"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 swells of sandy gravel and sparse, tufty grass and stiff brush, between which and over and on toiled 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 creek course below, bordered by willows and cottonwoods. This was that Clear Creek on whose headwaters in the mountains the Gregory strike had been made. But the landmark of Table Mountain drew near so gradually, in spite of the haste by everybody, that not until evening did it loom close at hand, shadowed with purple and rising a wall-like six hundred feet.
Here the trail ran along Clear Creek itself, and the procession was halting for night camp, to water and graze the animals and to rest. On both sides of the creek prospectors had settled, to wash out gold; but now the most of them had quit work and in front of their tents and bough lean-tos were preparing supper.
"Better stop off, boys," warned a hairy miner, who, squatting over a little fire, was deftly cooking flap-jacks—tossing them one by one from a fry-pan into the air and catching them other side down. "You can't go much farther till mornin'. There's a trail ahead so steep your mule'll have to turn over an' prop herself with her ears to keep from slidin' backwards."
"Sounds like good advice," accepted Harry. "You going on in, or are you making your pile here?"
"Makin' a pile o' flap-jacks, if those hungry partners don't eat 'em faster'n I can cook. Yep, we're goin' on somewhere, if this creek doesn't pan out better. We've been followin' the gold all the way from Pike's Peak an' the Boilin' Springs, an' the best diggin's alluz seem forty miles ahead."