go out in the morning with claim-notices written out in advance, and tramp over the red volcanic mountains all day long in the burning sun, vainly seeking for an unclaimed lead. All the quartz leads in the country appeared to have from one to a dozen claim-notices stuck up on them. Just as hope was abandoning him, a friend suggested to try "extensions."
If he could not find new claims, he could at feast locate extensions on those taken up by others, and if the original claims prospected well, his extensions would eventually become valuable. The idea struck him favorably.
Next morning he was off bright and early, with his pocket full of ready-written extension claim-notices. Luck was still against him; he found extensions located in every claim in the mountains. Late in the evening he was making his way back to camp, footsore, weary and dejected, when he stumbled upon a claim-stake on a mesa at the head of a cañon, and getting down on his knees to examine it, was filled with delight at the discovery that there was no extension-notice fastened to the other side of it. He could not make out the words of the notice, but it was a claim, and that was quite enough for him. Pulling out an extension-notice, reading:
"We, the undersigned, claim 200 feet each on the first northerly extension of this claim, and intend to work the same according to the laws of the United States and of this district.
(Signed)
"John Smith,
"John Jones et al."
he fastened it on the northern side of the stake, and started on toward camp with a lighter heart.
