"those claims have played out----"
"That's too bad," sympathized the preacher. "Both of them?"
"Yes, sir. We can't mine 'em till we have water. The water's gone. And
our jobs busted, and I reckon we'll have to earn our keep. But we'd as
lief help here till we strike another job."
"All right. Bully for you! To work once in a while for something besides
money never hurts anybody," assured the preacher. "I have to do a lot of
that myself. Bring down your tools whenever you feel like it. I expect
some of the men will be working here all night because they can't spare
the time during the day. We're going to finish the church and my cabin
before Sunday. But maybe you'd rather wait till morning. It's nearly
supper time now. Come after supper, though, to the prayer-meeting. We
hold the first prayer-meeting, around this platform. And I'll want you
to join the Sunday-school."
They left the enthusiastic preacher and his volunteers building the
first church in the diggin's.
"Might as well go home, I guess," remarked Terry.
Twilight was empurpling the hills when they arrived. This had been a
lively day, but not a very successful one.
"Anyway, we've got enough to eat," quoth George. "And if we work on the
church that may lead to something else. We'll keep busy."
"Sure," agreed Terry. "Keep a-going, as Harry said, all the way out.
Keep a-going."
By the time that they had finished supper and washed the dishes the
gulch was again redly outlined by the hundred camp fires. The sounds of
axes and picks and saws had ceased, and there arose the hum of
conversation, broken by shouts and laughs and occasional bits of music.
As they stumped along their way to the prayer-meeting (which was quite
an event) they passed a tent where somebody was playing the violin--and
farther on, in a cabin, a group of men were singing "Home, Sweet Home,"
to the tune of an accordian.
The prayer-meeting was being held, sure enough. There on the point was
the platform, lighted by torches and surrounded by a throng of people
sitting on the ground and stumps and boxes and logs, listening to the
preacher. Or--no!
"That's the Lord's Prayer! They're all saying the Lord's Prayer!"
uttered George, awed.
So they were--or at least from this distance the cadence sounded like
the Lord's Prayer, repeated in unison by those whiskered men of flannel
shirts and high boots and revolvers and by the tanned women in shabby
calico dresses. A great sight that was--and a very good sound, for these
parts or any parts.
"There's another meeting!" whispered Terry, for he did not feel like
speaking aloud when the Lord's Prayer was being recited. "Haven't got
two preachers, have we?"
For just below the prayer-meeting a man was standing in an open wagon
and addressing another crowd. He was talking fast, the listeners jostled
and craned, and the flare of the pitch-pine torch planted on the wagon
lighted their hairy, up-turned faces.
"We'll have to go and see," uttered George; who, as a tenderfoot, was
eager to see everything.
Presently the words of the man in the wagon-box could be heard above the
refrain of the Lord's Prayer around the platform. He was somebody whom
Terry never had noticed before in the gulch--a thin, slab-sided man with
carroty hair and beard and dressed in prospector's clothes; wore a
revolver; no preacher, he. Certainly not, for----
"Yes, gentlemen," he was saying, "not more'n fifty miles from here
there's a place where every one o' you can wash your pound o' gold dust
to a man per day. Me and my partners are the first white men in there;
we've made our locations and our laws and have started a new camp
that'll be a world-beater. Tarryall, we've named it; in the big South
Park: the best and richest country on the face o' the earth. As soon as
I get provisions here I'm goin' back in, and I'll take any o' you who
want to go with me, on the understandin' you'll respect our rights as
first locators. There's plenty room, gentlemen--and a pound o' gold a
day per man waitin' to be dug. It's yours, gentlemen, if you want it.
We'll welcome you to Tarryall. Only fifty miles to fortune, remember.
I'll show you the way, but I start early in the mornin'."
The crowd jostled excitedly. On the outskirts George clutched Terry hard
by the sleeve.
"Let's go!" he exclaimed. "Did you hear? A pound a day! That beats these
diggin's. Cracky! I knew there was some place where a fellow could dig
his pound a day. We can go and make our strike, and then 'twon't matter
whether we sell these claims in here or not."
"All right; let's," agreed Terry, fired with the same idea. "We'll
locate for ourselves and Harry, too; or if they won't allow boys to
locate in their own names we'll locate in Harry's name and my dad's and
your dad's! Harry'd never go to any of those other big strikes--the
Bobtail, or the one in Russell Gulch, or a lot more. We've stuck here,
when we might have been getting rich somewhere else."
"Come on back to the cabin and pack up," urged George.
They turned, when a voice at their elbow stayed them.
"Got the fever again, have you?"
He was the "Root Hog or Die" professor.
"Guess so," grinned Terry. "You've been away, haven't you? Did Green
Russell find you a mine? Do you know that man in the wagon? Has he made
a big strike?"
"Never saw him before and don't know anything about him," answered the
professor. "Yes, I've got a few prospects, but I'm holding them for more
water. Just now I'm recorder for this district. They elected me only the
other day. How are you doing? Where's Harry?"
"We're waiting for water, too. He's down at Denver, but he's coming
back. Will you record our claims? Do we have to record them?"
"No, you don't have to. It might be safer, though. But I can't record
them tonight. The books are locked up. What are they?"
"The Golden Prize and the True Blue. They're over there."
"I know. You look me up at the office first thing in the morning and
we'll record them."
"We won't have time. We're going to follow that man in the wagon to the
new strike," explained Terry. "Nobody'd said anything about recording
until this evening. But we'll be back."
"Well, I'll make a memorandum, then," proposed the professor, "so you'll
be safer. Nobody's liable to jump your claims while you're gone, if they
can't be worked. The gulch is full of such claims. But you look me up
as soon as you can."
"All right. Much obliged," replied Terry. "Maybe we won't want those
claims after we've been to the new strike."
"We'd better be going. We've got to find Jenny and pack our stuff,"
urged George, impatient.
"Good luck to you," called the professor, as they hastened away.
"I'd like to surprise Harry with a regular gold mine, by the time he
sees us again," uttered Terry.
"Sure. We'll leave a note in the cabin saying we've gone to get rich,"
enthused George.