In 1900, Morgan Griffiths, Gus Paulsen, and a party of prospectors went northeast from Rock Springs to prospect in Horse Thief Canyon near Cumberland, where outcrops of a promising coal deposit were known. About twenty miles out, they established a camp in the canyon, which early settlers had named from claims that outlaws had used it as a rendezvous and hiding place for stolen horses. One crew member served as cook under an agreement that anyone complaining about the food would take over the job, and when one man began denouncing especially poor biscuits, burnt bacon, and undrinkable coffee, he suddenly remembered the arrangement and ended with, “You know, boys, I like everything cooked that way.” The cook kept the job, and the party continued eating poor meals. With spring water nearby and abundant wild game, including deer, antelope, and sage chickens, the crew had the necessities and did not depend on the day’s buckboard-and-mule trip to headquarters in Rock Springs. Morgan Griffiths, a native Welshman who came to America in the late 1870s, was widely liked and later handled much of the preliminary negotiation work when the United Mine Workers of America organized the miners of the Union Pacific Coal company. Gus Paulsen, who later became Mayor of Superior and Outside Foreman of mines, was reputed able to use a meager lunch, a pocket compass, and a map to locate section corners with unerring accuracy even in difficult terrain, and he once refused a salary raise, saying the company was already paying him all that he was worth.