him, but he did not answer.]

CHAPTER XII.

The night we struck the mines, we camped near the head of Russel's
gulch. The next morning, after we had eaten our breakfast, we started
out to take a look around, and Bridger said, "Where in the name of
common sense do these people come from?" For look in any direction we
would, there was a bunch of men with pick and shovel slung over their
backs, and every little while we came on a bunch of men digging a hold
in the ground.

Later in the forenoon we went to Green Russel's cabin, he being the man
who had discovered the gold in that country. He had never met Uncle Kit
before but had heard a great deal about him. When Carson told him his
name, he invited us into his cabin. After we had talked with him awhile,
he said, "I suppose you all think that I am to blame for all of this
excitement, but if you think so, you are mistaken, so I will clear your
mind and vindicate myself. A year ago last spring my brother, myself,
and five other men came out here to prospect for gold. After we had
prospected all over the country, we discovered this gulch, and we struck
good pay dirt in the first hole we sank. We fixed up a couple of rockers
and went to work, and the first week we took out a hundred dollars to a
rocker. I told the boys that this was good enough for me, so each one of
us staked off a claim, and to prove that each of us had a good claim, we
sank a prospect hole on every claim, and we found that one claim was as
good as another. There was only one of the party who had a family, that
was my brother, the doctor, and as we all thought that we had a good
thing, my brother concluded that he would go home and fix up his affairs
this winter and bring his family out here in the spring, and he agreed
to keep our finding a secret from everyone but his own family, but it
seems that he did not keep his word but spread the news of our luck
broadcast as soon as he struck the first white settlement, and the waste
and destruction which you saw all along the trail from Clear creek to
the gulch are the effects of his folly, although I believe that there
are other mines as good as this in other parts of this country, but
mining for gold is like other kinds of business. Only one man out of a
hundred makes a success out of it."

The next day we were looking around, and we came upon two young men who
said they were brothers, and they were so excited when we came near them
that they could scarc