"You bunk in along with us, and we'll give you all the flapjacks you can eat," urged Charley. "Dad can make the best you ever tasted. And I'll show you how to pan out the gold, too. Shucks! It's easy. Some days you'll just simply scoop it up, and think you're going to be rich right away--and next day you won't find color, even. But it's fun. Wish you and your father _would_ throw in with us. There's no use in going on down to Sacramento; prices of everything are awful, there, and at San Francisco, too. Ask him, won't you?"
But Billy didn't need to ask, for Mr. Grigsby had been introduced to Mr. Walker by Charley's father, and they three were talking together earnestly. The upshot was (to Charley's and Billy's delight) that the two parties joined.
"I've told Mr. Walker that we're on the search for a certain quartz proposition," announced Charley's father, to his partner Charley, "and if we find it we'll probably need good help to develop it. And there's nobody we'd rather have in with us than him and Billy. Now if we five can't make our way, I'll miss my guess. What do you think about it?"
Think about it? Charley and Billy uttered another war-whoop, together, and in a mutual hug gave a kick-up Indian dance--but Shirt-tail Diggin's was used to this sort of thing.
"I'd better hustle out and see what I can add to the outfit," said Mr. Walker; and accompanied by Mr. Grigsby, away he went.
He succeeded in buying a horse from one of the emigrants, and in picking up here and there a few supplies. By the time that the horse and burro were packed, and the start onward might be made, the emigrant train also was again in motion, and the miners were descending again into their ravines and ditches. The great majority of the emigrants continued eastward, bound for "the Sacramenty," there to renew their strength. A few stayed in camp at Shirt-tail. But a weary lot they all were--they and their animals; weary and seemingly bewildered now that they actually had arrived in the famed gold fields of California.
Mr. Grigsby set the pace, as usual, for his party. Straightaway he led, down the first ravine out of Shirt-tail, up the other side, and into a draw or pass which wound among the hills. The miners whom they passed, at work, gazed curiously; and one or two hailed with--"Where you bound, strangers? What've you heard? Another strike?" But the party only smiled and shook their heads.