eral successful plants, delighted his
eyes and stimulated his imagination nearly up to the point of genuine
gold fever. His coming was of course a great relief to me by dividing
the responsibility and work about the mill. We ran the mill night and
day, crushed all the quartz that could be got and worked over a large
pile of tailings that had accumulated below the mill, which paid a small
profit. The summer's success was very moderate. About midsummer Mr.
Ayres bought out my interest in the enterprise, with the understanding
that I would remain till fall and assist him. He wanted to give the
business a further trial. I determined to return to Chicago and try to
take advantage of the tide of prosperity then beginning to rise in the
East.

Mr. Ayres remained till late in the fall, then went to Chicago for the
winter and returned to the mountains early in the spring of 1863, to
give the business a further trial. But he did not do much mining or
milling. During that spring and the following summer a fever of
speculation prevailed all over the East, brought about by the war and
the deluge of greenbacks. It extended to mining stocks, and especially
to gold mines, as gold was then selling at a high premium--one hundred
dollars in gold bringing $260 in legal tender currency. Mr. Ayres
offered his plant for sale, went to New York in the summer and disposed
of it in Wall street for $30,000. The mill was never afterwards run and
I believe, none of the mines ever worked. Twenty years later I visited
Leavenworth gulch. The mill and all the houses and cabins of my former
days there had disappeared, and most of the old prospect holes and
mining shafts had caved in. One familiar sight, however, remained. A
load or so of black, rich looking ore was lying upon the ground unused
and uncared for at the shaft of the Keystone.

On the 22nd of October, 1862, I left the mountains and gave up the
mining business for ever. The next day at Denver I took passage for
Omaha, in a two-horse covered wagon, with a man and his wife who were
returning to their home in Baraboo, Wis., after spending two years in
the gold fields with only moderate success. Another man also took
passage making a party of four. Leaving the wagon to the man and his
wife, my fellow passenger and I slept on the ground in our blankets,
except occasionally, when near some ranch or settlement, we could enjoy
the luxury of a haystack. When two or three days out of Denver we had a
"