“Well, I’ll be through with the Works by that time,” Ben remarked as he bade them good-night.
When the last day came it was with considerable regret that the partners made preparations to leave the Works forever.
“I don’t want to stay one day longer than the time I’m entitled to,” said Ben. “It’s paid us well for our work, but I wouldn’t care to go through it all again.”
“It has been sort of a worrisome job,” Mundon replied. “Still it’s big pay. Seven thousand dollars for a boy like you to make in three months! Besides, there’s worry in all sorts of business, and a man’s jest got to make the best out of it,” he philosophically added. “Do you know, Ben,—now that it’s all over, I kin tell you,—I know there was a time when you mistrusted me; not exactly mistrusted, either, but you had the thoughts out of which mistrust is made. O, you needn’t say you didn’t,” he exclaimed as Ben made a gesture of dissent. “I knew jest as well as if you’d told me so that you did. I ain’t a-holdin’ it up agin you, neither. I know how many there was to put sech things into your head agin a stranger, like I was.”
“Well, I didn’t let them stay there, Mundon. I trusted you all through.”
They heartily shook hands.
“I b’lieve you did, boy; I b’lieve you did. It’s ben a tough job, though, in places. What with the smugglin’ business, and your gettin’ cut, and the injunction, too. But takin’ it all through, jest lumpin’ it, you don’t regret it, do you?”
“No,” Ben replied. “We got through by the skin of our teeth, in places,” he continued. “It was a chance, though, that I didn’t lose every cent I had in the world. It was just the merest accident that that Chinaman overheard those two rascals and put us on their track. Besides, we weren’t dead sure—we couldn’t be—that there was any gold in the old ramshackle Works when I bought them. It’s too much like gambling to suit me. I’m not saying a word against your going into whatever you want to, but, for myself, I’m going to choose something that’s slower and surer.”
“Made up your mind, yet, what it’ll be?”
“Yes,—I’m going to Berkeley,—to college—to fit myself to be a mining engineer.”