Choosing one of these apertures opposite the breach by which they had entered, they enlarged it somewhat, until one by one they could squeeze through into a natural tunnel which ran for a hundred feet or more on an upward slant. Following it slowly, they clambered over boulders of galena, cubic crystals of lead, almost always accompanied by silver, and left the first of human footprints upon mounds of soft gray carbonates. Here, as before, the walls and roof showed themselves to be solid masses of chloride and carbonate ores of silver, through which small deposits of the telluride of gold were lying like plums in a pudding.
Returning to the starting-point the explorers broke down another doorway, and passing through a second natural tunnel a distance of about forty feet, found indications of other chambers and passages beyond.
“It would seem,” cried Mr. Anderson, who was now more astonished than were our young friends, the fortunate owners;—“it would seem as though nature had selected choice treasures from her great storehouses, and had placed them in these chambers and made them beautiful with glittering crystals, wrought in the heart of these remote mountains, on purpose to lure men to still greater exertions and richer rewards of labor and perseverance.”
“She’s had to wait a good while for visitors to her show,” Len remarked.
“Yes,” Mr. Anderson replied, “but that is no matter. Nature is never in a hurry. She can afford to be patient and wait, and let things move slowly. With her ’a thousand years is but a day.’ She has had, and will have, all the time there is.”
“For that matter,” Max remarked, catching up the strain, “what is this little bit of beauty and interest, curious as it is, beside the splendid shows nature arranges for us, with never wearying change, from morning till night.”
“And from night till morning,” added the superintendent, remembering the brilliant heavens spread over the clean-aired mountains.
“Nevertheless, for our purposes,” said Mr. Anderson, heartily, “this does very well indeed, and I compliment you most sincerely on your success.”
Then they made their way out and told their wonderful tale. The storm had wholly cleared from the mountains, and the sun was shining brilliantly, robing the magnificent landscape, softened by autumn haze, in its most glorious garb.
Buckeye Jim and Morris were hearty in their congratulations, and began to build enthusiastic hopes that their own worthless Aurora might be pushed into a similar group of silver-caves. But that lode lay on the wrong side of the porphyry partition, and I regret to say that the money they afterwards spent in trying the experiment was wholly wasted.