The next day, after I had the talk with Col.  Bent, Uncle Kit and Jim Bridger stopped at the Fort on their way to the new gold field.  Of course, Uncle Kit was as glad to see me as I was to see him, and was rather surprised when I told him that I was all ready to go with him to the mines.

Jim Bridger said, “What are you going there for, Will?”

I said, “I am going to help you pick up gold.  I haven’t any use for it myself, but I just want to help you, Jim.”

Uncle Kit said, “I guess, what gold we pick up won’t hurt any of us.”

The morning after this we three pulled out, and on the fourth day out we landed on the ground where the city of Denver now stands.

It was the first of June in the year of fifty-nine, and as near as I can remember, there were six little log shacks scattered around the west side of Cherry creek, which at that time was called “Arora,” and the east side of the creek was called “Denver,” and this was the Queen city of the west that I had been told about and had come to see, and it was amazing to see the number of people that were coming in there every day.  They came in all shapes.  They came in wagons, in hand carts and on horse back.

The hand carts had from four to six men to pull them, and I saw a few that had eight men pulling one cart.

Uncle Kit, Bridger and I remained there four days, just to see the crowds that were coming in.  We found out the way to Russel’s gulch, and we decided to go up there.

We went by the way that is called “Golden” now, but of course there was no such place then, that being the general camping place before going up into the mountains.

When we made our camp on the bank of Clear creek, where the city of Golden now stands, I think we could have counted two hundred wagons in sight of our camp.  Close to us there were four men in camp, and they had one wagon and two yoke of cattle between them.

The next morning they were up earlier than we were and were eating their breakfast when we crawled out of our blankets.

As soon as they finished eating, they hooked up their ox teams and drove down to the creek and stopped at the bank and commenced to throw their provisions into the water.  As soon as Uncle Kit saw the men doing this, he said, “What do they mean?  Are they crazy?  I will go and see what is the matter.”

As soon as he got in speaking distance, he asked them what they were throwing their provisions to the creek for.

One of the men stopped and answered, “We are going back to Missouri, and our oxen’s feet are so tender that they can hardly walk, let alone pull this load.”

Uncle Kit said, “Why don’t you throw the stuff on the ground?  If you don’t want it yourselves, do not waste it by throwing it in the creek.  Someone else may want it.”

One of them said, “I had not thought of that,” and they threw the flour and bacon and coffee and other small packages of food on the ground.