The Peril Finders, by George Manville Fenn.
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This is a long and excellent book, though a rare one, and is George
Manville Fenn at his very best. It starts in California, where several
settlers had been trying to gain a living as fruit-growers, but the
various blights and insects were getting the upper hand, and failure was
in the air all round. One day an aged and deranged old prospector comes
there, having walked in from the mountains and salt-plains, many
hundreds of miles away. He has a belt with some excellent samples of
gold, and a story that there are ancient cities out there, where gold is
abundant. He has a few lucid moments just before dying. Some of the
settlers decide that they might as well give up, and go in search of
these gold-mountains and their ancient cities.
The distances are huge. There are episodes with rattle-snakes which are
brilliantly written. Eventually they come to one of these cities,
carved into the rock. They find evidence that the city had been sacked
by invaders, many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years before. But
while they are there they are attacked by a large number of Apaches,
whom eventually they manage to beat off by an ingenious trick. So they
are once again on their travels. They spend several years, but never
manage to find the gold-mountains, though they do find another sacked
city. Eventually they decide that enough is enough, and they make their
way back to their original fruit-farms, where they find all the other
neighbouring settlers gone, but to their surprise they find their own
farms blooming with excellent fruit, natural predators for the blights
and scale-insects having arrived on the scene. So they move back into
their old farm buildings, and carry on their businesses.
There are several adults, all men, in the story, but the principals
are two lads whose fathers are leading the expedition. Another hero is
an American settler, who has great wisdom and character, having much
more experience of the wilderness than any of the others. Other
important characters are the mules that carry their equipment, and also
the extremely important water kegs. The horses are very important, too.
You will love this book, especially if you can make it into an
audiobook, but it will be one of no mean duration.
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THE PERIL FINDERS, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.