Cash watched them for a day or so; saw the size of their grubstakes, asked few questions and listened to a good deal of small-town gossip, and nodded his head contentedly.
There was gold in these hills.

Not enough, perhaps, to start a stampede with--but enough to keep wise old hermits burrowing after it.
So one day Bud sold the two horses and one of the saddles, and Cash bought flour and bacon and beans and coffee, and added other things quite as desirable but not so necessary.

Then they too went away into the hills.
Fifteen miles from Alpine, as a cannon would shoot; high up in the hills, where a creek flowed down through a saucerlike basin under beetling ledges fringed all around with forest, they came, after much wandering, upon an old log cabin whose dirt roof still held in spite of the snows that heaped upon it through many a winter.

The ledge showed the scars of old prospect holes, and in the sand of the creek they found "colors" strong enough to make it seem worth while to stop here--for awhile, at least.
They cleaned out the cabin and took possession of it, and the next time they went to town Cash made cautious inquiries about the place.

It was, he learned, an old abandoned claim.