"How often has it happened?" repeated Don Luis. "Oh, perhaps a dozen times in a few months, taking all the tunnels together."
"How long have these streaks of blank rock been?" insisted Tom
Reade, while Harry wondered at what his chum was driving.
"How long?" echoed Montez, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Oh, how should I know? Personally I am not interested in such things."
"But have you gone as much as a whole week drilling and blasting through blank rock?" Tom pressed.
"A week? No; not for two days. Of that I am certain. But why do you ask all this, Senor Tomaso?"
"In order that I may better understand the nature of the mine," Reade responded. "I want to know what the chances are, as based on the record of the mine to date. Of course, Don Luis, you know what it means, often, when pay ore fails to come out of a streak, and a solid wall of blank rock is encountered."
By "blank rock" Tom meant rock that did not contain a promising or paying amount of metal in the ore.
"What it means?" Montez asked. "No; I can't say that I do."
"The wall of blank rock, found at the end of a vein of gold, Don Luis, often, if not usually, means that the vein has run out, and that it is useless to dig further."
"I did not know that," murmured the Mexican, in a tone of merely polite astonishment. "Then you believe that El Sombrero will not turn out much more profitable ore?"