Adventure Magazine Cover — page 87: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pay Gravel “T’ve heard that ancient yarn dozens of times,’’ wearily remarked Dinsdale. “A hundred men bound for California. Nine- teen quit the main body at Fort Laramie to investigate the gold stories told about the hills. They reached a creek, where high water prevented mining = “This very creek!” broke in Pyrites. “So they pushed on and made Dead- wood gulch. They struck it rich, but were surrounded by Sioux. Only one man es- caped. You see, I know it as well as you do. Queer how one man always escapes. Just one. And he always dies after telling his story to some one. escaped there wouldn’t be any story as the other survivors would speak up and say it was a lie.” “Lie, nothing!’ hotly cried Pyrites. “Tom Renshaw did escape. He was out hunting when the Injuns rushed the camp. He was returning with a deer when the smoke from the burning shacks and cabins warned him to be careful. From the top of a bluff he looked down and saw the whole business. He hid in the woods and lived off the deer meat till the Indians quit. Then he went into the burned camp and found a horse that had bolted into the timber. He uncached six hundred ounces of gold: “Six hundred!” derisively exploded Dins- dale. “What you hooting at? What do you know about mining? I’ve often rocked sixty buckets of dirt a day for every day in the week and cleaned seven or eight ounces in the seven days. That’s only ounce dig- gings. But say that crowd laid off a day and only averaged six ounces to the man for the short week. ‘Fhat would give about a hundred and twenty ounces for a week. If they did that for five weeks they’d have six hundred ounces easy. Reckoned at eighteen dollars a ounce and you’d have ten thousand eight hundred dollars. Lord! But you are aggravating at times. To have luck you’ve just got te believe. Didn't those men sink shafts? Wasn’t there nine- teen of them? Didn’t they have first pick- ings in Deadwood gulch? I can take you to old shafts with trees growing over them that are more than twenty years old. Now where’s your talk? Well, Renshaw packed that gold to one of the heads of the Box Elder, not far from Deadwood gulch, and hid it in a shaft his party dug before they entered the gulch.” If two or more men. SI “How do you know all this?” sceptically asked Dinsdale. “Because Tom Renshaw, nearly starved and with his hoss played out, managed to reach the immigrant road. He was out of ammunition and threw away his gun. He lived on choke-cherries, roots, and the pulp He traveled by night be- cause it was too cold to sleep without blan- of prickly pears. kets, and he slept in the daytime. One night he staggered into a hunting-camp of Mormons on Green River, and told his story. Among other things he said his party averaged a ounce and a half a day to the man for days and days on a stretch. Then you turn up your nose at six hundred measly ounces! Renshaw was fed and cared for, and after he got on his feet he disappeared. There was a notice in the Frisco papers ask- ing him to come forward and make himself known. But he never showed up. Prob- ably his hardships killed him right after he. quit the Mormon camp.” “But why haven’t you tried for the cached gold?” Pyrites stared at him in great scorn. Finally he exclaimed: | “Me waste my time digging out ten or eleven thousand dollars’ worth of gold when there’s whole mines of it to be had for the taking? If I was a gambling man, as.you seem to be, I’d tell you that the limit ain’t high enough to interest me.” Dinsdale threw back his head and laughed in huge delight. fPyrites’s feelings were pulled, however, and he glowered at the és. (E) Eomichbooks