"Stand back, you chaps," Jerry said, lifting the heavy sledge hammer; "let me get a drive at it. Here is a crack. Put one of them wedges in, Ben."
The wedge was placed in the fissure, and Ben held it while Jerry gave a few light blows to get it firmly fixed.
"That will do, Ben; take away your hand and let me drive at it." Swinging the hammer round his head Jerry brought it down with tremendous force on the head of the wedge. Again and again the heavy hammer rose and fell, with the accuracy of a machine, upon the right spot, until the wedge, which was nine inches long, was buried in the crevice.
"Now another one, Ben. Give me a longer one this time."
This time Ben held the wedge until it was half buried, having perfect confidence in Jerry's skill. It was not until the fourth wedge had been driven in that a fragment of rock weighing four or five hundredweight suddenly broke out from the face. All bent eagerly over it, and the miners gave a shout of joy. The inner surface, which was white, but slightly stained with yellow, with blurs of slate colour here and there, was thickly studded with gold. It stuck out above the surface in thin, leafy plates with ragged edges, with here and there larger spongy masses.
"I reckon that is good enough," Jerry said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Ef there is but enough of it, it is the biggest thing that ever was struck. There ain't no saying how rich it is, but I will bet my boots it's over five hundred ounces to the ton. It ain't in nature that it is going to run far like that, but it is good enough for anything. Well, what is the next thing, Harry?"
"We will break it up," Harry said, "and carry it down with us to the camp. If the Utes came down on us tomorrow, and we could get off with it, that would be plenty to show if we want to make a sale."
It took them a long time to break up the rock, for the quartz was hard, and was so bound together by the leafy gold running through it that each of the four men had several spells with the hammer before it was broken up into fragments weighing some twenty pounds apiece. As soon as this was done the men collected earth, filled up the hole in the face of the rock, and planted several large tufts of grass in it, and poured four or five tins of water over them; then they smeared with mud the patches where Harry had before broken pieces off.
"What is all that for, Jerry?" Tom asked.
"It is to hide up the traces, lad. We may have to bolt away from here to-morrow morning for anything we know, and before we come back again someone else may come along, and though we shall locate our claims at the mining register, there would be a lot of trouble if anyone else had taken possession, and was working the vein when we got back."