“But it will take all the fall to clean that tunnel out and timber it up so as to be safe!” Len grumbled.
“Exactly! Now the Aurora is open and has a firm roof. She runs right alongside of ours, with only that dyke between them like a stone partition, and goes about one hundred feet further into the hillside. My notion is to go to the end of the Aurora, cut through the dyke into the Last Chance lode, and so get quickly at new rock, beyond any reached by our old drift, where I believe the mineral will be found richer, since all that we can learn goes to show that the lode improves steadily in the quantity of that brown stuff which it carries. What do you think of it?”
“It sounds very reasonable indeed,” Len agreed instantly, and went on to elaborate the plan with his customary enthusiasm, but the more cautious nature of McKinnon asserted itself in questions.
“D’ ye ken whether the dyke-rock is haird or saft?” he inquired, among other things.
“Not certainly,” Max answered. “It’s easy enough to work at the surface, but it may be much tougher down below. It appears to be coarse porphyry all through, however, and that usually does not make very hard digging.”
“Should we have to blast?”
“I suppose so, now and then.”
“Do you know how?”
“Oh yes, that is not a difficult matter when one has cartridges of giant powder.”
“How long do you suppose it will take to dig through the partition?”