But the Pike's Peak gold rush took me
with it. I could never resist the call of the trail. With another boy
who knew as little of gold-mining as I did we hired out with a
bull-train for Denver, then called Aurora.

We each had fifty dollars when we got to the gold country, and with it
we bought an elaborate outfit. But there was no mining to be done save
by expensive machinery, and we had our labor for our pains. At last,
both of us strapped, we got work as timber cutters, which lasted only
until we found it would take us a week to fell a tree. At last we hired
out once more as bull-whackers. That job we understood, and at it we
earned enough money to take us home.

We hired a carpenter to build us a boat, loaded it with grub and
supplies, and started gayly down the Platte for home. But the bad luck
of that trip held steadily. The boat was overturned in swift and
shallow water, and we were stranded, wet and helpless, on the bank,
many miles from home or anywhere else.

Then a miracle happened. Along the trail we heard the familiar crack of
a bull-whip, and when the train came up we found it was the same with
which we had enlisted for the outward journey, returning to Denver with
mining machinery. Among this machinery was a big steam-boiler, the
first to be taken into Colorado. On the way out the outfit had been
jumped by Indians. The wagon boss, knowing the red man's fear of
cannon, had swung the great boiler around so that it had appeared to
point at them. Never was so big a cannon. Even the 42-centimeter
howitzers of today could not compare with it. The Indians took one look
at it, then departed that part of the country as fast as their ponies
could travel.

We stuck with the train into Denver and back home again, and glad we
were to retire from gold-mining.

Soon after my return to Salt Creek Valley I decided on another and, I
thought, a better way to make a fortune for myself and my family.

During my stay in and about Fort Laramie I had seen much of the Indian
traders, and accompanied them on a number of expeditions. Their
business was to sell to the Indians various things they needed, chiefly
guns and ammunition, and to take in return the current Indian coin,
which consisted of furs.

With the supplies bought by the money I had earned on the trip with
Simpson, mother and my sisters were fairly comfortable. I felt that I
should be able to embark in the fur business on my own account--not as
a trader but as