“What you should have, of course, is the advice of expert engineers who specialize in this sort of thing. It’s out of my line, and I am merely giving you my opinion for whatever it is worth—in soundness,” he added, catching a miserly chill in Old Jess’s eyes. “I couldn’t sell advice on a matter outside my profession, and in any case I am glad to do whatever I can to help you avoid mistakes. I am trying to see it as a mining problem—the opening of a glory hole, we’ll say.
“Your idea of crosscutting at different levels is a good one, but you should by all means break your rock to the surface, and so give your main explosives a chance to lift it over. You see what I mean?” He lifted the diagram and held it up for them to see. “Here are your tunnel, winze and crosscuts. Then here are your relievers. An incline to the surface—or close to the surface—as high as you wish the cliff to break. I shall have to survey that for you, to give you the proper pitch. Then these ‘coyote holes’ between the apex and your adit—these will be filled with dynamite. I wonder if you have formed any definite idea of how much powder and dynamite you are going to need!”
“Nevada and I have been working on that for five years,” Peter said, and smiled. “We intend to use plenty.”
“I should hope so,” Rawley exclaimed. “Better a few tons too much, than to have all your work and money go for nothing. Make a dead-sure job of it, or—drop the scheme right here.”
This brought an ominous growl from the old man and Young Jess. Peter was studying the diagram. He passed it along to Young Jess, who scowled down at it intently, his slower mind studying each detail laboriously. Old Jess reached out a grimy claw and bent over it like a vulture over a half-picked bone.
“I’m afraid you’ll have trouble getting your explosives,” Rawley observed. “The war is taking enormous quantities to Europe. And I’m afraid we’re going to be dragged into the scrap ourselves. In which case, the government will probably shut off private buyers entirely.”
Young Jess laughed a coarse guffaw. “We should worry!” He leered at Rawley. “We got a glory hole a’ready, back at the diggin’s. We been five years gittin’ powder in here. Gosh! We c’d blow up Yerrup if we wanted to, ourselves! Y’ain’t showed him our powder cache, have yuh, Pete?”
“I didn’t know anything about that. It isn’t necessary that I should,” Rawley broke in impatiently. “My concern is merely the engineering problem you’ve got on your hands. As to the details and the means of putting the idea into execution, I’m not sure that I want to know. I might be hauled up as a witness, sometime—and what I don’t know I won’t have to lie about.”
“That’s right. That’s the way to talk,” Young Jess approved. The diagram had evidently impressed him considerably. He stared at Rawley from under his heavy, lowering brows. Though he spoke as any illiterate white man of the West would speak, he looked like a full-blooded Indian. Rawley wondered which side of him did the thinking,—if any. The worst of both sides, he guessed shrewdly.
“We ain’t tellin’ more’n we’re obleeged to tell,” Old Jess grumbled, lifting his greedy old eyes from the sketch. “We ain’t sharin’, neither! You’re eatin’ my grub—two of ye—”