Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/148

122 After removing the surface rock to the depth of several feet, we came upon a pocket containing a dirt-like, decayed rock, which on being taken to the creek and washed, yielded four dollars to the pan. We were sure then that we had found what we were after. All our party at once staked off and opened claims on the same lead, and commenced work in dead earnest. We were first prevented by ice and snow from working regularly, but for a week the weather has been warm enough. A great many, as you see, have tracked us to the gulch and taken up claims on other veins and are working them.

I spent nearly a week in Gregory Gulch, enjoying the hospitality of the miners. I visited every “lead” and “claim” then opened, witnessed the digging, hauling, and washing of “pay-dirt,” washed out many a pan myself, saw the gold in the riffles of the sluices, and was daily present when the workers caught the quicksilver used to gather the fine gold from the sluices and heated it in retorts into gold-charged cakes. Thoroughly convinced by all this ocular evidence that the new Dorado had really been discovered, I returned to Denver, and felt justified in spreading this great news with all the faith and emphasis of conviction.

A perceptible change had already taken place in the Cherry Creek towns. Building was being resumed. Tradesmen and mechanics were busy. Gold from Clear Creek began to circulate. The caravans of new-comers from the East made direct for the mountains. Several large trains loaded with miscellaneous provisions and merchandise had arrived and reduced somewhat the ruling enormous prices for necessaries, as, twenty-five cents a pound for flour, forty to fifty cents for sugar, five dollars a bushel for corn, etc. In short, a general stir and bustle had taken the place of stagnation.

About a week after my return from the mountains, a notable event occurred in the arrival of Horace Greeley, the famous editor of the New York Tribune, accompanied by Albert D. Richardson, a well-known correspondent of