and his brothers in law and hit the hi h places for forty mile where they filed on the claims before captain and the creek and was forgotten no word of it reached him his promise weeks afterward when and were from end to end and there was no more r m m a party of late comers pushed over the down to gold bottom where found still at work when told him they were from he was he had never heard o such a place but when they described it rt ni it as rabbit creek then told him of its marvellous richness and as gold hunters of the north relates when realized what he had lost through s treachery he threw down his and went and sat on the bank so sick at heart that it was some time before he could speak then there were the rest of the old the men of forty mile and circle city at the time of the discovery nearly all of them were over to the west at work in the old or for new ones as they said of themselves they were the kind of men who are always caught out with forks when it rains soup in the that followed the news of s strike very few old took part they were not there to take part but the men who did go on the were mainly the worthless ones the and the camp on and while bob away to the east and the heroes away to the west the and went up and but the was not yet done with its joke when fall came on and the heroes returned to forty mile and to circle city they listened calmly to the up river tales of discoveries and prospects and shook their heads they judged by the gold hunters of the north of the men interested and it a game but glowing reports continued to down the and a few of the old went up to see they looked over the ground � the place for gold in all their experience � and they went down the river again leaving it to the again the turned the tables the gold hunter is not so much for his as for his inability to tell the precise truth in a country of he likewise is prone to description of things actual but when it came to he could not stretch the truth as fast as the truth itself stretched first got a dollar pan he lied when he said it was two dollars and a half and when those who doubted him did get two and a half they said they were getting an and lo ere the lie had fairly started on its way they were getting not one but five this they claimed was six but when they filled a pan of dirt to prove the lie they washed out twelve and so it went they continued to lie but the truth continued to them but the s laugh was not gold hunters of the north yet ended when was from mouth to source those who had failed to get in and went up the and was one of these and many men after on it� turned their backs upon their claims and never gave them a second thought one man sold a half interest in five hundred feet of it for a sack of flour other owners wandered around trying to men into buying them out for a song and then showed up it was far far richer than with an average value of a thousand dollars a foot to every foot of it a named had been at work on miller creek the year of the strike and arrived in with a few hundred dollars two who had no decided that he was the proper man upon whom to he was too to approach sober so at considerable expense they got him drunk even then it was hard work but they kept him for several days and finally him into buying no for when up he wept at his folly and pleaded to have his money back but the men who had him were hard hearted gold hunters of the north they laughed at and kicked themselves for not having tapped him for a couple of hundred more nothing remained for but ground this he did and out of it he took over three quarters of a million of dollars it was not till frank who already had big on creek took a hand that the old developed faith in the new received a letter from a man on the calling it the biggest thing in the world and his dogs and went up to investigate and when he sent a letter back saying that he had never seen anything like it circle city for the first time believed and at once was one of the wild est the country had ever seen or ever will see every dog was taken many went without dogs and even the women and children and hit the three hundred miles of ice through the long night for the biggest thing in the world it is related that but twenty people mostly and unable to travel were left in circle city when the smoke of the last disappeared up the since that time gold has been discovered in all manner of places under the grass roots of the hill gold hunters of the north side benches in the bottom of island and in the sands of the sea at and now the gold hunter who knows his business the favorable looking spots confident in his hard won knowledge that he will find the most gold in the least likely place this is sometimes to support the theory that the gold hunters rather than the are the men who will ultimately win to the pole who knows it is in their 