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Some enterprising prospectors, with eyes wide open to the nature of things, now espied one fine morning the lumps of coal, sticking their black noses up out of the mud. It was a clear case there was a coal mine there! The happy discoverers rushed into town. A company was at once organized under the mining laws of the state of California.
When I had our camp baggage transferred next morning to the wharf, and George and I had arrived there ourselves, we found also waiting for the steamer several prospectors who were going to "The Labrador," as the country is known to the Newfoundlanders, to look for gold, copper, and mica. All of them apparently were dreaming of fabulous wealth.
Only the genii of the hidden earth held the secret; and modern science derides the invisible pixies of superstition, just as these invisible spirits of the earth seem to laugh at man's best efforts to ferret out their secrets. What became of the lucky prospectors? I have talked with some of them on the lower reaches of the Cariboo Road.
Come in here, or I'll send a bullet for your cards. Quick now." Still another delay. The "prospectors" seemed anxious to edge off into deeper darkness. "If ye're not off that horse's back in ten seconds, be jabers, I'll fire, so be lively." And as his excitement rose so did Feeny's Irish. Four five seconds ticked by and still there was no approach.
He knew now why the gold prospectors, who had penetrated into the Musgrave fastnesses in search of the wealth which was reputed to be there, had never returned. Would he ever return, he wondered. The place was haunted by the spirits of the murdered dead, and was guarded by black devils in human form.
A good many prospectors, depending on their black-boys almost entirely, wander from one range of hills to another, dodge here and there for water, keep no count or reckoning, and only return by the help of their guide when the "tucker-bags" are empty; others make a practice of standing two sticks in the ground on camping at night, to remind them of the course they have travelled during the day and must resume in the morning.
The Yuma ferry at that time was operated by a German, thrifty after his kind, and on the lookout for a "good thing." A party of indigent prospectors, returning from the survey of a mine in Mexico, reached the Arizona bank with no money to pay for the crossing, and hit upon the ingenious plan of surveying a town site here and trading lots to the German for a passage.
But the yield was not great and the distant Salmon River mines, their original destination, still awaited them. Winter was approaching. It was now too late in the season to reach the Salmon River mines, five hundred miles across the mountains, and it was four hundred miles to Salt Lake, the nearest supply post; therefore, most of the men joined this little army of prospectors in Montana.
Men in communities employed camp cooks, but most prospectors, ranchers, and cattlemen depended on themselves. There had been times when he himself had been forced to make bread. He had learned that first winter he had spent in Alaska with Weatherbee. At the thought of that experimental mixture, he smiled grimly.
In the beginning there would just be half a dozen or so, but as they reached the next township they would tell where they were bound, and more would join. Passing by boundary riders' and prospectors' huts, they would pick up here and there another red-blood who could not resist the chance of being in a real ding-dong fight.
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