LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 51 



happened to look on the ground at his feet and it was literally covered 

 with gold and he gathered up a lot of it, as much as he could conceal from 

 the Mexican conveniently. By this time the Mexican had returned with the 

 mules and they resumed their journey to the settlements. 



He showed me the gold all in pieces and some of it had a little quartz 

 sticking into it. I should think there was about five or six hundred dollars 

 of it. He said I was the only man that he had ever told about it and the 

 only one that knew about it except himself, and said that if I would stay 

 around that part of the country for a while we would go to it, but we might 

 have to wait some time for it could not be reached unless it rained on the 

 desert just as it did when he was there. He afterwards was drowned in 

 the Colorado River. I knew he was telling the truth for I knew he would 

 not think of doing anything else to me. 



That leads me to another little incident that happened while I was 

 there. A Negro was climbing on top of a high hill and discovered just such 

 another place as Rude had found. The darky had picked up fifteen thous- 

 and dollars one afternoon and when I saw him in Lapaz he had not a dollar. 

 The gamblers and the saloons had gotten it all. A fool and his money is 

 soon parted. 



While in Arizona another man and myself took a contract to sink a 

 shaft on a ledge seventy-five feet, at twelve dollars per foot. It was about 

 forty miles out from Lapaz in the mountains. We packed our tools and pro- 

 visions out there on a pony. We had been to work for a week or more when 

 we were visited by four Indians, Apaches, and about dinner time they 

 claimed to be very hungry, as Indians always are, and wanted something to 

 eat. We gave them some and the next day they were there again proper 

 enough, so my partner and I consulted and concluded that we could not 

 afford to pack grub out there forty miles to feed the Indians, so I told them 

 they couldn't have any more. They would go through all sorts of contortions 

 and tell how hungry they were and there was one of them that could speak 

 a little Spanish so I could understand him pretty well. While I was standing 

 them off my partner went c^own the shaft and went to work and in a joking 

 way said "I guess you can stand them off." We had taken precaution when 

 we first went there to build a stone wall about four feet high and ten feet 

 square and our guns were standing against the wall. I saw the Indians had 

 their eye on the guns and they began to get a little bolder and acted as if 

 they were going to take what they wanted anyway, when I grabbed up one 

 of the guns and told them to leave and that very quickly too, and they 

 didn't wait for the second bidding, but went as I told them too. 



They were camped only about four or five miles away. We could see 

 the smoke from their camp every day and we slept with one eye open for 

 a few nights after, thinking they might possibly make a sneak on us when 

 we were asleep, but they never bothered us any more. We finished our 

 contract and by the way did very well, making twelve dollars each per day 

 for all the time we worked. We then returned to Lapaz and there I chanced 

 to meet an old friend who I knew in San Francisco, and who was engaged 

 in freighting out to different parts of the mining districts and had four ten- 

 mule teams on the road, and he said I was just the man he was looking for 

 as he had more business than he could attend to and wanted to sell me one- 

 half interest. He valued it at fifteen thousand dollars, and said I needn't 



