Explore "The Furnace of Gold" by Philip Verrill Mighels on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Less than a week had passed since Bostwick's arrival in Goldite, but excitement was rife in the air. Despite the angered protests of half a thousand mining men, the Easterner, with four of the shrewdest prospectors in the State, had traversed the entire mineral region of the reservation in the utmost security and assurance. Five hundred men had been forced to remain at the border, at the points of official guns. A few desperate adventurers had crept through the guard, but nearly all were presently captured and ejected from the place, while Bostwick -- granted special privileges -- was assuming this inside track.
The day for the opening of the lands was less than two weeks off -- and the news leaked out and spread like a wind that the "Laughing Water" claim had suddenly promised amazing wealth as a placer where Van and his partners were taking out the gold by the simplest, most primitive of methods.