Larry shook his head. “I don’t know. I suppose he could, if he’s any kind of a tracker. But when he comes to the place where the roof fell down, he’ll quit and go back; you can bet on that.”
“Gee!” said Dick, “if this gold vein were only a little farther back in the cave, where we could drill and blast without being heard from the outside, we’d be as safe as a clock. Nobody would ever think of looking down here for the outlet to that crack away yonder up the mountain.”
“You can’t tell,” Larry demurred; and then: “You’re right about the drilling and blasting, though. We needn’t think we’re going to be able to do any great amount of mining in here without being found out, if there’s anybody around who wants to find out. That being the case, we’ve got to watch out sharp. We’ll work changing shifts in the heading; two on and one off; and the man that’s resting can stand guard at the cave mouth.”
While Larry was sharpening the drills, with a flat stone for an anvil, and with Purdick working the bicycle-pump blower for him, Dick moved the green hay back to the enlargement of the crevice where they were keeping the burros, and piled the stock of wood where it would be out of the way. Next the question of spoil disposal came up. What were they to do with the broken rock and vein matter as they blasted it out?
“There is one sure thing,” Larry said. “That stuff is too rich to be thrown out on the dump. We’ll have to pile our diggings here in the cave and sort the ore by hand the best way we can. It would be like throwing twenty-dollar gold pieces away to pitch it into the gulch.”
“You said a mouthful, that time,” Dick agreed. “But it will clutter us up awfully if we have to pile the spoil in here.”
“We can sort it, as I say,” Larry pointed out, “saving only the vein matter and shoveling the barren rock out over the ledge. But we won’t do that until we’re sure we’re not going to be molested. When we begin making a fresh dump outside, that will be telling anybody that may happen along just what we’re doing in here. And if we don’t do the sorting mighty carefully one look at the dump will tell any prospector that we’re working a quartz gold vein. We want to keep this thing quiet, if we can. Saying nothing about the three hold-ups, it would be a fierce temptation for anybody to ‘jump’ it after we’re gone—take down our notice and throw it away and pretend that the place was an abandoned claim.”
“But nobody could make a barefaced robbery like that hold in law,” Purdick protested.
Dick smiled grimly.
“If you had lived in a mining country as long as Larry and I have, you’d know that a law-suit over a mine is about the last thing in the world that any peaceable person wants to get mixed up in, Purdy. When you once begin, there’s simply no end to it. You see, there’s no way of getting any real proof that will satisfy a judge and jury. We might swear that we discovered this vein on a certain date and posted our notice. Then the other fellow would get up and swear that he had discovered it at an earlier date and posted his notice. So there you are.”