Soon after this the drilling was resumed, not, however, until after the hole had been carefully washed and swabbed out. Tregarvon did not take any of his men into his confidence to the extent of explaining the reason for the extra care, but during the swabbing process he stood aside and looked on, watchful to detect any sign of guilty knowledge on the part of his helpers. Particularly he studied the face of the younger McNabb, the one who had been hurt still being absent. The effort went for nothing. If isolation has been sparing of gifts to the native of the southern Appalachians, it has at least given him a face that no man can read. The bushy-bearded Sawyer, the head driller, was the only one who commented upon the hole-cleaning.
“Hit don’t look t’ me like thar was anything more ’n the drill dust to be warshed out,” he grumbled, when the swab came up clean; and to prove it he rubbed some of the powdered rock cuttings between his thumb and finger.
“It’s better to be sure than sorry,” said Tregarvon. “If we know that the hole is clean to begin with, we’re that much ahead.”
In due course of time the engine was started, the drill lowered, and the churning was resumed. Very shortly it became evident that the steel was cutting again at the usual rate, and Tregarvon’s spirits rose accordingly.
“Do you know, Poictiers, I believe we are going to ‘prove up’ right here on this spot?” he predicted, after the work was well under way and they had gone to sit on the tool-house step. “The indications all point for us. Here is where the most determined fight has been made to stop us; here is where we find Hartridge’s hieroglyphics on the trees; and right here, if you’ll remark it, is where Mr. Onias Thaxter hunts me up to make me a blanket offer for my landholdings.”
“A little more time will tell the story,” Carfax suggested. “By noon, if it doesn’t strike any more bones, the drill ought to be down to the coal, if there is any coal here.”
With hope trotting cheerfully on ahead, the forenoon became a period of exciting suspense. Each time the drill was withdrawn the cuttings were examined eagerly. The rock was showing all the characteristics of the former borings: fine sandstone, coarse sandstone, some little conglomerate, and, just before the noon hour, the shales which commonly overlie the coal in the Cumberland region.
“We’re coming to it!” Tregarvon exulted, when the washings which came up in the churning began to show black. “Eighteen inches more, and we’ll know whether we live or die!” And he carefully made a chalk-mark on the drill so that they might determine when the critical depth was reached.
As in the previous tests, the steel sank rapidly in the vein of coal. At a foot of additional depth the washings were still coming up black. At sixteen inches there was no change. Sighting across a derrick brace, Tregarvon watched the chalk-mark with the blood racing in his veins. With each plunge of the heavy steel drill his hopes rose higher. Already he was anticipating a future which, if it should lack some of the ecstasies, would still have a sufficiency of the great emollient—money. With a fortune of his own, the impossible situation which had grown out of the Uncle Byrd legacy would be alleviated, and he saw himself deeding his half of the legacy irrevocably over to Elizabeth. The pride wound thus healed, the broken bones of sentiment might be allowed to knit as they would. Doubtless, in time, the knitting process would accomplish itself, and possibly without leaving him a hopeless cripple. Judging from the past, Elizabeth would not expect much; and even if he should be obliged to limp a little she would probably never notice it.
“Eighteen inches!” he called out to Carfax, “and she’s still bringing up the black-diamond dust! Get ready to blow the hewgag and beat the tom-tom. We’re in it, this time!”