High above them, before, was a portion of the procession: wagons, animals, and people, far aloft, zig-zagging up a mountainside by another trail (or was it the same trail?), clinging for footholds and every now and then pausing as if to breathe.
Several of the wagons were drawn by eight and ten yoke of oxen; several of the wagons with one and two yoke were apparently stuck fast; teams and people alike--particularly the pack animals and the people carrying packs--seemed to be having all they could do to advance yard by yard.
Wagons also were descending, and raising immense clouds of dust.
"Do we go up there?" protested Terry.
"I guess," decided Harry, "that"s where Jenny props herself with her ears."
Yes, the start of the climb was only a short distance ahead. The canyon almost closed, and at a sharp angle the trail zigzagged right up the steep flank of the mountain--not Table Mountain, but another, higher.
Jenny p.r.i.c.ked forward her long ears, in inquiring fashion, and halted of her own accord to survey. Here at the base of the mountain other outfits likewise had halted: wagons unloading, or waiting for teams to return and help them up; pack animals having their packs readjusted; foot travelers sitting and resting while gazing upward.
The wagons descending were dragging behind them huge boughs, as brakes.
These boughs raised the dust. From the zigzag the grinding of iron tires, the popping of whips and the shouting of drivers echoed incessantly.
Along the line in the canyon welled a cheer; and accompanying it there forged past, for the climb, a large party who must have numbered one hundred and fifty, mostly men. They were well equipped with horses, oxen, wagons and pack mules. Two men rode confidently in the lead. One was Captain William Green Russell; the other looked a little like him, but had whiskers that flowed down upon his chest. A third man, who looked a little like both, but whose whiskers flowed clear to his saddle-horn, brought up the rear.
"The Russells!"
"Those are the Russell brothers and their party!"
The man who rode beside Captain Green Russell was said to be Dr. Levi J.
Russell. The long-whiskered man at the rear was the other brother, J.
Oliver Russell.
On and up toiled the Russell company, bound for the Gregory diggin"s; and encouraged by the sight, the halted procession bestirred to follow.
"Jenny," appealed Harry, "are you good for it, if Terry and I shove?"
CHAPTER XI
RICH AT LAST!
Up, up, up, with Jenny digging in her toes, snorting and puffing and picking her way over the roughness of the worn rocks. Occasionally there was a brief level spot where one might stop and pant and rest. Indeed, this was a hard trail for anybody, man or beast, and Terry felt considerable sympathy for the laboring ox-teams and the straining horses that drew the jolting, groaning wagons.
The outfits descending seemed to have almost as difficult a time, for the wagons, their heavy brake-shoes smoking and their boughs dragged behind, enveloping them in dust, threatened to run over the teams.
But it was a stirring scene, although whether any of the people coming down were bringing gold could not be learned amidst such racket and confusion.
Part way up another friend was encountered. He was the wheel-barrow man, halted to breathe so as to be able to push his barrow to the next resting place.
"Tough sledding," he wheezed, as he sat upon his barrow handles and wiped his brow with a bandanna handkerchief. "Wust yet, but I"m bound to get there."
They left the wheel-barrow man behind. At every turn they expected to see the summit beyond, but the climb required over an hour and a half of steady work.
Here, on the top, they were high above Table Mountain.
"Whew!" gasped Harry. The top was flat, and they drew aside, while they rested. Everybody halted here to rest. It was a fine view. Down below, whence they had come, was the trail, with other outfits zig-zagging up; and farther was the trail along Clear Creek, and farther, the Platte River; and farther, the plains, and Cherry Creek, and Denver and Auraria, all wonderfully sharp in the perfectly transparent air. The people at the foot of the trail and beyond looked like pigmies, and the wagons like toys.
Before, the trail stretched across the mountain top and appeared to aim straight into a tremendous wild country of much higher mountains, timbered with evergreens and capped with snow.
The gold-seeker companies were again starting on.
"Do we reach Gregory gulch today?" inquired Harry, of a returning party.
"No, sir; not by a long shot. "Tisn"t any use, anyhow. Every foot of ground is taken up. There are two thousand people in that gulch already, and the same in the other gulches. The Gregory folks have the best claims. Nothing left for us later comers."
The trail continued to follow a high ridge, amidst pines and bright flowers and gra.s.s; crossed icy cold streams where the ridge dipped; and by night had arrived nowhere in particular. So camp was made, the pleasantest camp of the whole trip from the Big Blue valley, because the air was so fresh and pure, and the water and wood abundant, and the gra.s.s so sweet for Jenny.
"I reckon we"re getting into the Promised Land," hazarded one of the Extra Limited"s neighbors.
The next noon the mountain divide seemed to have been crossed; for at one side, far down, was Clear Creek again, like a silver thread traversing a dark seam that was a canyon. About two miles ahead it divided, and over the north branch hung a thin bluish film of smoke. The sounds of ax and hammer and ringing pick--yes, the faint sound of voices--drifted up.
Gregory Gulch? That must be it, under the smoke, for the procession was hastening, and presently down, down, down they all plunged, for the bottom where the north branch of the creek glimmered. This trail was as steep as the zigzag trail on the east slope. The wagons used boughs as drags; oxen and horses held back hard; and Jenny, bracing her forefeet, slid and pitched and grunted. Faster and faster they all moved--could not stop--until in twenty minutes they fairly tumbled, one after another, into the water and the mouth of Gregory Gulch!
"Well, I should say she was crowded!" exclaimed Harry.
He and Terry gazed, consternated. Gregory Gulch extended westward from the North Clear Creek; it was narrow and quite long, and all up and down the creek and as far as eye could see up the gulch, people were swarming like bees, while the newly arrived gold-seekers looked on, bewildered.
Tents had been erected, cabins were rising, bough lean-tos served as other shelters; men were feverishly delving with spades, washing out the dirt in their pans, or dumping dirt and water into wooden boxes that rocked like cradles; and other men were searching the bottoms and slopes for vacant spots and there hurriedly driving in stakes. A few women were in sight--one woman was helping her husband dig; several were sitting in doorways or trying to tidy their premises.
No wonder that the newly arrived people were bewildered. Some grew gloomy at once and discouraged, but some waxed the more excited.
"First thing is to find a camping spot," proposed Harry, briskly. "And then to find our mine."
"How"ll we find it?" asked Terry. "Where is the gold? I don"t see any."
"This is Gregory gulch, is it?" queried Harry, of the nearest miner--a red-headed, red-stubbled little man squatting in mud to his ankles beside a trickling stream, and twirling a gold-pan. He was muddied all over his tattered trousers and red shirt, and also to his elbows.
"It is; at laste it"s the Gregory diggin"s." He spoke with a strong Irish brogue.
"Have you found lots of gold?" invited Terry.
"Oi? Not a cint, b"gorry--an" here"s another empty pan." As if in disgust the little man straightened up and surveyed them. "But that"s not sayin" Oi won"t. Oi"ve got a foine claim right under me feet. Did yez jist get in? Would yez like to buy a nice claim?" He eyed them shrewdly with his twinkling eyes set in his grimy, sweaty face.
"Not yet, thank you," responded Harry. "Where"s the gold?"
"Gold? Faith, all yez got to do is foind it. Sure, ain"t it here in Gregory gulch, an" don"t yez see all the people diggin"? Didn"t Gregory an" five men take out $972 in wan week from their vein, an" afterward sell for $2,100 an" lend the men who bought it $200 so they could go ahead?"
"Where are they? Where is that vein?"
"Up yonder on the side o" the gulch; but yez can"t get annywhere near it, for the people an" the stakes. They don"t want visitors. Jist drive your stakes where yez can, an" begin work. My name"s Pat Casey. What might yez be called?"
They told him.