All of this made me have to conclude that those dummies just didn’t know what they were doing. It was a couple of years later before the solution for this puzzle became clear to me.

Luckily, at about that time, I buddied up with a somewhat cantankerous, but very helpful, guy named Rod. He had become a local legend for his ability to consistently find gold.

I saw a big brown hind end of what at first I thought was an elk, about 75 yards away. I was standing behind a large tree and stopped and peeked around the tree to see what it was.

My right rib cage took the brunt of the blow from the fall, which left me feeling partially paralyzed and in immense pain.

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…

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.

The dredge and our gear, with us clinging on to the sides, bounced along until it got hung up on a large boulder in the middle of the river.