“Now,” he said, when the tungstic acid had been dissolved, and he had dropped a small bar of tin into the solution. It turned a dark blue and Blount 140sighed again, for he had looked up the test in advance. “If it turns blue,” a prospector had told him, “like the color of me overalls, then, sure as hell, it’s tungsten.”
“Well, well,” commented Blount, gazing mildly about, for great men do not stop to repine, “and what do you use these big scales for?”
“That’s for the quantitative test,” explained Wiley importantly. “By weighing the sample first and extracting the tungsten we get the percentage, when it’s been filtered and dried and weighed again, of the tungstic acid in the ore. But it’s quite an elaborate process.”
“Yes, yes,” assented Blount, still managing to smile pleasantly. “Rather out of my line, I guess. What per cent do your samples average?”
“Oh, between sixty and seventy when I pick my specimens. I’m rigging up a jigger to separate the ore until I can get capital to start up the mill. It ought to be milled, by rights, and only the concentrates shipped; but while I’m getting started─”
“Oh, draw on me–any time,” broke in Blount, smiling radiantly. “I’d be only too glad to accommodate you. That’s my business, you know; loaning out money on good security, and you’re good up to fifty thousand dollars.”
“Do you mean it?” demanded Wiley after a startled silence, and Blount slapped him heartily on the back.
“Just try me,” he said. “I’ve been looking up the market and tungsten is simply booming. It’s 141quoted at forty-five for sixty per cent concentrates, and you must have tons and tons on the dump.”
“Yes, lots of it,” admitted Wiley, “and say, now that you mention it, I believe I’ll take you up. I need a little money to install some machinery and get the old mill to running. How about ten thousand dollars?”
“Why–all right,” assented Blount, after a moment’s thought. “Of course you’ll give some security?”