sat heavily
upon him and his hands were lax with weariness.

"I was a fool to let Maggie go off with that ore," he muttered, his mind
following the widow in her perilous journey down the gulch. He did not
distrust her; he only feared her ability to override the difficulties of
her mission. For the best part of his life he had sought the metal
beneath his feet, and, now that he had found it, his blood ran cold with
suspicion and fear.

Daylight brought a comparative sense of safety, and, building a fire, he
cooked his breakfast in peace--though his eyes were restless. "Oh,
they'll come," he said, aloud. "They'll boil in here on me in another
hour or two."

And they did. The men from Delaney came first, followed a little later
by their partners from the high gulches, and after them the genuine
stampeders. The merchants, clerks, hired hands, barbers, hostlers, and
half-starved lawyers from the valley towns came pouring up the trail
and, pausing just long enough to see the shine of gold in Bidwell's
dump, flung themselves upon the land, seizing the first unclaimed
contiguous claim without regard to its character or formation. Their
stakes once set, they began to roam, pawing at the earth like
prairie-dogs and quite as ineffectually. Swarms of the most curious
surrounded Bidwell's hole in the ground, picking at the ore and flooding
the air with shouts and questions till the old man in desperation
ordered them off his premises and set up a notice:

"Keep off this ground or meet trouble!"

To his friends he explained, "Every piece of rock they carry off is
worth so much money."

"Ye've enough here to buy the warrld, mon," protested Angus Craig, an
old miner from the north.

"I don't know whether I have or not," said Bidwell. "It may be just a
little spatter of gold."

That night the whole range of foot-hills was noisy with voices and
sparkling with camp-fires. From the treeless valleys below these lights
could be seen, and the heavily laden trains of the San Luis
Accommodation trailed a loud hallelujah as the incoming prospectors
lifted their voices in joyous greeting to those on the mountainside.

"It's another Cripple Creek!" one man shouted, and the cry struck home.
"We're in on it," they all exulted.

Bidwell did not underestimate his importance in this rush of
gold-frenzied men. He was appalled by the depth and power of the streams
centering upon him. For weeks he had toiled to the full stretch of his
power