The Pike's Peak Rush Part 41

"Whoop-ee!" summoned Ike, to the two men at the sluice. They dropped their tools and crossed over. One was the giant, before encountered.

With an occasional side glance at George and Terry, they and Ike consulted together in low tones for a minute or so. Ike disappeared into the cabin, came out and, advancing a few steps, tossed a limp buckskin bag at Terry.

"Thar's your hundred dollars in dust," he said, "'cordin' to agreement.

You stick your name an' your pardner's on a bill o' sale, an' that other boy'll be witness, an' no hard feelin's."

"How do we know this is $100?" challenged Terry, suspicious, and resolved upon being businesslike. One hundred dollars they had to have.

But what luck!

"Take it to some scales and weigh it, and have it certified to, fust, then," rapped the giant. "You won't find us gone when you come back.

We're hyar to stay."

That sounded like a fair proposition.

"We can get it weighed at a store," prompted Terry to George. "Come on."

"Quick work, boy!" praised George, as with Shep and with Jenny (who had been waiting to be unpacked) faithfully shambling after, they hastened for the nearest store. "One of us can skip out with it for Dutchman's Gulch and close our deal there, and the other can stay for Harry. Wish he'd turn up."

"There he is now! See? Good!"

"Where? He sure is! Riding horseback! And my dad and your dad and Virgie and Duke! He's got Duke!"

"Yes, and Sol! That other man's Sol Judy!" cried Terry, rejoicing.

"They've all come in! Bully for them! We can all go to Dutchman's Gulch--work our claim and find others--just pile up the dust! Hi-oh!

Hurrah!"

They shouted and waved, and cut down farther into the gulch to head off Harry's party, now filing up as if for the cabin.

"h.e.l.lo!"

"h.e.l.lo yourselves!"

"h.e.l.lo, Dad! h.e.l.lo, Sol!"

There was a great shaking of hands all around.

"Where you going? How's Duke? h.e.l.lo, Duke!"

"Going to our mines, of course," answered Mr. Stanton.

"Where are _you_ going?" demanded Harry. "What's Jenny packed for?"

"We're going out," informed George. "We've made the biggest strike you ever heard of--pounds a day--in another place, and we've bought tons of pay dirt for only $100, and we've sold the Golden Prize to the Ike crowd, and we're going to that other place just as quick as we can get there, and so are you, all of you, too!"

"Sold that other property? What for?" chorused the men.

"To pay for the new one. We hustled back on purpose. Just got in, and now all we have to do is weigh Ike's dust to make sure he isn't cheating us, and give him a bill of sale, and then we'll show you the other place. George and Harry and I have six hundred feet already, but there'll be more, and anyway we can all work," bubbled Terry.

"How do you know what's in those other diggin's?" queried Sol.

"Because we saw it! We washed out over ten dollars in two pans, and the German we bought from has _sacks full_!" proclaimed George. "Regular sacks full!"

"He's the Lightning Express German," added Terry. "Harry knows him. He's there all by himself. He wants us to watch his diggin's while he takes his gold out and comes back. That's why he sold so cheap."

"Great Caesar!" murmured Harry. "Sacks full? Thought we'd bought all his sacks and he'd turned home?"

"So he had, but he changed his mind. And he's struck it rich, rich!"

"Where are those new diggin's? Have you got any of the dust with you that you say you washed out?" invited Sol.

"They're over near Tarryall or Grab-all, in the South Park; only about fifty miles," answered Terry.

"And here's our dust, too," proffered George.

Sol opened the little sack and fingered the contents.

"Gold!" he snorted. "Yes, fool's gold. That's nothing but iron pyrites--'tisn't worth a cent a ton! Don't you know the difference between gold and iron pyrites yet? Thought you were miners."

"But it's from the German's diggin's," stammered Terry--for George appeared staggered out of his wits. "He said it was gold and he's got sacks full, right in his wagon."

Sol laughed.

"Sacks full, eh? Did anybody ever see gold dust by the gunny sack full?

He's the same crazy German who was washing fool's gold from the Platte, I reckon--thought he had the real stuff and wouldn't believe otherwise.

I met him, myself, when he was traveling on in for fear somebody'd rob him."

"Oh!" groaned George. "We thought----"

"Have you closed the sale of that property yonder? Haven't given a transfer yet, have you?" sharply demanded Terry's father.

"N-no; we've got the money, though. We were going to weigh it. They're waiting--they're there, working."

"Who?"

"Ike and two other men. We found 'em there when we came back."

"By ginger! Jumped it, did they?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sol. "Looks like we were just in time." He spurred on, Harry after.

"You boys don't go a step farther," ordered Mr. Richards. "You come along with us. Lucky you didn't give any bill of sale, or we might have serious trouble."

"But Harry told us we might sell," faltered Terry.

"Harry didn't know, either. Why, there are thousands of dollars in those claims, according to Sol. The Ike crowd know, all right. Where you're to blame is for having gone off on a wild-goose chase and left the claims and then been bamboozled by such nonsense as sacks full of iron pyrites.

Gold dust is soft and dull; pyrites are hard and bright."

"What makes you think the Golden Prize is so rich, though?" stammered Terry, as he and George tried to keep up with the horses.

"The Golden Prize is liable to be a fortune, but we're banking on that other claim, the one you gave to Virgie. She happened to show Sol the piece of rock she brought down, and he says it's the best kind of gold quartz--fairly oozing."

"And not float, either. It's from a surface lode close at hand," put in Mr. Stanton.