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Updated: October 11, 2025
"That'll take a week!" cried Johnny impatiently. "Or more," agreed Bagsby with entire complacence. "You can bull at it and go to t'aring up the scenery if you want to; but you won't last long." Unpalatable as this advice seemed, with all the loose gold lying about, we ended by adopting it. Indeed, we added slightly to our self-imposed tasks by determining on the construction of cradles.
It was as though we awakened to a new world, untrodden by men; which was, indeed, a good deal the case. While we ate breakfast we discussed our plans. The first necessity, of course, was to find out about gold. To that end we agreed to separate for the day, prospecting far and wide. Bagsby kept camp, and an eye on the horses.
We did no more washing that day. About five o'clock our hunters came in with the best meat of a blacktail deer. Bagsby listened attentively to our account of the interview. Then he took a hindquarter of the newly killed buck and departed for the Indians' camp, where he stayed for an hour. "I don't think they are out for meanness," he announced when he returned.
"Good deal like the foothills of th' Snake Range, pop," put in President Tyler Pine. "We been riding purty nigh every minute sence we left here," agreed Bagsby. "That rancheree was hard to find." Little by little the tale developed. No one man, in the presence of all the others, felt like telling us the whole story.
We fell into our old routine, and laughed at Bagsby when he shook his head. About this time Johnny and McNally, scrambling of a Sunday for the sake of a view, stumbled on a small ravine that came nearer realizing our hoped-for strike than anything we had yet seen. After "puddling out" a few potfuls of the pay dirt, we decided to move the cradles.
The Englishman living in a country where the lawyers are more astute than any other lawyers in the world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsby, of Lyon's Inn; whose name, as we cannot find it in the "Law List," we presume to be fictitious. Who could it be that was a match for the devil?
"There's a strong chance that Injuns will drift by and take all our supplies," Bagsby pointed out. "Chances are slim in only a day or so; you must admit that," argued Johnny. "Let's risk it. We can scratch along if they do take our stuff." "And the gold?" That nonplussed us for a moment. "Why not bury it?" I suggested. Bagsby and Pine snorted. "Any Injun would find it in a minute," said Pine.
"Well," said Bagsby philosophically, "that's all right. We've just got to go higher. To-morrow we'll move upstream." Accordingly next day we turned at right angles to our former route and followed up the bed of the cañon ten or twelve miles toward the distant main ranges. It was, in general, rather hard scrabbling for the horses, though we footmen did well enough.
We used to look up from our diggings at the procession of these sad-faced, lean men walking by their emaciated cattle, and the women peering from the wagons, and be very thankful that we had decided against the much-touted overland route. One day, however, an outfit went through of quite a different character. We were apprised of its approach by a hunter named Bagsby.
Our restlessness was further increased by the fact that we were now seeing a good deal of Sam Bagsby, the hunter. He and Yank had found much in common, and forgathered of evenings before our campfire. Bagsby was a man of over fifty, tall and straight as a youngster, with a short white beard, a gray eye, and hard, tanned flesh.
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