“I wish to God I knew! I showed the assayer some of the quartz, but he wouldn’t commit himself; he talked off; said you could never tell from the looks of the stuff; that the bright specks we’ve been banking on might not be metal at all. God, Harry!—if it were only morning!” he finished, and his eyes were burning.
“Easy,” said Bromley soothingly. “You mustn’t let it mean so much to you, old man. You’ve worked yourself pretty well up to the breaking point. There are plenty of other gulches if ours shouldn’t happen to pan out. Get your clothes off and turn in. That’s the best thing to do now.”
Philip sprang up and began to walk the floor of the small bed-room.
“Sleep!” he muttered, “I couldn’t sleep if the salvation of the whole human race hung upon it.” Then: “We’re simpletons, Harry; damned tenderfoot simpletons! We never ought to have left that claim—both of us at once. How do we know that there isn’t a land office nearer than Leadville where it can be registered? How do we know we won’t find claim jumpers in possession when we go back?”
“Nonsense! You know you are only borrowing trouble. What’s the use?”
“It’s the suspense.... I can’t stand it, Harry! Go to bed if you feel like it; I’m going back to the sampling works and see that quartz put through the mill—see that they don’t work any shenanigan on us. I believe they’re capable of it. That slant-eyed superintendent asked too many questions about where the stuff came from to suit me. Go on to bed. I’ll bring you the news in the morning.”
V
The level rays of the morning sun were struggling in through a dusty and begrimed bed-room window when Bromley awoke to find Philip in the room; a Philip haggard and hollow-eyed for want of sleep, but nevertheless fiercely, exultantly jubilant.
“Wake up!” he was shouting excitedly. “Wake up and yell your head off! We’ve struck rich pay in that hole in the gulch!—do you hear what I’m saying?—pay rock in the ‘Little Jean’!”
Bromley sat up in bed, hugging his knees.