Carfax nodded.
“May I ask if you found anything?”
Tregarvon turned away and busied himself examining the rent in the corner of the tool shanty. Carfax called up the cherubic smile for the inquiring professor and said: “What if I should tell you that we have found our bonanza, Mr. Hartridge?”
Hartridge glanced at the drill, which was still standing in the test-hole, and shook his head. “I should say that you are merely talking for effect,” he smiled back.
“But we have found the coal,” Carfax persisted.
“You have found the upper measure, the same as you have in all the other trials. Beneath it, you will find your sandstone dike again.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure.”
“But we have already reached a depth of more than eighteen inches, and the drill was still in coal when we shut down for the noon stop.”
“That is quite immaterial,” was the cool-voiced reply. “The measures vary in thickness, though not greatly. Geology is one of my small side-lines, Mr. Carfax, and I have made a study of this particular region, largely as a pastime.”