The Professor, looking serious, said: "I have all my money the other way, in Justice and Silver Hill. They are not deep enough in the north end yet."
Alex got up from his chair. "You are all mistaken," said he, "Overman is the best buy, but it is growing late and I must go to work. What shift are you on, Wright?"
"I go on at seven in the morning. By the way, you should come up of an evening to our Club. We would be glad to see all three of you."
"And pray, what do you mean by your Club?" asked the Colonel.
"Why," said Wright, "I thought you knew. Three or four of us miners met up here one night last month. Joe Miller was in the party, and as we were drinking beer and talking about stocks, Miller proposed that we should hire a vacant house on the divide—the old Beckley House—and give up the boarding and lodging houses. We talked it all over, how shameful we had been going on, how we were spending all our money, how, if we had the house, we could save fifty or sixty dollars a month, and eat what we pleased, do what we pleased, and have a place in which to pass our leisure time without going to the saloons; so we picked up three or four more men, and, on last pay-day, moved in—seven of us in all—each man bringing his own chair, blankets and food. The latter, of course, was all put into common stock, and Miller had fixed everything else. Since then we have been getting along jolly.'"
"But who makes up your company?" inquired Alex.
"Oh, you know the whole outfit," answered Wright. "There is Miller, as I told you; there are, besides, Tom Carlin, old man Brewster, Herbert Ashley, Sammy Harding, Barney Corrigan and myself."
"It is a good crowd; but you are not all working in the same mine, are you?" said the Professor, inquiringly.
"Oh, no. Brewster is running a power-drill in the Bullion. He is a mechanic, you know, and not a real miner. Miller and Harding are in the Curry, Barney is in the Norcross, Carlin and Ashley are in the Imperial, and I in the Savage. But we all happen to be on the same shift, so, for this month at least, we have our evenings together."
"It must be splendid," enthusiastically remarked the Colonel.