sustenance.  Below the cabin a little way lay the bar—­Chihuahua Bar they had christened it, out of deference to “Jones of Chihuahua,” whose prospecting-pan had developed the fact that gold in promising quantities lay beneath it—­and a little farther on the Blue sang merrily in its gravelly bed.  Down the river, about two miles, was Blue Bar, where about two hundred miners had formed a settlement, and where a red-headed Scotchman, who combined the duties of a self-constituted postmaster with the dispensation of a villainous article of whisky, kept a lively grocery and provision store.

During the early part of the season they had prospected up along the river, finding gold all the way, but not in quantities sufficiently large to warrant working.  At the place, however, which they subsequently named Chihuahua (pronounced in the vernacular Chee-waw-waw) the perspicacious Jones had given it as his opinion, formed after mature deliberation and a sapient examination of some two or three shovelsful of dirt, that there was a satisfactory “color in that ar bank.”  Some hard work of about a week demonstrated that there were excellent diggings there, and then work was commenced upon it in good earnest.  The cabin was built, Gentleman Dick’s choice of location being unanimously approved; two or three trips were made across the “Range” to the nearest settlement for materials and provisions; and then the real labor began.  As they cut through the heavy bank of mould and gravel, gradually eating a long trench to the bed-rock, prospects grew better and better.  At last, one day a narrow ledge of brittle, shaly rock came in view, covered with a coating of thick, heavy yellow mud, of which Old Platte gathered a panful and betook himself down to the river-side.  A war-whoop from the direction in which he had disappeared came ringing through the gooseberry bushes to their ears, and with a responsive yell and a simultaneous dropping of shovels and picks they all dashed off to his side.  He was discovered in a condition of great excitement, dancing wildly round the pan, in the bottom of which about half a teaspoonful of coarse yellow nuggets were shining among the black sand.  It was a grand prospect, and with the exception of Gentleman Dick, whose exultation was of a very mild and reserved order, the proprietors of the Chihuahua Claim behaved in a very undignified and unseemly way; Thompson and Jones organizing an impromptu sparring-match, and Old Platte standing indecorously on his head in a neighboring clump of bushes.  Sundry war-whoops and divers indications of activity showed that work of a very lively and energetic character was being prosecuted that afternoon on the bar; and when the sun sunk to rest behind the purple mountains, and the blue mists of evening rose in the valley, they had their sluice-boxes and “riffles” in order, and were ready to commence washing at sunrise.