The Pike's Peak Rush Part 29

"Wonder what he wanted of this," mused Harry. "It doesn't look any different from lots of the other rock. White quartz, I reckon, with iron rust in it. We could have given him a bushel of the same. He didn't find it lying loose, though. He cracked it off from somewhere. That's a fresh break."

They searched about curiously a minute for the source of the fragment.

It was a smooth k.n.o.b, the size of a large walnut, showing rusty white at the fracture.

"We can't wash rock, anyhow," quoth Terry. "It just clogs up the sluice.

We wash the dirt."

"And we can't wash even that now. It seems queer, though, that that outfit would want to buy this claim after saying it's worthless. You didn't want to sell, did you?"

"No," stoutly declared Terry. "Not unless we have to, to pay dad back."

"Not as long as we can sell pies and make day wages, at any rate," added Harry. "There are just as good ways of getting money as digging it out the ground. If those fellows bother us we've tricks for all their legs as fast as they bring 'em over." He stuffed the piece of rock into his pocket. "I'll keep this for luck," he said.

Harry alertly started in on preparations for his pie-baking; he had hopes of enlisting other customers than Pat. Terry shouldered spade and pick, and trudged off to help Pat.

He found Pat much excited.

"Have ye heard the grand news? No? Why, sure, the great editor man, Horace Grayley, be comin' to the diggin's! He's on his way already--him an' other cilibrated citizens all the way from New York. The boys are arrangin' a rayciption for 'em tomorrow; an' b' gorry, 'tis mesilf will have the honor o' lettin' the great Grayley, who be the editor o' the New York _Tribyune_, wash the gold with his own hands from this very pit. Faith, if Oi don't make his pans rich for him my name's not Pat Casey."

When that evening Terry, wet and dirty and tired, went home, the word of the approach of Editor Horace Greeley and party had aroused much interest through the gulch.

He found everything ship-shape but quiet at the cabin, where Harry had baked several pies and a batch of bread and hung out some washing. A sign, of wrapping paper and charcoal lettering, now announced:

GREGORY GULCH BAKERY Apple Pie Bread, Etc.

HARRY REVERE & CO.

CHAPTER XV

HORACE GREELEY COMES TO TOWN

The Horace Greeley party arrived early the next morning, and breakfasted at the lower end of the gulch before proceeding upon an inspection of the diggin's. Their visit was deemed of the utmost importance, for, as Pat explained to Terry, they were here to see the gold with their own eyes and handle it with their own fingers, so as to print the truth in the New York "_Tribyune_."

Sure, whatever Horace Greeley said, the people would believe.

In order to make certain that the report would be a good one, it had been arranged to pilot Mr. Greeley to the richest of the claims, and invite him to wash from these for himself. Pat's was the lowest down and therefore the first--and now Pat seemed to think that the reputation of the gulch rested on his shoulders.

He had donned a fresh shirt, ahead of time, and evidently had tried to slick up generally. The water had been turned off from the sluice as if in preparation for a postponed clean-up.

"Take it 'asy," directed Pat, when Terry, having delivered the two pies contracted for, was about to spring into the pit and begin the business of the day. "Let the sluice be, so His Honor can clane up some o' the riffles by himself. An' we'll jist be loosenin' the dirt a bit here an'

yon, for the sake o' keepin' busy an' makin' the place convanyent for him."

In fact, Pat was so particular in "jist loosenin' the dirt a bit" that Terry suspected him of not wishing to soil his shirt.

"Well, I'm thinkin' they're comin'," p.r.o.nounced Pat. "Out o' the pit with ye an' wash your hands an' face so ye'll be a credit to the gulch.

Sure, ye might have put on a clane shirt yourself--but mebbe 'tis better wan of us looks like a hard worker."

Terry had a notion to retort that probably Harry was wearing the clean shirt; they had only three shirts for the two of them, and the extra ought to go to the cook, of course.

All around, the other miners were unusually busy, so as to impress the great Horace Greeley, but they kept an eye directed down the gulch. Now a party, on muleback, were drawing near. They numbered half a dozen, conducted by John Gregory himself, and a little squad of onlookers trailed behind.

Occasionally they stopped, to survey operations; Pat, pretending to dig, awaited nervously.

"Mind ye, let me do the talkin'," he cautioned, to Terry. "An' be polite to His Honor, yourself. He's a great man. An' in case Oi ask ye to dig, take your dirt careless loike from the corner beside that white rock, for the rock's a lucky stone."

The party halted at Pat's pit and gazed in, and Pat and Terry, pausing in their show of work, looked up. Besides John Gregory, there were in the party Green Russell and Mr. Williams, the stage company superintendent, and Editor William Byers of the _Rocky Mountain News_, and--yes, Mr. Villard, the Cincinnati reporter.

Terry did not know whether Mr. Villard would remember him, or recognize him, anyway, in those clothes, which were much worse than when worn in Denver.

"This is one of our promising gulch claims," was saying John Gregory.

And--"Good morning to you, Pat," he addressed. "How are things looking with you today?"

"Foine, thank ye, John," a.s.sured Pat.

"Come out a minute, Pat. Mr. Greeley, I want to make you acquainted with Mr. Casey, a leading citizen of the Gulch. And Mr. Richardson--Mr.

Casey. And Mr. Villard--Mr. Casey." Pat, who had clambered out, removed his hat and rather bashfully shook hands.

So that was Horace Greeley, was it; the editor of the New York _Tribune_! He didn't look like an editor of a big paper such as the _Tribune_. Rather, with his square hat and his rosy face surrounded with a fringe of short white whiskers, and his roly-poly figure, as he sat his mule, his legs sticking straight out, he looked more like a church deacon or a prosperous "back East" farmer.

Mr. Richardson, who probably was that reporter for the Boston _Journal_, as spoken of by Mr. Villard in Denver, was a tall, wiry man with soft hat and full brown beard, and wore a Colt's revolver.

"These gentlemen are out from the East, Pat," continued John Gregory, "to see if it's true that we're all starving hereabouts and that the gold is in our eye. Mebbe you've no objection to their doing a little investigating on their own account down in your hole there."

"Faith, Oi'd be proud if their Honors would touch their fingers to me dirt," a.s.serted Pat. "Would they loike to get down in, or shall Oi pa.s.s a bit up to 'em?"

Mr. Greeley and Mr. Richardson and Mr. Villard dismounted and peeked in.

"About how much are you washing out a day, Pat?" invited Green Russell.

"Oh, a hundred dollars a day, more or less, dependin' on the clane-ups,"

answered Pat.

"Upon my word!" exclaimed Mr. Greeley, adjusting a pair of spectacles, the closer to peer. "I was scarcely prepared to find that a fact."

"You're ready to make a clean-up, I see," spoke Mr. Byers. "Suppose you show Mr. Greeley and these other gentlemen. How long will it take?"

"A matter o' two hours," replied Pat. "But would His Honor loike to try a pan, first? Sure, a pan or two from the pit, an' a couple from the riffles--that's a fair tist."

"Yes, I believe I should like to see the evidences of a pan," declared Mr. Greeley.

"There's no need of His Honor gettin' down in," averred Pat. "It's no place for the feet of a gintleman. Terry, me lad, pan a spadeful, will ye, an' show Mr. Grayley the color so the New York _Tribyune_'ll tell the world all about it?"

Something in the slant of Pat's eye reminded Terry to dig his dirt from beside the white rock in the corner; seizing the spade, he did so, and dumped into the pan always handy. The ditch that fed the sluice was only a few steps from the shallow edge of the pit. Squatting over it, Terry deftly panned the dirt. No one could have done it better--and the result certainly was amazing. Terry handed up the pan, but he scarcely could believe his eyes. Mr. Horace Greeley would require no 'specs to see _that_ color!

"Between two an' thray dollars, Your Honor," a.s.sured Pat, as amidst exclamations the remarkable pan was pa.s.sed about. "Even a boy can get the rale stuff in these diggin's. Will Your Honor keep the dust for a token? An' will ye be after tryin' a pan for yourself? Sure, everything ye find is yours."