Hard Gold by Avi

state where the people who had first found gold came from. As we later learned, the two towns were always feuding—not that it mattered to us.
    There were a few dusty streets, eighty feet wide with names such as Blake, Larimer, and McHaa. On them a fair number of pigs, chickens, and dogs ran free.
    All told there were, at most, a hundred and fifty houses—for the most part, poorly built log ones with canvas roofs, probably from the wagons in which folks arrived. I’d say a quarter of the houses were not finished and sat abandoned. Some were frame houses, with a few glass windows, roofs, and real doors—but not many. Tents were plentiful. By the creek, some Arapaho Indians were living in their teepees. But in this paltry setting, there actually was a newspaper, The Rocky Mountain News.

    An early view of Denver (on the right) and Auraria (on the left)

    This is Denver after about a year. It really grew fast.
    We were informed that about a thousand people lived in both towns. They were mostly from the states, but Mexicans and Canadians were there, too. They looked much like Council Bluffs people, which is to say young men (salted with a few gray heads), plus a very few women and children. Ragged clothes were the fashion, slouch hats (along with some bowlers and top hats), tattered red wool shirts, and sagging trousers, from which revolvers and bowie knives hung. Boots were worn, but bare feet were not uncommon. And—if beards were ever going to be shaved—which seemed unlikely—Mr. Bunderly was bound to become the richest man in the territory.
    To be fair, Lizzy and I looked no less tattered. My gar ments were threadbare and ill-patched. The hem of Lizzy’s long skirt was much singed from campfire embers. Her bonnet was long gone, her red hair woven into one long braid.
    As we wandered, I kept glancing back.
    “What are you looking for?” asked Lizzy.
    “Mawr. Can’t believe he just left us. But it’d make sense for him to act like he was going away so he could follow us.”
    In Auraria, we noted two hotels, one bakery, a printer’s shop, two meat markets, a blacksmith, carpenter, tinsmith, and a tailor. There were three dry goods stores. And what stock they had was expensive!
    BREAD—Fifteen cents a pound!
    SUGAR—Fifty cents a pound!
    BUTTER—Seventy-five cents a pounds!
    That was more than double—and sometimes triple—the cost back home.
    As for saloons, while there were too many to count, there was no church, and there wouldn’t be a school until October. For that matter, there was nothing that looked like a city hall, or any kind of government building. Cherry Creek seemed to be about riches and drink.
    But what about those heaps of gold that you could scoop up with a shovel such as Jesse had read about in the newspaper? All we had to do was look about and see there was nothing of the kind. But if dirt, dust, and mud were gold, I’d have been twice as rich as King Croesus. The truth was, everyone I saw looked as poor as Job—and just as miserable.
    In other words, those first 1858 reports of gold did prove a bust. “Humbug” had been an apt word. But that was only the beginning of the story. In the early spring of 1859, prospectors went into the mountains and did find gold. A lot of it. When word got out about these new discoveries, people flocked in from the east. This time they didn’t stop at Cherry Creek, but headed straight for the mines.
    I asked a man on the street where I might find information about someone.
    “A miner?” He spoke loudly, as if not used to speaking. Perhaps he was partly deaf.
    “I think so.”
    “You can look around,” he said. “But most folks have gone to the mountains, to the Gregory diggings!” He waved a hand in a westerly direction, taking in the numberless mountains. “Who you looking for?”
    “Someone named Jesse Plockett.”
    The man had been paying scant attention until I said the name. Then he turned, studied me, and glanced away again, as if trying