Bob and his team were now at work excavating a streak of pay dirt in their cut. Their claim owner, Jerry Milgram, had set them a 25 ounce, $33,000 goal and had two weeks to get it, and now that they had struck pay dirt, the team was racing to get Sifter ready to run the dirt. Muck and Axel were busily trucking the pay dirt 300 yards up the hill to the stockpile. Scoop and Spade were busy as well, digging the pay dirt out of the ground. It was mainly large chunks of rock with sharp corners and some rounded stones, but the most important was the dirt, with possibly thousands of dollars in gold waiting to be processed. As they hauled pay up to the plant, they were beginning to lose footing. Muck was coming up the hill when she began slipping on the road, still wet from rains.
"Whoa!" she exclaimed. Axel saw this and he turned around to go and check.
"Are you alright, Muck?" he asked her.
"I'm alright, Axel. The road is just really slippery!" replied Muck
"I know. Even with my six wheel drive I'm slipping, too. Here's an idea. I'll give you a push to get up the hill." Axel said.
"Okay, Axel!" Muck said. Axel got behind Muck and the two began the ascent up the nearly 20 degree incline. About a third of the way there, Axel began to slip, meaning Muck started slipping, too. They both slid all the way to the bottom of the hill. Bob rode down on Scrambler to see what was the matter.
"What's going on? There hasn't been a load of pay to the stockpile yet!" he scolded them.
"That haul road is too slippery, Bob. We were already having to fight the incline. Now the rain's made it wet and we can't get the pay to the plant. We need a new road if there's any chance of us being able to get the enough pay to the stockpile and get sluicing." Axel explained.
"I see. I'll get the others." Bob said. At lunchtime, Bob gathered the crew up for a meeting. After finishing a sandwich, he addressed the crew.
"Team, it's come to my attention that we need to build a new haul road up to the pay pile. Even when we get ready to sluice, we'll run out of pay dirt because we can't get it up there. Here's what I've come up with." he explained. Bob and Wendy showed the crew the plans to replace the old road, a straight incline up the hill to the pay pile, with a road that hugged the curves of the hill. " First, Brick, you'll cut out a path in the hill. Scoop, Muck, Axel, you'll haul overburden in to build the basis of the road. Clark, you'll bring up stones from the riverbed to lay on top of the overburden. That'll keep it from washing away. Dizzy and Benny, you'll help me build a barrier on the side to keep everyone safe. Can we build it?" Bob said.
"Yes we can!" The machines said as they got to work. Clark cut out the path in the hill to begin the road building process. Scoop, Muck, and Axel dug overburden out to put down as the foundation of the road. Next, Clark dumped loads of stones out to keep the rocks from washing away. Once the road was done, Benny dug small holes with his backhoe, where Bob drove metal posts into the ground, which Dizzy secured with concrete, and when that was finished, the barrier was completed for the road and Muck and Axel got back to work hauling pay dirt out of the cut. Bob looked at Sifter, sitting idly in the yard.
"When are we going to start sluicing, Bob?" He asked.
"Well, we about have enough pay dirt. If you're ready, I guess we can get set up. Clark, how many yards of pay dirt have we stockpiled?" Bob asked Clark.
"I'd guess about 12,000 yards, Bob." Clark replied.
"Okay, we're going to get ready to sluice. All machines, report to the yard. We're going to get Sifter ready to run." Bob radioed the crew. The team stopped what they were doing and converged on the yard. There, Bob filled them in on the plan.
Spade, Clark, get around bot sides of Sifter." he instructed the two as he hooked chains to them, then chained them up to Sifter. "Heave!" He said. The two slowly hoisted Sifter off the ground and began moving him to the pad Brick and Scoop were preparing.
"Easy there, fellas!" Sifter said, nervously. Spade set his end down, but Clark was slower, causing his back wheels to raise into the air.
"Whoa!" Bob exclaimed. Clark let his arms down and he was back upright, then he went to Scrambler, "Let's get this pump in place, Scrambler. I'll need your help, Scoop." Bob told the two. He hopped on Scrambler, then hitched him up to the pump and they drove down to the creek.
"Scoop, place this siphon down in the water." Scoop took the siphon and placed it in the creek. Bob and the two then went back up the hill to fetch the pipes. He pulled out rolls of orange lay-flat piping and loaded them into Scoop's bucket. They returned to the pump and Bob connected the pipes to the manifold, then he connected each length of pipe together until he got to Sifter, where he then connected it to the bypass valve, then to the main water lines. Everything was now ready. Bob had poured thousands of dollars into this very moment. He called out,
"Okay, Sifter, start shaking!" Sifter's shaker deck rattled and clattered to life, his spray bars blasted water, then his feeder conveyor belt began to turn. "Add some dirt, Clark!" he shouted to Clark. The big loader responded as he scooped out pay dirt from the stockpile and loaded it into the hopper. It then fed into the prewash, where jets of water blasted the dirt and fine gold off of the rocks, which then went down to the shaker deck, which screened the material out for any other fine materials, which finally went into two chutes and into the sluice boxes, while the worthless coarse tailings slid down into a pile. The machines cheered as their gold mining operation was finally coming to life. Bob hugged Wendy, passionately, nearly crying with tears of joy. His dream of saving his family was becoming reality...