Pardo paused, halfway up the low hill and drew Merriwell toward him.
"That's Bosley, the crusherman," said he. "He'll tell you where you can find Porter. Bring the prospector to my office, if you like. It isn't quite so noisy as the mill, and you can talk to better advantage."
The super turned and went back. Frank and his friends moved on to the ore platform, jumped to the top of it, and yelled their query at Bosley.
"Nick?" the crusherman bawled, leaning for a moment on his shovel, and appraising the boys as well as he could. "Oh, he's communin' with himself in the feed loft. Right through that hole," he finished, pointing to an opening in the wall, "and down the steps."
Frank led the way through the opening, and, at the foot of the steps, he and his chums found themselves in a small inferno. The bright, shimmering stems of twenty batteries, each of five stamps, were marking time before their eyes like, a row of steel soldiers. Each stamp weighed eight hundred and fifty pounds, and it rose and fell ninety-five times to the minute. The uproar was steady and deafening.
Ore feeders were shoveling crushed ore into the stamp hoppers. Frank's eyes ranged over the sweating, seminude, powerful figures as they worked. He could see nothing of Nick Porter.
While Frank's eyes were searching the loft, Clancy nudged him with an elbow. Frank turned, and Clancy made signs and pointed. Looking in the direction indicated by Clancy's finger, Frank saw the slouching form of Porter, the prospector.
He was sitting on a keg in an angle of the wall. He was leaning back against the boards behind him, a cob pipe between his teeth. His eyes, peering out of the jungle of beard that covered his face, were fixed speculatively on the three boys.
Merry immediately stepped to the prospector's side. "Hello, Porter!" he yelled in his ear.
The prospector probably grunted, although Frank could hear nothing.