Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/267

Rh You are now ready to begin the work of mining. Except in a few instances, the gold will be upon the creek flats. The pay streak is seldom more than three feet in depth, and it lies under a layer of moss, ice, frozen muck, and gravel ranging from three to thirty feet in depth. If you start in summer to dig a hole to bed rock, the probabilities are that it will fill with water. But as soon as the ground is frozen sufficiently to enable you to prosecute your work without interference from the water, you sink a hole to the bed rock by means of a pick. If it is frozen too hard to dig, you build a fire on the gravel and heat the ground until it can be picked and shoveled, and after the layer of softened ground is taken out, you rebuild the fire. This requires a great deal of wood and is slow work. In this way the pay dirt may be taken from underneath the surface in the winter. In May the sun comes rushing up from the south with astonishing heat. It softens the dump of pay dirt, and as soon as this can be shoveled into the sluice-boxes, you begin washing.