A Gold Hunter's Experience

A restless summer in 1860 found a Chicago clerk gripped by “gold fever,” a contagion that swept the city as the post‑panic economy left many searching for a fresh start. He and three companions—an investor, a seasoned mechanic, and a farmer‑butcher substitute—pooled their savings and assembled a full mining outfit, from a twelve‑stamp quartz mill to a year's worth of provisions, all packed onto fourteen wagons.

The narrative follows their painstaking preparations: buying oxen in St. Joseph, loading twenty‑four tons of gear, and charting a route across the plains toward the newly famed Pike’s Peak region. Along the way, colorful characters emerge—a volunteer dentist, a devout young man with a satchel of religious books, and a hardy German driver—each driven by the promise of fortune. Their early trek, marked by careful scouting for water and pasture, sets the stage for the rugged reality of frontier prospecting without yet revealing the outcomes of their daring venture.