“Sure an it’s natural enough for them to do that same, if they thought there was money in it.”
“Of course it was, an that’s the very thing we haven’t been taking into account.”
“Faith, an that same’s true for you, thin; niver a bit did we take it into account. Haven’t we been making a wonderful secret of it, when all the wurruld knows it like A, B, C.”
“Yes, and what’s worse, at this very moment they are sending out agents in all directions, all over the province, I dare say, to try to get people to take stock in the new mining company. Why, every body must know all about Oak Inland. I don’t see how we never heard of it before.”
“Deed, thin, an I think they must have kept it all to thimselves here in Cheater, so I do, or else we’d have heard some talk about it at school, so we would; an if there’s any talk about it now through the country, it’s something new entirely, so it is, and is the doin of this new company, sure.”
“I don’t see what we can do,” said Bart, in a dejected tone; “we can’t do a single thing.”
“Sure, thin,” said Pat, “but it’s meself that’s boon thinkin different; an I don’t know now but what the chances for us are better thin they were before.”
“Chances for us better? What in the world do you mean by that?” asked Bart, in surprise.
“Sure an it’s plain enough. Ye see that treasure was a hundred feet an more under ground, an so it was clane beyond anything that we could do But these companies have been a workin, an a diggin, an a pumpin, an a borin holes all about, an we’ve got that much of the work done.”
“Yes, but what good ’ll that do us? These holes weren’t any good to the companies. They couldn’t get to the money-hole, after all.”