Zachary's Gold Read Online Free PDF

conversation with a trio of fellows, as yet with no claim of their own, who were squatting in an unused cabin down the creek and hoping that the owner would not reappear before the first of June, so they could take over his workings. We drank a glass of beer together and they invited me to their temporary dwelling, where I spent a more comfortable night than in my usual home under the grocer’s floorboards.
    That night, I did an unusual thing among miners, for I told them the truth about my own endeavours, although I did not name the location, of course, only that it was some distance to the north and east. They told me with the confidence of the well-travelled and experienced that I had no hope whatsoever. By now I was feeling much more confident of my surroundings, though. I had heard a few local stories myself, and I countered with the remark that before Billy Barker and John A. Cameron had the audacity to search downstream, no one believed for a minute that gold existed on Williams Creek below the canyon. This, of course, was quite true. For that matter, several years went by when local miners never bothered to venture deeper than the blue clay layer they encountered at about fifteen feet, supposing it to be a solid bedrock. Then one day on the Abbott and Jourdan claim, while Jourdan was travelling for supplies, Abbott dug beneath, and had three thousand dollars in gold to show his partner two days later.
    These stories seemed marvellous and the figures astronomical at the time. I was not the sort to even dream that one day soon I would experience such things as would make them all seem pale.
    The trio had their own set of stories, statistics, and superstitions, and we talked long into the night. I enjoyed the conversation so much that I had half decided to spend another day with my new-found companions, until one of them happened to mention that an acquaintance of theirs had been suffering from stomach cramps for two days, and there was a possibility that it was influenza.
    I was on the path out of town down Conklin Gulch within the hour. I would take no risk with any form of sickness while I was living alone in the cold and damp, and a town overcrowded with unwashed peasants was an invitation to disease. Who could say what sort of poisonous vapours were filtering up from those honeycombs of shaftwork?
    On my return to Binder Creek, as I cut across the back side of the Chinamen’s claims, I noticed a minor change in the laying out of things. One of them had left the others and had laid stakes at a new location, closer to my own area of exploration. Whether he had a falling out with his partners or was simply taking their interests to a new locale I didn’t know, but I decided to monitor the situation closely, as I had not yet done my own pounding and paperwork, and did not intend to hurry unless forced to. My hope was that either the Negro barber was very selective in giving out his recommendations or that no one but myself would put stock in his words.
    I have never led an easy life, but those six weeks rank as the hardest I have ever spent. I panned the gravel every twenty feet or so, washing away what seemed like tons of mud in the freezing water until I thought my hands would never melt and my knees never straighten. Each result was carefully plotted on my tattered map. At a half-dozen promising spots, I went deeper into the ground, panning out the muck from the pit, level by level, and analyzing my finds. It was back-breaking work, and though my little poke of dust and nuggets was beginning to swell a certain amount, it was scarcely enough to light the fires of excitement I needed to keep me warm and full of steam.
    In addition to the toil of prospecting, I had to put in some long hours of other work to maintain my survival. Wood had to be chopped, game had to be shot if I wished to eat meat, and planks had to be laboriously sawed from green timber if I meant to build implements such as sluice boxes or a