The Golden Prize property appeared to be a very proposition. It was located about a mile up Gregory , and right in the midst of things. There was a good enough dug-out, set partly into the slope at the bottom of one of the rocky hills in the gulch, with log walls surrounding the single room and a sod roof. It contained a stove (better than a fireplace) and a and a table and a slab stool, all on a dirt floor. The cooking were hung on the wall. The door, of split logs, like puncheons, swung by leather hinges and fastened with a wooden pin and latch-string.  
But the mine of course was the most important. That was really the first thing to be inspected. Archie showed it rather proudly, although it did not look very , being only a deep into the hillside just beyond the cabin.
 
Down the shallow side draw that helped to form the hill ran a small stream of muddy water, which finally joined the main drainage stream, below.
 
"You see," said Archie, "I have to carry all my dirt to that stream so as to wash for the gold, and, ! but it's hard work. About breaks my back. The digging and the climbing up and down are too much for me. A fellow ought to lead the water nearer, some way."
 
"Why didn't you?" asked Terry.
 
"I did think of digging a ditch, but that's an awful job, and I'd have to with a gold-pan just the same. I suppose if I'd stayed here I'd have built a or hired one built. I couldn't build it myself, because the boards are too heavy to handle. And anyway, I want to go out. I can't breathe up here. I don't feel as good as when I came in, and mostly I just sit and . I felt lots better down on the plains. If I can't work the mine, what's the use in having it? But I'd a heap rather give it to you fellows than sell it to strangers."
 
"We won't take it, but we'll work it for you, on shares," again asserted .
 
Archie stubbornly shook his head—and his thin cheeks were .
 
"Nope. You can share together but you can't share with me. You work it and keep all you find; I owe it to you. I'm so I can hardly see."
 
"Where do we begin?" cried Terry, excited. "Which is the best spot, Archie?"
 
"I'll show you in the morning. I'll show you everything," panted Archie, "before I go. We'll wash out some color, anyway."
 
"We'd better get our stuff before dark, Terry," reminded Harry. "The mine will keep. We know it's there. Whew, but this is a big stroke of luck. Doesn't seem as though we'd earned it."
 
Dusk settled early in the gulch, and by the time they had stowed their stuff away, and Jenny had been turned out to among the rocks and pines on the hillside, most of the camps in the gulch had ceased their work of the day and had changed to the work of the evening. Smoke was welling from chimneys and from open fires, far and near; wood was being chopped and men and women were cooking. The gulch suddenly seemed cheerful and homelike: a contrast with the dark timber rising above on all sides, where the wild animals, bear and bobcats and and wolves, probably in .
 
Harry made a big of flap-jacks and a pot of coffee; Shep curled in a corner and snuggled for comfortable sleep; the air outside was chill, but within was warm, and a candle that Archie produced gave light enough to eat by.
 
Archie was awarded the bunk, for a good rest. Harry and Terry spread their beds on the floor. They were used to sleeping on the ground, but Terry found it hard to go to sleep. He wanted to talk—he fairly to be out with spade and pan, digging gold from "their" mine. Think of it! A mine, a genuine gold mine, at last! Now they could pay his father back easy, and also show him and George how to get rich.
 
"I know how you feel," said Archie, from the bunk. "They say that when Gregory discovered his after tracing it for miles, and found four dollars in his first pan, he kept his partner awake till three o'clock in the morning, talking, and he was still talking at breakfast time."
 
"Wonder how he discovered it," hazarded Terry.
 
"He just started in on lower Clear , at the Platte, and kept panning, and panning, on up, until above this gulch the gold quit. Then he turned into this gulch, because it seemed to yield the most color, and the gold was the coarsest, and he kept panning and panning until the color quit again. Then he knew he'd come to the place where the gold below was washed from. So he went back to the Platte and got a partner; and they sized up the natural lay of the gulch, at the highest spot where the color had quit—and they struck rich diggin's with the very first spadeful. That was the sixth of May. After they'd located a lot of ground for themselves and their friends the news got out, and now look at the mob!"
 
"Well, I'll bet we've got something just as good," declared Terry, confidently.
 
Immediately after a hurried breakfast they started in to pan their own claim, under the direction of Archie.
 
"I've always found the most gold in that spot there," he instructed. "There was another spot, where I panned first, but it's quit on me. Expect, though, you'll find a lot of 'em. Let's dig and try out some of the dirt in our pans."
 
Into the spot Terry the spade. The dirt was gravelly and soft—two strokes of the blade were more than enough to loosen sufficient for the three pans. The pans were sheet-iron and about the size and shape of a large milk-pan. In a moment they three were trailing down to the little creek, each with some two inches of the dirt in the bottom of his pan. They to fill the pans with water, and carefully twirled to slop it out again along with the dirt that ought to float off.
 
This was an anxious process. Archie finished first, because he was in practice.
 
"I didn't get anything this time," he announced, . "But I don't care. I'm going out."
 
Terry's dirt had practically all flowed off. He picked out the bits of gravel—they were only and of rock. He peered for yellow—yes, there it was! A glint with a seam of coarse sand.
 
"I've got some!" he yelled. &qu............