He had been an old prospector in the
Klondike, but not a successful one, as he was too honest. On his
return, from Alaska, he had to stop in Denver and work for his fare
back to the East where he came from. Being a splendid engineer as well
as a mineralogist, he found a place with a crew of mining engineers
about to inspect Pagoda Peak section and Lost Lake district. He came
with them.
"After he had been in these mountains for a time, he was so certain of
finding gold that he remained when the rest of the crew went back to
Denver. After two years of patient digging and prospecting he took a
new trail that was later found to be Red Man's Trail, seldom traveled,
as it was such dangerous and hard going.
"He was climbing along an awful place where the ledge hung over a
chasm, when he spied a small yellow nugget on the ground. He examined
it and found it to be fine red-gold. Upon looking about, he found a few
more, but there seemed to be no sign of gold in the ledge or in the
rocks about him. Still he staked out a claim on the spot in hopes of
later finding gold hidden in the ground.
"He hobbled his horse and made a good circuit of the place and then
discovered that the opposite ledge of the abyss towered up hundreds of
feet higher than the one he was on. That gave him an idea.
"He rode the horse carefully along his ledge until he reached a slope
where both ledges met an up-grade of mountain-side.
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