Gold probably is one of the easiest things in the world to cheat an absentee owner out of. He would generally have no way of really knowing if a guy had found 3 nuggets or 30 nuggets on his claim.

My next strategy was to walk anywhere and everywhere that I had been inside this home and garage. I looked on the floor, in the bathroom, I checked the bathroom trash can, and I even pulled the shower curtain back and looked in the bathtub.

It all occurred when Gus and I returned to a remote placer gold area where we had previously found really good gold. The problem was that it would take about an hour to walk through the desert to get to it.

We all love to see that first glimmer of gold when it peeks out from under the black sand in our pan, or feel the weight of a nugget in our scoop when we dig a good target. But sometimes things don’t go quite so smoothly.

As we got closer to a wide stream bed, we started hearing some gunfire. It was single shots at first, then semi and automatic weapons fire…

…more difficult terrain must be traversed in the hope of locating small pockets, low depressions or small gullies on needle-covered slopes.