This idea of Ruth Fielding’s was the crowning achievement of her work on this film. The company came back to the cabins at evening, wearied and dust-choked, to find, as Ruth had prophesied, a veritable city on and near the creek.
The newcomers had rushed into the hills and staked out their claims, some of them on the very fringe of the valley out of which the gold-bearing ledge rose. Of course, many of these claims would be worthless.
A lively buying and selling of the more worthless claims was already under way. With the stampede had come storekeepers and wagons of foodstuffs.
That night nobody slept. Mr. Hammond, realizing what this really meant, but feeling none of the itch for digging gold that most of those on the spot experienced, organized a local constabulary. A justice of the peace was found with intelligence enough, and enough knowledge of the state ordinance, to act as magistrate.
The men were called together early in the morning in the biggest dance hall and the vast majority—indeed, it was almost unanimous—voted that liquor selling be tabooed at Freezeout.
Several men of unsavory reputations who had come, like buzzards scenting the carrion from afar, were advised to leave town and stay away. They met other men of their stripe on the trail from Handy Gulch and other such places, and reported that Freezeout was going to be run “on a Sunday-school basis”; there was nothing in it for the usual birds of prey that infest such camps.
In a few hours the party coming from Kingman with Edith Phelps and the lawyer she had engaged, arrived. The camp about the ridge grew and expanded in every direction. Most of the claimholders slept on their claims, fearing trickery. Shafts were sunk. The Phelps crowd began to set up a small crusher and cyaniding plant that had been trucked over the trails.
The moving picture was finished at last, before either Mr. Grimes or Mr. Hammond quite lost their minds. Several of the men of the company broke their contract with the Alectrion Film Corporation and would remain at the diggings. They believed their claims were valuable.
Tom had returned before this with reports from the assayer and copies of the filing of the claims. The specimen from Ruth’s claim showed one hundred and eighty dollars to the ton. The ore from Flapjack Peters and Min’s claims were, after all, the richest of any of their party, though farther down the ledge. The ore taken from those claims showed two hundred dollars to the ton.
“We’re rich—or we’re goin’ to be,” Min declared to the Ardmore girls and Miss Cullam, the last night the Eastern visitors were to remain in Freezeout. “That lawyer of R’yal Phelps is goin’ to let pop have some money and we’re both goin’ to send for clo’es—some duds! Wish you could wait and see me togged up just like a Fourth o’ July pony in the parade.”