Sometimes I feel that my life is a fairy tale. Isn't it grand that even at my age I can still get as excited as an eight year old waiting for his presents on Christmas?

     Living in Custer County, Idaho, I enjoy the great outdoors, hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, scouting, and looking for artifacts. There are three million acres of public land to explore. Somedays I daydream about the good old days when cowboys and Indians roamed the hills and the prospectors were looking for gold. There was a mining boom in the 1800's. They discovered gold, silver, copper, and cobalt. Wouldn't it have been fun to have been here then?

     Maybe I could do some modern day prospecting. It would be easy to find gold today, if it's out there. Since technology has evolved, there are incredible metal detectors which can tell you on an LED panel exactly what you have found, gold, silver, tin, coin, etc. I decided to buy one as there are months in the summer when I get bored and need something to amuse myself and occupy my time.

     UPS arrived at 2:00 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon, and in the middle of summer it was Christmas all over again; my metal detector was here. I loaded it up with batteries, got Thumper into the Ford F-350 crew cab, and headed for the mountains where I had seen some old mining cabins.

     Scattered throughout the county near creeks and streams, there are small, one room cabins made of hand-hewn logs, some with wood floors and some with dirt floors. All the cabins had two windows for ventilation and a tiny wood burning stove. Some of them are in good condition because they are maintained by hunters who use them every fall and winter and even had kerosene lanterns and a double-edged axe for chopping firewood. We happened upon one that would have made Ralph Lauren proud. It was decorated with log furniture and antique tools and antlers on the walls. Someone had even taken the time to hang calico curtains in the windows. The prospectors must have been small men as I had to duck to get through the doors, and in some cabins my head grazed the ceiling. Thumper and I focused on the cabins with the dirt floors; the miner might have stored his wealth indoors. If any treasure was buried there, it would have been easier to recover. At the first site, however, there was nothing of value, but at least I got used to the beeping noises from the head phones.

     Thumper couldn't understand what game we were playing. She thought we had gone into the hills after antlers, but couldn't find any to play with. She was definitely picking up all kinds of scents and finding her own treasures to chew on such as pieces of an old leather glove. After hours of searching and finding nothing but nails, old tin cups, and pieces of scrap iron, I moved to the site of an old outhouse. The head phones were buzzing, and the screen read "GOLD." I dug two feet into the ground with Thumper helping and pulled out a two and one-half dollar Indian head gold piece that must have fallen from someone's pocket as he was taking care of business. I was so excited. I held it out for Thumper to see, "Thumper, this is what we are looking for!"

     She sniffed it and looked at me as if a light bulb went off in her head, as if to say, "OK, Dad, I've got it now!" Off she went, nose to the ground. She went over to a badger hole and started pawing at the ground, doing her imitation of a backhoe. Thumper was on a mission, and there was dirt flying everywhere.

     "Thumper, we're not badger hunting," I cried, but she ignored me and just kept digging. After twenty minutes of digging she started to howl. I thought she had found the badger, but the badger was sitting on a rock wondering what all the excitement was about. When she stopped digging she started baying as if she had treed a lion and wanted me to see what she caught.

      "Thumper, be quiet! I can't hear the head phones!" That didn't accomplish anything. I figured the only way to satisfy her was to look in her hole and give her an "atta girl" for trying. As I approached the hole, I caught the reflection of sunlight. It was blinding. There definitely was something metallic in her hole. I couldn't believe it. Thumper had uncovered a gold nugget, about the size of a football. I was stunned. I could barely speak, meanwhile Thumper was there wagging her tail and looking for praise, as if to say, "Did I do good, Dad, huh? Did I?"

     I started stammering, "Th-th-th-thumper!!!!!! You found gold!!!!!! That is the biggest nugget I have ever seen!!!!"

     Thumper thought I was playing when I got down on my hands and knees to try to pull it out of the hole. Though she had uncovered one side of it, there was more dirt to move. Thumper was getting impatient; she wanted her new toy out of the ground. I had to pull with all my might to free it. In doing so, I knocked myself back on my heels and landed with a boulder on my chest.

      "Holy Hannah! No one is going to believe how we found this! I have a thousand dollar, state-of-the-art metal detector, and my hound dog finds the real gold! What does that say for technology? Shoot, Thumper, I could hire you out to Thompson Creek or Hecla mining companies. Maybe then they could find gold, too, and boost the economy! You are truly a wonder dog."

     We came home with our treasure and contacted the assay office to verify it was real. A week later, we had the news, PURE GOLD! The twenty-eight pound nugget was 75% gold and 25% quartz. Thumper was now independently wealthy. (Does this mean she will have to pay taxes?) We took her to Wells Fargo Bank to open her savings account and had the staff in stitches as she placed her paw mark on the signature card. We rewarded her with a new collar with a solid gold name tag, a feather bed, and her own case of gourmet dog biscuits, keeping in mind that we might need a loan one day.

     Isn't it nice to be able to live a fairy tale and have your daydreams become reality?