A hand-cart emigrant to Pike's Peak.
--A correspondent, writing from
Denver City to the St. Louis Republican, relates the following:
‘
"I know a young man in
Lawrence, Kansas, not yet of age, who left that city in company with a boy much younger than himself.
It was about the time so many were returning, pronouncing our mineral researches a monstrous humbug.
This couple of gold adventurers pushed out of
Lawrence en route for this place.
All they possessed in the world was packed into a rather rickety hand-cart.
They pushed it on before them, camping under it at night, until they reached
Fort Riley, where the younger of the two became discouraged by the reports of its being all a delusion and a humbug, repeated to him every hour almost by the returning adventurers, and concluded to return.
All his efforts to induce his traveling companion to accompany him back were of no avail; and there, on the wide prairie, those two parted company, one to return to his home, the other to push his hand-cart before him until he reached the mountains.
"After encountering many difficulties and delays, occasioned by break-downs, he at last reached his destination.
He came into the mountains, took up some claims, sold some, purchased others, went on to the States last fall, found a gentleman with whom he formed a copartnership, bought a quartz mill, and last spring brought it out and set it up here.
The mill proved to be the worst constructed piece of machinery ever brought to these mines, and has since been laid aside as useless.
The young man has recently sold his interest in the old mill, and his claims on the
Fisk Lode for something over $11,000 cash.--He still has valuable gold claims here."
’
