"What'll we do with all our gunny sacks?" Terry, when after an early breakfast they drove across for Auraria, to deliver Duke and the cart and make their purchases.  
"They don't weigh much, but they take up a lot of room. I have a scheme, though," answered .
 
Early as they were, the camps on the plain, and Denver City and Auraria in the midst, were astir: smoke was welling from camp-fires and chimneys, shouts and calls arose as prepared to journey , people were moving busily, and the procession beyond the Platte was wending in a long file mountain-ward.
 
Already another announcement was displayed on Mr. Reilly's show tent. "Also (it said) the Only Genuine Wild Now in , and the Identical That He Drew Across the Plains."
 
Mr. Reilly was working on the first announcement, to make it read, "The Bullet-Pierced Head of the Chief Knife," and to change the frontiersman's name from "Black Panther" to "Dead-Shot Bill."
 
"It's a pity one of you fellers won't hire out to be my scout," he . "'Tother one might take in the tickets at the door. I got the shirt and weepon back from that man Ike, but he won't work again. Anyhow, you can unhitch and help me get that buffalo inside this tent, out of sight. We'll tie him to a stake, and roll the wagon in ."
 
This was done, after the flaps had been thrown wide. Duke limped in rather gladly, was stationed at the far end beside the head of the late Thunder Horse, and the wagon, unloaded of its few goods, was pushed and pulled to another position.
 
"You might stay with Jenny and the stuff, while I do our marketing," proposed Harry to Terry, as he shouldered the big roll of gunny sacks, for some mysterious purpose, and it away.
 
He disappeared in the of the store under the News office. Jenny hee-hawed after him. She missed him and Duke.
 
Harry soon returned jubilant, without the sacks.
 
"All right. We're fixed," he proclaimed. "I traded them in for a sack of dried apples. The man didn't appreciate their value, at first, but I explained. Value No. 1: Most of the cabins hereabouts have only dirt floors; the sacking will be fine for carpets to keep the dust down. Value No. 2: It will be handy for covering windows, to keep out the wind. Value No. 3: It will be useful to patch pants with, instead of buckskin. Value No. 4: It will pants—in fact, the pants of that Rocky Mountain News peddler gave me the idea. Value No. 5: It will make good ticking for straw . To tell the truth, it is so valuable that I wouldn't part with any of it except for dried apples. Now we can have pie!"
 
They on Duke and the cart a friendly good-luck slap, shook hands with Mr. Reilly, and proceeded to the store with Jenny. The purchases amounted to considerable. First, a pack-saddle, not brand new, but of ash and in excellent condition; a sack of flour, the sack of dried apples, a quarter of meat—the only cheap meat, at four cents a pound; five pounds of coffee (very dear), , salt, sugar, soap, a square of rawhide for soling their boots, two miner's pans for washing out the gold, etc., etc.
 
These, with the picks and spades, and the bedding, and the cooking and eating made quite a problem. No wonder that Jenny when the saddle was cinched upon her.
 
However, with her pack on either side and atop, the tools projecting and the cooking utensils , she accepted her fate, and stepping in cautious, top-heavy fashion submitted to being headed out of town into the trail for the Platte River crossing.
 
Terry, the shot-gun upon his shoulder, and Harry, shouldering a pick and spade that had not fitted anywhere, followed close after. So did Shep, who carried nothing but his shaggy coat. On the whole, no one could deny that this was a real .
 
"Forty miles, they say, to those Gregory diggin's," remarked Harry. "Wonder if they mean forty or four hundred? You see that flat-top mountain—the first mountain in the northwest? How far do you think it is?"
 
"Five miles," asserted Terry.
 
"Well, it's eighteen miles! They call it Table Mountain. That's where we go in. So when a fellow's looking five miles, in this country, he's looking eighteen, and that makes forty miles about one hundred and fifty."
 
The trail was becoming crowded as other outfits from the right and left for the Platte crossing. It was a procession much like the procession on the Pike's Peak trails—oxen, horses, , cows, dogs, ; and men, women and children either afoot or riding. But there were more men with packs on their backs and more animals packed like Jenny.
 
The long-legged Jenny, her pack swaying and jingling, could be urged past the slower travelers—and well that was, for ere the Platte was reached, the wagons in the procession had stopped. They formed a waiting line several hundred yards in length. Forging to the front, Terry and Harry might see the occasion. The Platte evidently was to be crossed by means of a flat-boat ferry, running back and on a cable. So the wagons need must their turn.
 
Harry went forward to investigate. He came back with a rueful face.
 
"Two dollars and a half for a wagon outfit; a dollar and a half for our outfit," he reported. "The ferry's run by a couple of Indian traders named McGaa and Smith. Wonder if we can't ."
 
"Nary ford, this time o' year, strangers," reproved a red-shirted miner. "See those wagons; they'll be out o' sight by noon! Quicksand!"
 
Several wagons foolishly had tried to ford; and there they were, abandoned, some of them even only a few rods out. Already just the tops of two were visible above the surface.
 
"Guess we won't risk it," agreed Terry.
 
So they paid their fee, and squeezing in aboard the ferry, were carried across.
 
The trail continued, entering amidst low rolling of sandy and , tufty grass and stiff brush, between which and over and on the pilgrimage for the new diggin's where one John Gregory and others were harvesting their pound of gold a day. The Gregory claim was said to be so marvelously rich and yellow that no strangers had been permitted to see it.
 
From the high places glimpses were given, on the right, of a course below, bordered by and cottonwoods. This was that Clear Creek on whose headwaters in the mountains the Gregory strike had been made. But the of Table Mountain drew near so gradually, in spite of the haste by everybody, that not until evening did it close at hand, shadowed with purple and rising a wall-like six hundred feet.
&n............