Mary Muhlenberg leaned forward on her knees and tightly gripped her spade with both hands. She angled the blade down toward the hard, bluish clay and gravel.
The sixteen-year-old ignored the stinging streams of sweat dripping from her auburn hair into her wide-open brown eyes. She ignored the dark shadows of her two friends cast by the noonday sun.
Abruptly, the loud rattling sound filling the narrow ravine halted. She did not hesitate. She plunged the spade downward and pinned the snake to the ground behind its triangular head.
The snake wriggled once, then went limp. To be safe, Mary raised the spade and came down hard a second and a third time.
The two brothers whooped and laughed. Mary grabbed the dead snake with both hands and flung the two pieces into a clump of nearby brush.
"Last time that rattler's gonna mess with our diggin's!" exclaimed Tom Nielsson, who had just turned fifteen. He swung his shovel onto his shoulder.
Billy, a year younger, patted Mary on the back.
"Our diggings . . ." Mary muttered, wiping her hands on her torn corduroy pants.
They had panned the creek beds near the Feather River for nearly a month. But for what? Hardly two ounces of gold-though they'd started mining the same week she and her mission-ary parents staggered into the town of Midas. Their journey from Shawnee Mission, Kansas, to northern California took three deadly months. Starting in March, they'd come west with an outfit of eighteen families who called themselves the Kansas Trading Company. They'd ridden and then walked a thousand miles over endless plains, perilous deserts and rugged mountains.
Mary didn't want to think about how many died from accidents, fever, and chills that spring. Of those who survived the journey, only her parents had chosen to live so far north of San Francisco.
She scrunched her sunburned face and blew a tickling wisp of hair away from her freckled nose. Digging and sifting the rocky soil-mining was hard! And when they panned the streambeds, the cold water numbed their fingers. Even on a hot summer day!
She sighed. As her shadow shifted, sunlight struck the blue clay and broken rock where her spade had severed the snake.
A yellow glint caught her eye. Mary drew in a sharp breath. Her heart skipped a beat. Could it really be?
"Tom! Billy! I've found color!"
She rubbed a dirty sleeve across her face to wipe the sweat and dirt away, then pulled out her knife. Hunkering down, she scraped it along a narrow crevice in the rock. The brothers dropped to their knees and yanked off their hats to get a better look.
Carefully, Mary lifted her knife from the crevice. Her mouth hung open, her eyes riveted on the knife and its glittering load.
Balanced on the level blade gleamed a dozen thick, bright flakes of gold.
"El Dorado, at last!" Billy yelled at the top of his lungs.
Mary watched both brothers joyously fling their tattered and dusty hats high into the air. She imagined the Spanish conquistadors would have tossed their shining helmets too, had they ever discovered that legendary city of gold.
"A real honest to goodness lode!" Tom exclaimed.
Mary yanked a leather pouch from her belt and pried it open with her fingers. Then she slowly tipped the knife. The chips of gold fell inside one by one.
They dug the clay-filled crevice most of the afternoon. More than once, they stopped to hoot and marvel. In three hours, they found more gold than many a seasoned miner found in two weeks.
Mary climbed to her feet and brushed the loose dirt from her pants. With a wide smile, she tossed the pouch from one hand to the other. "I'd say we'll split at least a pound, maybe more."
She handed Tom the pouch so he could feel the weight of success.
Tom just shook his head in disbelief, then tossed it to Billy.
"At sixteen dollars an ounce, that's eighty to ninety dollars for each of us," Mary figured out loud as she loosened her long braid of hair.
"What are you gonna do with your share, Mary?" Billy asked.
"I'm not sure," she said, picking up her canteen and pouring water over her upturned face. She shook the water from her thick hair. "This is my first bonanza."
"Ours, too!" Tom said, snatching the pouch from Billy. "We've got to stake our claim. Mary, go ahead-you found the pile."
Billy grabbed their axe and handed it to Mary after she finished weaving her hair back into a braid that reached halfway down her back.
Taking the axe, Mary glanced around and found an old stump to the right side of the ravine. She walked over, swung the axe up over her head, and then slammed it down into the stump.
Billy pulled a sharpened piece of charcoal from his pocket and knelt by the stump. He spoke the words proudly as he wrote them on the handle of the axe.
"EL DORADO CLAIM!"
Tom dropped the pouch into Mary's waiting and open palm.
"July 28, 1849-a day we'll all remember," Mary beamed.
"Now, let's go record our claim and find out what our gold is really worth!"