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I was about 13 years old when I went on my first prospecting trip with my uncle, Angus MacDonald. He was six foot seven, couldn’t stand to sleep indoors and drove a stripped down Model T Ford he had modified for serious mountain climbing. He was known throughout the Southwest only as “ol Two Story” because of his height and he didn’t bother to tell very many people his real name. He was a classic, “loner” and didn’t want anyone to know anything about his business…especially where and how he prospected for gold.

Two Story was getting old when he took me with him the first time and although I didn’t suspect it at the time, he just needed a “gofer” to help him pack in supplies and go for water. I was actually just a necessary evil and he tolerated my dumb questions in exchange for my help. I know now how lucky I was to serve my apprenticeship as a gold prospector under this cantankerous old master of the profession.

We struck a trail North from Sierra Blanca, Texas into New Mexico, across Southern Arizona and into the Eastern desert of California. Two Story preferred to prospect desert dry washes…”Any durn fool can prospect where there’s water…so there’s too many fighting over the gold!” He could read a desert dry wash like a history book and tell me what happened geologically millions of years back. Without formal education, he taught me more geology than any of the University professors I was to study under later in life. We spent a day or two in each of the “glory holes” he had located in his lifetime of wandering the desert. He told me “most prospectors look for a big strike so hard that they overlook the millions of small pockets of gold along the bends and curves of the countless dry creek beds. These pockets may catch only a few grains or maybe a few ounces of gold, but they refill yearly during the rainy season floods. Any prospector worth his salt and willing to work can make a good living in the desert.”

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The Original Little Camel Automatic Panning Machine (NOW DESERT FOX)

As a working prospector, I have grubstaked myself for years by reaping the pockets of placer gold deposited by the semiannual monsoon floods. Our Western desert public lands contain millions of acres open to every American citizen for prospecting under the provisions of The United States Mining Laws. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to measure the millions of miles of dry-washes crisscrossing our deserts but there must be at least a million. Whenever I select any dry creek leading down from mineralized mountains I nearly always find a few pockets of placer gold dust. While these scattered pockets may not contain more than a few ounces of gold, they are often replenished during the annual floods.

To work these gold pockets efficiently, I needed equipment that would run quietly, require little water and be light weight enough to backpack into remote areas. The first prototype of the little camel worked so well, other prospectors begged me to build one like it for them after seeing it work! Since those days I have built a lot of Little Camels for prospectors all over the world. Many improvements have been added over the years but the older model camels still outperform the current higher priced competitive machines on the market today. A secondhand camel will bring almost as much as it’s original cost because you seldom see one for sale. Modern production methods have kept the price reasonable even though new features and different size models have been added.