When the Rockies Fell

"How, Greenwood! What brings ye here so late?" demanded his erstwhile
crony, Jim Bridger, advancing, tin cup in hand, to meet him. "Light.
Eat. Special, drink. How--to the old times!"

"Old times be damned!" exclaimed Old Greenwood. "These is new times."

He lifted from above the chafed hips of his trembling horse two sacks of
something very heavy.

"How much is this worth to ye?" he demanded of Bridger and the trader.
"Have ye any shovels? Have ye any picks? Have ye flour, meal,
sugar--anything?"

"Gold!" exclaimed Jim Bridger. "Kit Carson did not lie! He never did!"

And they did not know how much this was worth. They had no scales for
raw gold, nor any system of valuation for it. And they had no shovels
and no pickaxes; and since the families had come they now had very
little flour at Fort Hall.

But now they had the news! This was the greatest news that ever came to
old Fort Hall--the greatest news America knew for many a year, or the
world--the news of the great gold strikes in California.

Old Greenwood suddenly broke out, "Have we left the mines an' come this
fur fer nothin'? I tell ye, we must have supplies! A hundred dollars fer
a pick! A hundred dollars fer a shovel! A hundred dollars fer a pair o'
blankets! An ounce fer a box of sardines, damn ye! An ounce fer half a
pound o' butter! A half ounce fer a aig! Anything ye like fer anything
that's green! Three hundred fer a gallon o' likker! A ounce for a box o'
pills! Eight hundred fer a barrel o' flour! Same fer pork, same fer
sugar, same fer coffee! Damn yer picayune hides, we'll show ye what
prices is! What's money to us? We can git the pure gold that money's
made out of, an' git it all we want! Hooray fer Californy!"