"At first I thought you fellows were raiding somebody," he went on. "There is a mine not a thousand miles from where you're sitting that puts out exactly this same kind of ore, only it's not anywhere near as rich as these picked samples of yours."
"What made you change your mind?" I queried, willing to see how far he would go. "How do you know we are not raiding somebody's ore shed?"
"Because I know Bob Barrett," was the crisp reply. Then: "Why are you boys making this night play? Why don't you come out in the open like other folks—honest folks, I mean?"
"There are reasons," I asserted.
"Afraid somebody will catch on and swamp you with a rush of claim stakers?"
"Call it that, if you like."
"You're plumb foolish, and I told Bob Barrett so last night. You're carrying this stuff miles; I know by the way you come in here with your tongues hanging out. It's like trying to dip the ocean dry with a pint cup. One good wagon-load of your ore—if you've got that much—would count for more than you three could lug in a month of Sundays."
I knew this as well as he did, but I was not there to argue.
"I guess we'll have to handle it our own way," I answered evasively; and while he was sending my sack out to the testing room I fell sound asleep.
At the end of a week, after we had made two trips apiece, we had nearly $7,000 in bank. Figured as a return for our labor, killing as that was, it was magnificent. But as a war chest it was merely a drop in the bucket. Given plenty of time, we might have won out eventually by the sacked-sample route; but we knew we were not going to be given time. Blackwell had been up twice; and the second time, Gifford, who was acting as hammerman, had to sit in the bottom of the shaft, pretending to load the half-drilled hole. Otherwise, the heavy-lidded eyes, peering down over the barrel of the windlass would assuredly have seen the steadily widening ore body.