"There goes four and five—they went together!"
"Six—seven—eight—nine—"
Again a wait, while they looked at one another with vacuous eyes. A long interval until the tenth.
"Two went together then! I thought we 'd counted nine?" The foreman stared, and Fairchild studied. Then his face lighted.
"Eleven 's right. One of them must have set off the charge that Harry left in there. All the better—it gives us just that much more of a chance."
Back they went along the drift tunnel now, coughing slightly as the sharp smoke of the dynamite cut their lungs. A long journey that seemed as many miles instead of feet. Then with a shout, Fairchild sprang forward, and went to his hands and knees.
It was there before him—all about him—the black, heavy masses of lead-silver ore, a great, heaping, five-ton pile of it where it had been thrown out by the tremendous force of the explosion. It seemed that the whole great floor of the cavern was covered with it, and the workmen shouted with Fairchild as they seized bits of the precious black stuff and held it to the light for closer examination.
"Look!" The voice of one of them was high and excited. "You can see the fine streaks of silver sticking out! It's high-grade and plenty of it!"
But Fairchild paid little attention. He was playing in the stuff, throwing it in the air and letting it fall to the floor of the cavern again, like a boy with a new sack of marbles, or a child with its building blocks. Five tons and the night was not yet over! Five tons, and the vein had not yet shown its other side!
Back to work they went now, six of the men drilling, Fairchild and the other four mucking out the refuse, hauling it up the shaft, and then turning to the ore that they might get it to the old, rotting bins and into position for loading as soon as the owner of the Sampler could be notified in the morning and the trucks could fight their way through the snowdrifts of Kentucky Gulch to the mine for loading. Again through the hours the drills bit into the rock walls, while the ore car clattered along the tram line and while the creaking of the block and tackle at the shaft seemed endless. In three days, approximately forty tons of ore must come out of that mine,—and work must not cease.