“We hope so; for they made enough as it was.”
“You see, sometimes a furnace would get ter leakin’. Well, mebbe ’twould be quite a while before anybody found it out. Then, p’raps they’d run tons of base bullion inter a trench, thinkin’ they’d go over the ground when they got time. Um— Well, sometimes they never got the time, they was so busy makin’ money. We must look ’round, some time, fur traces of a trench of that sort.”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Ben, “that it would be a good plan to wash the soil here and there with an ordinary gold-pan. We could tell something, I should think, about where the richest dirt lay then.”
“’Twouldn’t do no harm. But the richest dirt is bound ter be near the furnaces and in the bullion-room. We’ll finish with the chimney first, ’cause if there are any nuggets they’ll be there.”
“Wouldn’t any tin pan do?”
“O, you better have the real thing. I see one a-hangin’ up outside of a junk-shop on Stockton Street that I’ll git when I go to git the lumber. Mebbe it might be a relic of ’49, and give you some of the spirit of those days. Not that you ain’t got the true minin’ spirit already,” he added, with a glance at Ben’s eager face.
On the following day the pan was purchased, and Ben was initiated, and became for the first time a real miner. He scooped some dirt from what was thought to be a favorable spot, put it in the pan, and poured some water upon it.
Mundon showed him how to shake the pan from side to side, allowing a little water to flow constantly from the top, until a small amount of very ordinary-looking dirt remained in the bottom. It was exhilarating to think of what it might contain.