in warm weather. They chose a
spot down in the canyon that was high, but still near the stream, and
there built a log shanty to live in while they worked the claim. He wrote
me how they cut the great spruce on the side of the mountain far above
the chosen spot and rolled them in. Dad let them use his team of donkeys
to pack in the necessary lumber and shingles for the 'shack.' Father came
home, and Tad, with some hired help, erected the first log cabin in the
canyon. My, but he was proud of it.

"The next spring saw them at work on the tunnel. I did so hate to let
father go, for I was afraid some harm would befall him; but he reassured
me and seemed so positive that all our future hopes lay hidden in that
hole that I let him go. The first season they went in thirty feet, and
things looked better every foot. It was very hard for him to close up the
hole and come home to his winter's work. His company in Lansing had
inspected the drawings of his proposed machine and had promised him a
goodly sum for the patent if he proved that it would work. The only
question was the securing of the proper ore for flux. I remember his
hopes ran high when one day they came upon a narrow vein of this
necessary flux stone. He was so sure that they would find more, and the
gold, too, that he made plans to build a great reducing plant, using the
falls for motor power. He had it all worked out on paper, even to
details.

"Meanwhile my sister, your Aunt Lucy, and Uncle Joe went West for her
health, and settled in Colorado Springs. Uncle Joe became a real estate
dealer and also interested in mines and mining properties. He was greatly
interested in the tunnel, and predicted great things for its future.
About this time all the land around the canyon, both north and south,
became a part of the Pike's Peak Forest Reserve, so that your father had
to refile on his claim and prove to the land office that he was working a
real mineral vein. In refiling, his claim was not big enough to include
the shanty, but anticipating no trouble on account of it he neglected to
lease his cabin from the Forest Reserve officials. The news leaked out
that gold had been discovered in Cookstove Gulch, and in a few days the
entire stream was staked from one end of the canyon to the other as
placer claims. Of course the cabin site became the property of another
man, and with it the cabin, as it could not be moved. The new owner was a
little, short, pudgy man with an ever