They only remained a few days at Denver. After
the life they had been leading they were very speedily
tired of that of the town, and at the end of a week
they started on horseback, with a light waggon drawn
by a good team, to carry their stores for the journey
and to serve as a sleeping-place. There had been
no question about the Indians accompanying them, this
was regarded as a matter of course. It was by
no means a pleasant journey. They had frequent
snow-storms and biting wind, and had sometimes to
work for hours to get the waggon out of deep snow,
which had filled up gullies and converted them into
traps. After a stay of three days at Fort Bridger
to rest the animals, they went on to Utah, having
forwarded the sample of quartz to Pete Hoskings.
A fortnight was spent at Salt Lake City. Waggons,
bullocks, and stores were purchased, and Harry arranged
with some teamsters to bring the waggons out to Fort
Bridger as soon as the snow cleared from the ground.
A FORTUNE
On their return to Fort Bridger Harry and his companions
pounded up the quartz that had been left there, and
found that its average equalled that of the piece
they had tried at the mine. The gold was packed
in a box and sent to Pete Hoskings. A letter
came back in return from him, saying that five of
his friends had put in five thousand dollars each,
and that he should start with the stores and machinery
as soon as the track was clear of snow. The season
was an early one, and in the middle of April he arrived
with four large waggons and twenty active-looking
young emigrants, and four miners, all of whom were
known to Harry. There was a good deal of talk
at Bridger about the expedition, and many offered
to take service in it. But when Harry said that
the lode they were going to prospect was in the heart
of the Ute country, and that he himself had been twice
attacked by the red-skins, the eagerness to accompany
him abated considerably.
The fact, too, that it was a vein that would have
to be worked by machinery, was in itself sufficient
to deter solitary miners from trying to follow it
up. Scarce a miner but had located a score of
claims in different parts of the country, and these
being absolutely useless to them, without capital
to work them with, they would gladly have disposed
of them for a few dollars. It was not, therefore,
worth while to risk a perilous journey merely on the
chance of being able to find another vein in the neighbourhood
of that worked by Harry and the men who had gone into
it with him. There was, however, some surprise
among the old hands when Pete Hoskings arrived with
the waggons.
“What! Have you cut the saloon, Pete, and
are you going in for mining again?” one of them
said as he alighted from his horse.
Pete gave a portentous wink.
“I guess I know what I am doing, Joe Radley.
I am looking after the interests of a few speculators
at Denver, who have an idea that they are going to
get rich all of a sudden. I was sick of the city,
and it just suited me to take a run and to get out
of the place for a few months.”
