“Anything special about Took coming here, Mr. Belmont?”
“I don’t know whether there was or not,” was Uncle Tod’s answer. “First I thought he was only one more of the queer characters to be met with out west. Then, when he began coming around more frequently—but always sneaking his way in—I became a bit suspicious.”
“Is he altogether right in his mind?” asked Mr. Campbell.
“I don’t believe he is, and that’s why I think he’s being used by some one with more brains than he has.”
“Some one trying to get your mine away from you, Uncle Tod?” asked Rick.
“Well, I don’t know’s any one is trying to do that,” was the answer. “Still you never know when you’re playing safe in this mining game. The best way, I find, is to suspect everybody until you find out they’re square, and then it isn’t always safe. As for Zeek Took, I don’t want him hanging around; that’s all, though I don’t want to be mean to him, especially if he’s hungry. How he lives I don’t know, but I won’t see even a dog go hungry. Will I, Ruddy?” and Rick’s setter looked up into the miner’s face and gratefully wagged the plumed tail.
“I don’t know much about mining,” said Mr. Campbell, as he and the other two men were smoking their pipes, while Rick and Chot listened to the talk, “but how were things here before you lost the river, or the river lost itself? And I’d like to know a little about the stream, also.”
“Well, there isn’t a great deal to tell,” said Uncle Tod reflectively. “Sam, here, bought this claim first and then let me in on it. It looked good to him—in fact it looked good to me—that was when the river was running out of the cave. We call it a river though it isn’t much more than a half-grown brook back in your country, Mr. Campbell where you have lots of water. But, such as it was, it served to wash out the dirt we dug.
“You know there are many ways to mine for gold, silver and copper,” he went on, for the especial benefit of the boys. “In some parts of the mountains you dig out the ore dry, and you may get fairly big chunks of gold. Or the ore may be filled with little specks of metal that can be got at only when the rock is crushed. This crushed rock and dust is treated in different ways. It may be smelted or mixed with water and acids or other chemicals. I don’t know much about those methods.
“Then there is a simpler form of mining, the water method. You get a lot of dirt, gravel or what-not, and in it will be a lot of fine gold dust—maybe silver dust or copper—or whatever you’re after. We get both gold and copper here—or, rather, we did.