By-and-by the dubious smile vanished from the face of Sol Brunt, and he not only listened seriously and admiringly to Phil, but also supplemented his proposals with suggestions, corrections and advice that his mature experience stamped as very valuable. But Sol’s part in the discussion was taken only on the hypothesis that the twenty per cent of waste gold that was doubtless in the silt could be got at, and it was arranged that the next day a test should begin by hand. If the test panned out, machinery would step in and do in one hour what manual labor would take days to accomplish; and, as Phil shrewdly pointed out, one of Sol’s own original ideas would supply by natural means one of the necessities for the mechanical process—power—which otherwise would be a huge item of running expenses.
Accordingly, next morning the boys sallied out, accompanied by Sol, to overlook their operations. They carried with them a barrel, buckets to carry the silt and a scale to weigh it. They set up a barrel and half filled it with water, then into it they dumped several bucketfuls of silt. With staves they stirred the mixture so violently that each particle of fine silt must have been separated from the others. When at last they stopped they were dripping with perspiration. They gave the muddy water a few minutes to partly settle and allow the grains of gold, if any there were, to make their way to the bottom of the barrel; then by tipping the barrel carefully the water was drained off, leaving only a few inches of residue at the bottom of which was a thin layer of mud—and gold?—that was the question. It was not time to answer yet. In went half a barrelful of water and more buckets of silt. This was agitated as before and the water again drawn off.
When this had been repeated several times it was noticed that the layer of mud on the bottom was a foot deep. Thereupon two washings of this were had in the same way without adding new silt, until the deposit at the bottom had been partly drained off. Then more silt was stirred in, and so they labored nearly all day, until Sol called time, saying there was no use of wearing themselves out.
The next day the work was continued until afternoon when they had at the bottom of the barrel the residue of about two hundred and fifty pounds of silt; in this residue, only some six inches thick, was to be found nearly every grain of gold that the successive lots of silt had contained. It was time for the test. They broke the barrel, and carefully scraped and washed every grain of the muddy residue into the largest porcelain basin that Sol’s store contained, and in this more limited way made many successive washings until at last at the bottom of the white basin there gleamed nothing but a fine golden sand sparking in the sunlight. There was gold in the mud, that was certain. How much and in what proportion was the next question? They thoroughly dried the golden sediment and called Sol’s fine apothecary’s scales into requisition. The dust weighed just five penny-weights.
Phil had no sooner ascertained the weight than he began figuring excitedly on a scrap of paper. This is what he was figuring on: “A layer of mud, quarter mile square and average thickness of thirty feet—how many tons of silt are there?”
His recollection of tables of weights and measures was perfect and he could therefore calculate this approximately, as can any schoolboy. He figured about three hundred and sixty thousand tons. Then he calculated: “Five penny-weights of gold to about two hundred and fifty pounds of silt, makes, say forty dollars per ton and——”
“Mr. Brunt,” said Phil, looking up and with difficulty restraining his excitement, “I figure there is at this moment in that pond nearly FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLARS’ worth of dust!”
Months had passed; Phil and Tom had come to Cheyenne City with a letter from Sol Brunt to the president of the Placer Notch Mining Company—Mr. Van Amrandt—introducing Phil’s scheme and authorizing Phil to represent him in the preliminary discussion of the whole matter.
Phil had impressed Mr. Van Amrandt most favorably as a young man whose youthful enthusiasm was held in check by a thoughtfulness and judgment beyond his years. But time had passed; the president had been very busy with other matters, or there had always been some other reason to keep things at a stand-still for a long while. Finally the president went so far as to have the superintendent of the “P. N.” mine go down to Sol’s place and assay a quantity of the silt. Phil and Tom had been enabled to bide a winter’s delay as far as actual needs went, through the kindness of the president who had given them both subordinate clerical positions in the company’s office; there Phil was looked upon rather suspiciously by his fellow clerks as a sort of upstart who, by some hook or crook, could procure long interviews with the president and engineer, and come out of their respective offices looking as if he had been discussing questions of tremendous importance, as, in fact, he had.