United States or Jamaica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One has but to let his imagination run riot for a few moments to see this now deserted camp a scene of the greatest activity. The many shafts and tunnels, dump-piles and prospect-holes show how busy a spot it must have been. The hills about teemed with men.
The men had worked on it, off and on, for years, for the indications had been good. But that was years and years ago. No paying mine had ever been struck in the valley, though there had been no end of prospect-holes put down and there had been a sort of rush there thirty years back. A frail-looking young woman came to the door to call the young man to supper.
The country was pitted with open cuts and shallow prospect-holes, mostly dug to hold down worthless claims; and the second day and the third only served to raise his opinion of the claim that Bunker had showed him. On the fourth day he went back to it and prospected it thoroughly and then he kept on around the shoulder of the hill and entered the country to the north.
No grub meant practically capital punishment, though there was a slim chance, all depending on the season of the year. Having disposed of Arizona Jack and watched him out of sight, the population turned from the bank and went to work on its claims all except Curly Jim, who ran the one faro layout in all the Northland and who speculated in prospect-holes on the sides.
A lean and sunburned crew, they came by saddle-horse and wagon, by thorough-brace Concord stage-coach and by bull team, dribbling into the long, thin valleys which reach northward from the Mexican border to the Gila River. They found such spots as suited them; there they built their cabins, gouged their prospect-holes from the rocky hillsides, and dug the irrigation-ditches for their ranches.
Word Of The Day