St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-06-03
The. GOLD tlcAYEsss


It was good many years ago, but If !
should live to be as old as ADAM the Incl
dents am about to narrate will be as clear .
and fresh in my memory as if they happened i
yesterday.
There were three of us, Ned Copley, an old
Rocky Mountain hunter, who, when game
got scarce or furs Improbable, took up the
equally hazardous calling of gold seeking;
Frank Edgerton, handsome young Ken
tuckian, who had come out to win a sudden
fortune, and myself, who had made one for
tune in the gold fields, lost it, and was now
out to get another, and with the firm deter
mination to hang on to it, if struck luck
again.
Across the Sierra Madre Mountains in the
San Juan region was a mighty dreary, lonely
country in those days, with the water flowing
down out of sight in the bottoms of the
canyons, and the nearest white settlement
three hundred miles away in Eastern
Colorado.
Ned Copley had hunted all through this
country with Kit Carson, and he believed it
was rich in gold, and that if we kept our pur-
pose to ourselves we "would make our ever
lastin' fortunes to use his own words.
We had enough money to buy an outfit Of
food for three months and mule to carry
it; as for the tools for prospecting and the
rifles and pistols necessary for game, or to
protect ourselves from providing Indians and
sneaking whites, we were well provided.
We left Taos in the early spring and while
all the encircling mountains were covered
oil or
marble walls supporting sky SO clear and
blue and cloudless, that it looked as if it
was hewn out of a globe of turquoise.
But anxiety to see the yellow gold flashing
at the bottom of the clear streams in the San
Juan, blinded us to the glories of the land
scape and the unsurpassed natural splendor
scattered so lavishly on every hand.
think I should say in all honesty to the
brave fellow, that Frank Edgerton was an ex-
ception to this. TO be sure he wanted gold.
It was to get this that he left his old Ken
lucky home and drove an OK team across the
sterile, blistering plains. No ehilds work in
the days when the Indians and buffalo were
plentiful and the snorting of the iron horse
had not yet stirred to new life the echoes of
the giant Rockies. .saTz.e--. z,:-
j. Frank Edgerton had "a nobler motive than:
his two partners. We were Out to find gold
for the sake of the power and the comforts it
would give, and it may be with thoughts of
the Difference that would be paid US by the
less fortunate when we-wefe rich men hut
= our handsome young companion was moved
to face the hardships and brave the dangers
of the expedition by no]such mercenary pur-
pose.
Ha or hos fyo and fvra
with curly brown hair and eyes, and silky
mustache and beard of,the same hue, and
mouth full of even white teeth, and his fine
face seemed ever the home of good nature
and laughter. No matter how long the march
or steep the trail, no matter the long miles
between the springs, or the indications of
Indians in the neighborhood, Frank was al
ways CHEEKY and happy, and his laughter and
his songs, for he had an excellent voice,
lghtened many a long march, and dispeled
the gloom from many lonely camp in the
heart of the canyons.
We had not been many days out before
Frank Edgerton opened his heart and gave us
the secret of his constant happiness. He was
in love, not "dead in love-, but living in love,
the glorious passion possessed him. 1t bub-
bled from his lips in laughter and song, and
glared from his eyes in exultation.
'sWho is she, boys?" he said one day in
answer to my question, for I, an old, loveless
and perhaps ENJOYABLE bachelor, half envied
him his possession "She amt no ordinary
girl, Susie Burns amt. Heaven cut her out for
afirst-class angel and never changed the origi-
nal plan. Here's her picture, and let me say,
you two are the only strangers that ever
rod ipcid do ba dc cir no 70
round my neck and told me- as she kissed
me, that SO long as I wore it next my heart
I'd remain true to her-just as if could ever
dream of being false to Susie.''
By the camp fire he opened his coat and
hunting shirt, and brought to light slender
gold chain that hung about his neck, and at
the end of which there was a fiat golden
medallion. He opened it, kissed the picture
with the alteration of pagan for his idol,
and then let US look at the face of a beautiful,
blue-eyed girl of nineteen or twenty, who
seemed so life-like that it looked more like
the reflection in mirror than a colored
ivorytype.
..Susie Burns amt rich, for Heaven
couldn't give her all the blessings without
being unfair" continued Frank, as he re-
stored the picture to his breast, "but she'll
be rich some day, if there's gold to be found
in these mountains. Meanwhile, while I'm
out here prospecting, Suse's a teaching school
down by the banks of the Cumberland, and
you can bet, if she has any time to spare
from her WORK, she puts it in a-praying for me.
That's why I feel SO dog-goned sure, boys,
that we are going to win. I tell you an outfit
can't fail that has an angel Ike that praying
for it,
Frank filed US with his enthusiasm, and Ned
Copley and myself felt that we, too, were in
terested in the girl, as we were very sure she
would have been in u.s., had she known the
circumstances.
don't know the name of the stream, for it
was in the days before names were given to
every strip of wet ground lin the West, but it
rose in the avalanches of, the Sierra Madre
and came down by our camp ice cold, and as
it brought fecks of yellow gold with it, we
decided to stop there and go to panring out
the gravel.
We did fairly well. What we got would
have been big wages anywhere else, but to
compensate for what we suffered and the
dangers we faced, we naturally wanted more.
A'hundred dollars day between three
wasn't so bad, but we were in a mood when
a thousand dollars day would not have sat
isfied u.s.
My, my, how hard and cheerfully Frank
did work. Why he got 80 deeply interested