erate; and within a short time Diamond City, the town of the
gulch, was the center of a population of 5,000 souls.

"'Confederate Gulch was in many respects the most phenomenal of all
the Montana gulches. The ground was so rich that as high as $180 in
gold was taken from one pan of dirt; and from a plat of ground four
feet by ten feet, between drift timbers, $1,100 worth of gold was
extracted in twenty-four hours. At the junction of Montana Gulch--a
side gulch--with Confederate, the ground was very rich, the output
at that point being estimated at $2,000,000.

"'Montana Bar, which lies some distance up the gulch and at
considerable of an elevation above it, was found in the latter part
of 1865 to be marvelously rich. There were about two acres in
reality, that were here sluiced over, but the place is spoken of as
"the richest acre of gold-bearing ground ever discovered in the
world." I quote A. M. Williams, who has made a special study of
these old gulches:

"'"The flumes on this bar, on cleaning up, were found to be
burdened with gold by the hundredweight, and the enormous yield
of $180 to the pan in Confederate and Montana Gulches was forgotten
in astonishment, and a wild delirium of joy at the wonderful yield
of over a hundred thousand dollars to the pan of gravel taken from
the bedrock of Montana bar."'

"'From this bar seven panfuls of clean gold were taken out at one
"clean-up," that weighed 700 pounds and were worth $114,800. A
million and a half dollars in gold was hauled by wagon from Diamond
City to Fort Benton at one time for shipment to the East. This
gulch is reputed to have produced $10,000,000, from 1864 to 1868,
and it is still being sluiced.

"'Some very large gold nuggets were found in this region. Many were
worth from $100 to $600 or $700. Several were worth from $1,500 to
$1,800; one, of pure gold, was worth $2,100 and two or three
exceeded $3,000 in value.'"

The boys sat silent, hardly able to understand what they had heard.
Billy Williams nodded his head gravely.

"It's all true," said he. "When I was a boy I heard my father tell of
it. He was in on the Confederate Creek strike. He helped sluice five
thousand dollars in one day, and they didn't half work. He said it was
just laying there plumb yellow. They thought it would last always; but
it didn't.

"You see, I wa