South Park was indeed large, and also beautiful; being an immense flat, miles wide and miles long, grassy and green and dotted with timber patches and bare round hills—yes, and with buffalo and deer, too!—and well watered by winding streams and the snows of high encircling mountains. The sight might well make one gasp, but another sight should be attended to first: that of the leading gold-seekers spurring their horses and mules diagonally across in a race for a glimmer of tents set amidst willows and pines against the west edge.
And pellmell, hobbling and shouting and straining, all the ragged company strung out after.
"If we won't be first, we won't be last, just the same," panted Terry.
The Tarryall diggin's resolved into three or four tents and several bough huts along a creek where it formed a broad gulch as it issued from the mountains. The gulch was being worked with rockers and pans, and claim stakes seemed to be planted clear through, from side to side. In fact, when, breathless, their eyes roving eagerly, Terry and George arrived, business-bent, it looked as though the whole ground had already been occupied by the discoverers!
"Tarryall! This isn't Tarryall—it ought to be named Grab-all!" was denouncing one of the leaders who had won the race from the last ridge. "What do you think, boys?" he addressed, as the other Gregory Gulch in-comers paused and jostled uncertainly. "There are twelve of these Tarryall fellows, and they've each of 'em staked off two thousand feet! That means twenty-four thousand feet of claims—nearly five miles! Is that fair? No! By miners' law a claim's one hundred feet."
"You're right. One hundred feet."
"Tear up those stakes."
"No thousand or two thousand foot business goes with us!"
"They've invited us in here. They've got to give us a show."
"Grab-all! Grab-all! That's the name for this camp: Grab-all!"