er to work with.

After looking over the fields a number of days, carrying our blankets
and sleeping in empty miners' cabins, Stubbs and I concluded to locate
at the head of Leavenworth gulch, which was about a mile and a half
southwest of Mountain City, between Nevada and Russell's gulches. The
side hills were studded all over with prospect holes and mining shafts.
Several lodes, said to be rich in gold, had recently been discovered,
and a nice stream of water ran down the gulch. Only three mills were in
operation there, and a number of miners who were developing their own
claims strongly encouraged us to come, promising us plenty of quartz to
crush. Several parties were gulch mining there with apparent success,
and during the short time that I watched one man washing out the dirt
and gravel from the bottom of the gulch he picked up several nice
nuggets of shining gold, which was quite stimulating to one's hopes. I
afterwards learned that these same nuggets had been washed out several
times before, whenever a "tenderfoot" would come along, who it was
thought might want to buy a rich claim.

As soon as we located and selected a mill site, we went vigorously to
work, and all was preparation, bustle and activity. Stubbs was a good
mechanic and took charge of the construction. Others were cutting down
trees, hauling and squaring logs, and framing and placing timbers to
support the heavy mill machinery. As soon as Sollitt returned from the
plains, he, with a few of the drivers, went to work to get the wagons,
machinery and provisions from the mountain camp up to our location. In
many places, at first glance, the roads looked impassable. They went up
hills and rocky ledges so steep that six yoke of oxen could pull only a
part of a load; then down a mountain side so precipitous that the four
wheels of each wagon would have to be dead-locked with chains to keep
them from overrunning the oxen; then they would go along mountain
streams full of rocks and bowlders, and upsetting a wagon was quite a
common occurrence. I saw one of our provision wagons turn over into a
running stream, and, among other things, a barrel of sugar start rolling
down with the current.

As soon as everything was brought up to our final location, I sold some
of the wagons, some oxen and the pony, thus securing cash to pay help
and other expenses. I traded others off for sawed lumber, shingles,
etc., for use in building the mill-house and a cabin. Grass w