They decided after a close examination that it was about one hundred feet in thickness at that point, or, at any rate, considerably less than the distance between the Last Chance and Aurora lodes, at the mouths of their respective tunnels.
Then they strolled back to their cabin, where Sandy busied himself in mixing raised bread for the evening meal, while Max stuck a lamp in his cap and disappeared within the Aurora tunnel.
When, that evening, the trio were ready to sit down together again around a cheerful fire outside the house, Max threw off his reserve and began to talk.
“I suppose you fellows think I’ve been a running things in a high-handed sort of a way this afternoon, but I had to do a bit of studying over my idea before I could get it into such a shape that I could explain it to you, and get your help intelligently. See?”
SITUATION OF THE TWO MINES.
Silver Caves, [Page 41.]
“Ay,” Sandy answered for both. “Ilka bird must hatch its ain egg.”
“Well, this is the egg I have been incubating. I am convinced that there is nothing to be got out of the Aurora; it’s just a dead quartz-lode all through. But our mine will show more and more of the stuff we want the deeper we go, or else I am greatly mistaken.”