as very
scarce in the mining regions. One of the faithful, well-whipped oxen was
killed for beef (a little like eating one of the family). In this dry,
pure air the meat kept in perfect condition for many weeks till all
eaten up, and it was an agreeable change in our diet.

When we had finished the hauling of timber and other things, we sent
the oxen, still on hand, down to the foot of the mountains where there
was grass during the winter; for cattle would pick up a living among the
foot-hills, and come out in good condition in the spring. The distance
was some twenty-five or thirty miles. Early one bright November morning
I started down there on foot to make arrangements with a ranchman to
look after them. The air was so bracing and stimulating to the energies
that I felt as if a fifty-mile walk would be mere recreation. Being
mostly down hill, I arrived at the ranch before noon, did my business,
got a dinner of beef, bread and coffee, and felt so fine that soon after
two o'clock I concluded to start for home, thinking that in any event I
would reach one of the two or three cabins that would be found on the
latter part of the road. Walking up the mountains was slower business
than going down, and long before I reached the expected cabins it
became dark and I was completely tired out. I found a small pile of
dried grass by the roadside which had been collected by some teamster
for his horses. I covered myself up with this as well as I could, and
being very tired, was soon asleep, without supper or blanket. On
awakening in the morning, I found myself covered with several inches of
snow, and felt tired, hungry and depressed. I plodded along toward home
for a few hours, and came to a cabin occupied by a lone prospector, who
got me up a meal of coffee, tough beef and wheat flour bread, baked in a
frying pan with a tin cover over it. Soon after finishing the meal I
felt sick and very weak, and was unable to proceed on my journey till
late in the afternoon, when I went ahead and reached home long after
dark.

Leavenworth gulch was crossed by dozens of lodes of gold-bearing quartz,
generally running in a north-easterly and south-westerly direction. In
this district the discoverer of a lode was entitled to claim and stake
off 200 feet in length, then others could in succession take 100 feet
each, in either direction from the discovery hole, and these claims, in
order to be valid, were all recorded in the record office of the