All this was very interesting to Tom. His imagination had been dazzled by the stories he had heard of wealth suddenly acquired at the mines. There was a romance, too, about a mining life that had a charm about it. He waited until the game was through and ventured to ask another question.
“Do you think I shall stand any chance at the mines, Mr. Granger?” he asked.
“Mr. Granger? Oh, you mean me! That’s the fust time I’ve been called mister in a year. Well, stranger, about that question of yours, I don’t know what to say. Maybe there’s a chance, and maybe there isn’t. You’ll have to rough it.”
“I am ready to do that.”
“And live poorer than you ever did afore, and then maybe you’ll fail.”
“Perhaps I won’t,” said Tom quietly. “You didn’t.”
“I came mighty near it. Well, Temple, go ahead and try it, if you ain’t afraid of hard work and poor fare, sleeping out o’ nights, and roughin’ it generally.”
“I think I will after a while,” said Tom.
“It’s your deal, pard,” said Rogers.
Granger again turned his attention to the game, and Tom soon fell asleep. He dreamed that he went out to the mines and found a nugget as big as his head. In the midst of his joy at his good luck he awoke to find it broad daylight, and his companions already risen.