“Why, goosey, don’t you see it yet? To buy the right to mine the soot for gold, the gold of the early days. Somehow, I’ve always felt that that would be the stuff to put me on my feet,—and here it is. Maybe, I’ve been mistaken,—maybe, I wasn’t born too late, after all.”
“Mine the soot! How can you?”
“Why not? I’ve heard of its having been done.” His face shone with hope. “No one’s ever thought of this!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you see it’s a big thing?” he questioned, as she did not speak.
“If you can only do it. Will old Madge give you leave?”
“He will if I pay him for it. He’d give me the right, too, to tear down the old sheds; and of course there’s gold under the crazy ramshackle things. They had so much of it in the early days that they weren’t any too careful.”
“Mr. Madge would be foolish to give you the right, if the gold is there.”
“He is sort of fool-crazy over his mines. He’s always telling every one all about them, how rich they are and all that. The biggest vein ever seen is always just ahead. He wouldn’t come down to mining soot.”
“But wouldn’t it be his gold if you found it on his land?”
“No, ’twouldn’t. Not any more his than mine. The Works were just a mill to crush everybody’s ore; and what’s left is for the sweeper. Besides, the land is only leased, anyway, and if I go open-handed and buy the right to sweep, what I find’s mine.”
“I should think that some of it would be his, too.”