"Our Boy Miner"
“After I’ve made my fortune, I’ll be old-fogyish and save the cents,” he reflected. “This mining venture is quite as sure a way of making money as clerking in a store—and much more rapid.” His attention was attracted by something Mundon was saying to a reporter who was making a “story” of their experience.
“O, ’taint no trouble to show you our operations,” Mundon remarked; “no trouble at all. If ’twas a real mine underground that’d be another thing. Folks was so curious ’bout a mine I once had up in Placer County that I trained a dog I had to show ’em ’round. I’d fasten a candle to a strap that went ’round his forehead and he’d take ’em all over that mine. Got so knowin’ at last that when he’d pass any rich ore he’d stop and bark. Sure!” He added, as the hearer’s smile proclaimed his incredulity, “You kin put that in your paper, and I’ll vouch for it.”
“I wish Mundon wouldn’t yarn it so,” Ben said to himself. “And I wish all these folks would go home before we make the clean-up.” He drew Mundon aside. “Can’t you get rid of them before we melt the stuff?”
“Don’t know. They ’pear to be powerful interested in what we’re doin’,” the other replied.
“That’s just it; they’re too much interested. We’ve got gold on both days; but there’s no knowing how long that luck will last. Suppose we opened the crucible some night and didn’t get anything?”
“Well, ’twouldn’t kill us if we didn’t—just once.”
“Just think what they’d say!”
Mundon smiled. “What do we care what they say?” he sturdily asserted. “I tell you, Ben, I wouldn’t be a bit sorry if it got noised ’round that we weren’t makin’ such a bloomin’ lot.”
“Why?”