“No. I'm not throwing my money away, boys. I am going to make money on this field, and so are you. But there are not enough of us. We want more men—wages' men; and presently I'll explain why we shall want them. But first of all, let me show you what I obtained the other day out of between 200 and 250 lbs. weight of those tailings.”
He rose, went into the second room, and returned with a small enamelled dish, and placed it upon the table. The miners rose and gathered round, and saw lying on the bottom about an ounce and a quarter of fine powdery gold.
“Holy Moses!” cried one of them, as he drew his forefinger through the bright, yellow dust, “there's more than an ounce there.”
“There is,” affirmed Grainger: “there are twenty-five pennyweights, and all that came out of not more than 250 lbs. of tailings!”
The men looked at each other with eyes sparkling with excitement, and then Grainger poured the gold out upon a clean plate for closer examination.
“Why,” exclaimed Scott, “that means those tailings would go ten ounces to the ton!”
“Just so,” said Grainger, “but we can't get those ten ounces out of them by ordinary means, though with new screens, new tables and blankets I am pretty sure we can get four ounces to the ton. But we want the ten, don't we?”
“You bet,” was the unanimous response.
“Well, I'll guarantee that we shall get eight ounces at least. But first of all I'll tell you how I got the result. You can try some of the stuff in the morning, and you will find that those tailings will pan out about eight or ten ounces to the ton.”
“But acid is mighty dear stuff,” said Scott.