Hey, George.
Time to go prospecting and see what’s out there.

Detective Dodge goes on a treasure hunt to find high-grade pay.

The stuff you’re running has never been reworked by nature.

With no dump truck, George uses the backhoe to dig pay 40 yards from the wash plant.

Over millions of years, one piece of gold at a time gets into the stream systems.
Then they concentrate up.

And what we’re running here, it’s a lot of angular rock that had never been reworked.

What we’re looking for in a gold-bearing area is rounded rocks that have been reworked,
because that concentrates your gold like a sluice box.

Just got to find where it’s got concentrated.

So, I like this better.

Yeah.

The rocks are more rounded, right?

Yeah. This will flood.

Oh, I can see that. Yeah.

Look at this guy.
He’s moved a long ways for this desert.

Right.

Right.

So, he’s nice and smooth.

This one’s fairly smooth,
but the rounded edges, right?

Right.

You know, you can’t cut yourself on any corner of these.

No.

A lot of those rocks where you’re digging over there,
you could shave with.

Yep.

This wash here, your best gold is most likely on bedrock in here,
because it’s been reworked down in the bottom.

That’s nature’s sluice box.

I know the sides are virgin.
This could be really good right here.

Yeah.

Freddy’s hunch:
the best gold has been concentrated by monsoon rains into this old creek gully.

You say if there’s gold on the surface,
there’s going to be gold down deeper.

True.

All right, let’s go pan it.

Yep. Sounds good.

Well, let’s see what’s in it, George.

Holy — look at that.
Right on the surface.

Look at those.

Some nice pieces too.

I like it.

Exciting.

I say for the next test,
if you can get a dump truck in here,
then we’ll run it and see what comes out of it.

This may be your future.

Yep.

Gold was way better here,
but we’ve got to find a way to get it to the plant.

Hopefully, we can find a dump truck.

Well, there’s our dump truck.

Oh, nice.

Looks like George came through on that.

After a crash course in prospecting,
George gambles $300 hiring the only dump truck in town.

If Freddy’s hunch is right,
running pay from the new creek gully could save their season.

How’s it going?
We’re out of time here,
and we’ve got to get some material moved over there.

Let’s get them loaded.

Make sure it has gold in it.

In one day, the dump truck can haul 90 yards of material,
over three times what they’ll need for the second test.

That feels awesome,
seeing a dump truck pulling here with our pace.

Normally being one yard at a time,
it’s going to help us get a lot more material moved faster.

Well, we’ll get this sluice loaded up
and get it down there.

At the entrance to the claim,
Freddy transports the sluice.

Well, things are coming together,
but we’re still behind.

Get all the pay hauled.

Yes, sir.

Nice.

Let’s fire it up, huh?

Sounds like a plan.
We’re ready to rock.

After five days,
Freddy and Juan have transformed the Kennedy wash plant,
adding chains and weight to the eccentric vibrator to clear the pre-wash screen,
increasing the sluice to 18 feet,
and installing mats to catch fine gold.

Hey, George,
will you start loading this box?

Well, that looks pretty good.

If we can push it a little harder,
we can double their gold production.

Well, these guys are trying to scrape out a living here, right?

So we need to switch gears now
and hopefully that pay works out.

Do it.

Running seven yards an hour,
George won’t make his 20-ounce target.

Turn her up a little more.

So Freddy wants to crank up the yardage,
nearly doubling it.

All right, we’re rolling now.

This plant’s been running really smooth.

Yeah.
This trial is good.
Should save us a lot of time on cleanup and stuff.

The Kennedy crew are near the end of their second test run.

We’ve got our hopper feeder turned up to 12 yards an hour,
which is crazy.

We’ve never run that much yardage per hour.

This could be a big game changer,
just from the yardage alone.

Super excited.

Last bucket.

Yeah, sounds good, man.
Right at four hours.

Hey, Matt,
that’s the last bucket.

I’m excited to see what the weigh is.

Well, the box looks pretty decent,
but you never know till you weigh the gold.

So if you guys want to pull the mats and get it cleaned up,
we’ll get it weighed up.

Sounds good.

Thanks, guys.

All right.
Heck yeah.

Thank you.

Morning.

Morning.

Got her all cleaned up, huh, guys?

Yep.
Sure did.

Well, it looks pretty decent, guys.

For four hours.

For four hours,
it looks really good.

What was the first weigh, Fred?

14.14.

Well, there’s 14 right there, guys,
and look how much gold’s left in that pan.

Wow.

The Kennedy crew need 25 ounces
to have any chance of reaching their 20-ounce goal.

But if Freddy and Juan don’t see at least 28 ounces,
they lose their double-or-nothing wager.

There’s double right there.

61.6.

Wow.
That’s awesome.

Right on, guys.

Heck yeah, man.

Worth over $1,150,
the Kennedy crew quadruple their gold recovery.

So it’s a combination of the yardage,
the fixes to the plant,
and much better ground.

That brown ground’s a big step in the right direction, right?

And you’ve got miles of that.

We’re hoping 10, 20, 30 percent.

I mean, look at us now.
It’s ridiculous.

I’m going to have a smile on my face
for quite a few days after this one.

Running eight hours a day over the next four weeks,
they could haul in over 29 ounces.

More than enough
to keep their gold mining dream alive.

You guys want to be able to pay back your investment,
actually make a little money out here,
instead of it just being a boy trip.

And that’s going to make it possible.

My heavy weight’s been lifted off my shoulders.

We may actually have a future in this now.

First, get a dump truck.
There’s your down payment.

And if you get your yardage up even more,
you’re pushing probably $3,000 a day.

A thousand a piece.

Awesome.

The guys were genuinely concerned
about their ability to stay out here and mine.

Now, going from what they had before
to what we were able to get them,
this is more than just a possibility.

This could actually be their future.

Well, I couldn’t be happier with that second test.

They’re happy.
I saw Matt smile finally.

So it must be good.

You’ve got miles of creek.

So with your small plant,
you’re going to have to push it.

And when you get enough money saved up
with the ground you’ve got,
get a bigger plant.

That’d be a dream.

And yeah,
if we keep doing this right here,
I could see that happening.