where it had dropped from the mountain above.
There he discovered a ledge several feet wide full of shining specks,
and he traced it with his eyes right to the bed of the creek.

"All mine! All mine!" he shouted.

Now, he was a poor man, and he had a family--which made him poorer; but
the sight of this precious piece of "float" with the gold sticking out
of it, and the possession of this enormous ledge of gold-bearing quartz
made him a millionaire in an instant. Here was a whole mountain "lousy"
with gold, all his! Why, Solomon or Vanderbilt would be so small in the
puddle that he would splash mud on them with his superior tread in the
sweet "very soon."

Now, the B.C. law prevented him from staking off the entire Lillooet
district for himself, so he took in a friend (who luckily died before
the crash came), and they appropriated as large a portion each of the
district as the Government at that time would allow. Both of those men
had good, steady, paying jobs at the time of the discovery, but the next
day they threw down their tools--work was too cheap for them. The only
thing that prevented them from buying an automobile right away on the
instalment plan was the fact that the auto had not yet been invented.
However, they had to do something to elevate themselves from the common,
so they became extravagant in their domestic curriculum. Having no
money, the stores had to "carry them." And then they had their
assessment work to do on the mine to enable them to hold the claim. They
hired men to do this and gave them promissory notes payable by the claim
at an indefinite period. When a man ceases work and begins to live on
his "rainy day" money, or on the storekeeper, it does not take very long
before he accumulates a burden greater than he can carry. When he begins
to totter he tries to pass some of the load over to others, and it is
usually the storekeepers who are willing to assist him to the limit if
his assets are in good retrospect. And what could be a greater security
than a whole mountain full of gold? So the storekeepers assumed a large
portion of the Too Sure Man's burden. And their loads became heavier
and heavier. One day a company came along, attracted by the noise that
had been made, and bonded the claims for a few hundred "plunks" down and
the balance of one hundred thousand dollars in three months if they
decided to take the claims over. The offer was gladly accepted, although
they wondered why the compan