the noise moves further left to circle him and Collin had enough of this. Slowly, his finger eases back one hammer on the shotgun, waits, aims at the spot grass rustles again, and pulls the trigger. A boom, a yell, and three dark figures bolt upward running desperately toward the northern most wagon train’s fires.
In the morning Hansel studied the boot tracks a ways toward the far train. Collin found a dropped knife with a six-inch blade and store bought buckhorn handle which he slipped into Hansel’s saddlebag pouch. The Dymonds rode a wide space around that train.
Through the following summer days the Dymonds made twenty or thirty and a few times forty miles a day along the Missouri, North Platte, Sweetwater, Humbolt, Carson, and Truckee Rivers. While mules walk west and then south they both take turns reading out loud chapters of The Prairie Traveler and then talking about it before both read the next chapter. On full moon nights they ride another ten or twenty miles. Almost every day they overcome and pass several wagon trains though the long grass, and then short grass, and then sagebrush. Every night they take turns on watch. At each hour and a half noon stop a different one dozes. When they have luck hunting, the best cut they take and the rest they give to a passing wagon. In the best going wagons only made ten to fifteen miles a day and some days they passed three or four trains. One day they rode past lines of wagon trains all day. That day lines of wagon trains three and four abreast no more than a quarter mile apart, and others ahead of them just as thick. No more than a mile-separated any group of four to six wagon trains. The trail to the California gold fields sure was a busy one and about twice a month they scared off night-raiders. Robbers sneaking around after their mules changed their mind after a shotgun blast into sagebrush that moved. It did the trick for the rest of the night was quiet. Once, some unlucky thief yelled after being hit or frightened, and limped away. Several mornings, they did see drops of blood beside strange boot tracks.
“Look, Pa,” Collin almost shouted and pointed at a group strange looking riders off on the horizon to the north. “I see ‘em,” Hansel replied. After a long moment he added, “Indians.”
“Should we fort-up?”
“Too many for us,” and Hansel kicked Cain in the ribs. Cain trotted forward toward a wagon train two miles ahead and Collin on Able followed. “Get in close behind those wagons. If attacked we can help them and they us.”
“Good Pa.”
In an hour of walking Cain and Able a hundred yard behind the last wagon the group of Indians disappeared off the skyline. With a wave of his hat Hansel kicked Cain in the ribs to begin trotting past. Three more times the Dymonds spotted groups of Indians riding off at a distance and moved in closer to the next or last passed wagon train for protection, but no attacks came.
In addition to scaring off thieves, the shotgun was handy for adding a Jackrabbit or Sage Hen to their jerky diet, especially on those days the mules rested. These long quiet days Collin liked best, hunting along the Platte and Sweetwater while Hansel rested the mules for two full days of grazing and checking mule shoes. On these days Hansel and Collin did not touch a piece of jerky. Collin slept late, napped after a big noon meal, hunted sage hens and jackrabbits, or tried his hand at spearing fish.
Three months and six days after Marthie’s death, Thursday July 16th, the Dymonds walk Cain and Able into Downieville, California, on the Yuba River. Each mule carries only one limp poke sack hanging from a saddle horn and no burlap sacks. Yesterday, all of their remaining jerky squeezed into both of Hansel’s saddlebag pouches. Unimpressed with the town both Dymonds look right and left at a wide dry and dusty street. Downieville was a collect of only nine ramshackle buildings, two dozen patched tents, and just north out of town a rickety-looking bridge over the shallow Yuba River.
Hansel pulls to a stop and Collin slides down to hold Cain and Abel's reins. Satisfied his father slid to the ground and walks over to talk to a dusty ragged miner sitting on a bench drinking whiskey.
The husky bearded miner set his bottle on the bench beside him, stares at their mules, looks Hansel and Collin over, and smiles a missing front tooth smile. "Newcomers?" the miner asks between sips even though he already knows that from looking.
"Dymond's from Missouri," Hansel replies.
"Digger Saylor,” he replies and takes a sip before adding, “formerly of Zealand Notch, New Hamphsire.”
"We need information, Mister Saylor," Hansel politely asks.
"Mister Saylor was my father. I'm just Digger."
"Digger I'm Hansel."
"Hansel, this place is called The Bar or Downieville, take your pick. The river over yonder is the Yuba. Most gold-seekers have moved on to the Feather River and beyond. Mostly this river has old abandoned claims and two or three big serious mining companies. Pay dirt is down in the cracks in the riverbed rocks mostly. Big companies divert the river with dams, teams pulling scoops drag away most of the top dirt and rocks, pay day wages to miners like me to dig down to bedrock, scrap the cracks, and haul the scrapings up to a Trommel. That’s a big wheel-shaped wire cage. Water wheel power turns the cage and the fine stuff falls into the flume, a wooden plank trough with water in it. Flowing water carries away the soil and leaves behind the gold in the riffles."
"Is there any gold still around? Surely they did not get it all, and we did not come all this way to work for wages."
"You two might make eating money, if you dig out rock cracks up the Yuba in old abandoned claims. You might get lucky and find a pocket."
"What's a riffle?"
"A sluice or flume has a series of little boards across it called a riffle. The gold is heavy, falls to the bottom, and lies behind the riffles."
"What are the prices around here, Digger?"
"You’ll need to make at least sixteen to twenty dollars a day—each. Prices are high. A full pinch of dust is a dollar, a teaspoon is sixteen dollars, and a wine glass is a hundred dollars. A morning and evening bowl of stew costs a teaspoon full. This bottle of Tarantula juice cost a teaspoon full. A bottle of Forty Rod would be a half a pinch cheaper if you can stand the smell?"
"Thanks Digger," Hansel replies and puts out his hand to shake.
Digger shakes the offered hand saying, "Luck."
Hansel mounts Cain, touches his hat brim, and kicks his mule's ribs. Digger watches the Dymonds ride down the street toward the bridge. Outside of town just before crossing the bridge, a worried Collin pulls up along side his father. "We wouldn't last the rest of the day in town at those prices, sixteen dollars for a morning and evening bowl of stew.”
“What little we got will have to stretch." Hansel tells his son and Collin nods his understanding.
Across the Yuba Bridge Hansel reins east, upstream along the bank and takes the North Fork of the Yuba, guides Cain along the twisting and turning riverbank, and Downieville is soon out-of-sight. As the Dymonds ride along the Yuba, they see old diggings, abandoned broken tools, broken equipment, cradles, and sluices. They stop and collect two bent pans for panning, two shovels with broken handles, and an old small black pot for cooking jerky stew with the handle-hook broken off one side. A sharp blow with a rock breaks the other side and Collin carries it as he rides. They ride through old sites of settlements, camps as the signs call them. Each one is named strangely: Poverty Bar, Peasoup Bar, and Browns Camp to name a few. Most are empty now, but one or two has a few miners still trying to strike it rich or scraping by freighting supplies up the trails to other mining camps. Hansel and Collin stop in more than a dozen places each day, try panning, and find little. In likely
