Finding Goods by the Roadside

I had had ample evidence of this while hauling lumber from Plum Creek, and when I had brought in three loads, which made up sufficient material with which to close in a fairly good-sized house, I suggested to Mr. Middleton that money could be made by driving along the trail and gathering up this abandoned property.

I proffered my suggestion with some timidity, believing he would call me foolish for imagining it might be profitable to pick up what others had thrown away; but greatly to my surprise he grasped at the idea eagerly, and declared that instead of taking time just then to finish putting up the house, he would join me.

To furnish Mrs. Middleton and the children with shelter in our absence, he bought a canvas tent from one of the returning prospectors, and there we left the good woman and the boys, while we set out on this new venture, closing for the time being our shop with its incomplete stock of goods.

Six times we drove out from Auraria, over a distance of not more than forty miles, and six times did we return with our wagon loaded to its utmost capacity, having picked up from the wayside, without paying a single dollar for it, valuable stuff which would in due time command a ready sale at the settlement.

When the last load had been brought in, by which I mean the last which we could afford to go in search of, because the remainder of our stock of goods had by now been carted from Leavenworth, Mr. Middleton, roughly figuring up the results of our labor, announced that we had at least doubled our capital, or in other words, instead of owning four hundred dollars' worth of goods as I had when he made the purchase at Leavenworth, I could count myself as having eight hundred dollars invested.

It was a handsome profit for a boy of my age, when nothing save the labor of his hands and the use of the oxen were to be balanced against it.