“I drifted ten feet on the vein, and the ore suddenly gave out. It stopped just like that, proving I'd come to the upper end of the vein where it had faulted; so I just worked up and around, stoping and sinking a winze here and there, until just about the time my cash reserve was getting pretty low I picked up the true vein and opened it up for the full width. Come in, and I'll show you.”
They entered the tunnel, to the signal dismay of dozens of large bats. When they reached the vein, Webster broke off samples of the ore every three or four feet, crawled after Billy up through the stope and back to the true vein, from the face of which he also took numerous samples; then he crawled out into the sunshine again, hot, dirty, and perspiring.
“Billy, you'll be a real miner yet; see if you won't,” was all the praise he tendered his youthful partner, standing beside him in anticipation of a compliment, as Webster got out his portable assay outfit.
For three days Webster worked, determining the values of each sample, only to find that his assays confirmed Billy's. Then he visited the old shaft on top of the hill, assayed samples procured there, roamed the range in the immediate vicinity, marking with expert eye the timber he would find so useful and close at hand when stulls and lagging for the tunnel should be needed; then he selected a site where the waters of the stream could be impounded in a little draw far up the hillside, and returned to camp to render his final report.
“You were right, son,” he announced. “This mine is a humdinger and no mistake; if you and I live ten years we'll be worth ten millions between us—maybe more.”
Billy's jaundiced eyes glowed hungrily. “We'll put in a hundred stamps——”
“Well, we'll try ten for a starter,” Webster interrupted dryly, “and add more as the mine pays its way. Our first consideration is the building of about ten miles of road through that timber, and repairs to that old dirt road connecting with the Grand Highway. I noticed there isn't much hard rock work to do, however, and we'll shoot the trees out of our way with dynamite. After we have a passable trail broken into this valley it won't take long to haul in our freight from the railroad at San Miguel de Padua. We'll cut all our frame- and foundation-timbers for the stamp-mill right here on the ground, and our other buildings will all be adobe. We'll have to put in a concrete dam up there on the hill and build a flume to the stamps. Oh, yes, my son, we'll run the stamps by water power. We'll have a five-hundred-foot drop at an ample angle, with the last hundred feet almost perpendicular; believe me, when the water comes through the penstock, anything in front will have to get out of the way. The same power will operate a little electric-light plant to light the grounds and buildings and workings, run the drills, and so on. Yes, it's the sweetest mining proposition on earth—only, like all high-class goods, it has one flaw when you examine it closely.”
“You're crazy,” Billy challenged. “Name the flaw!”
“Sarros!” Webster replied smilingly. “That scoundrel makes a gamble out of an otherwise sure thing. However,” he added, recalling the note received from Ricardo Ruey just before his departure from Buenaventura and reflecting that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, “we'll accept the gamble. That rascal can't live forever, and he may be eliminated before he causes us any trouble.”
“What will it cost us to get this mine on a paying basis, Johnny*”