“I suppose it’s not an expensive way of treating the ore in the rough?” queried Blount.
“I reckon not. Cheapest way on airth. The labour we pay at present only comes to one man to a thousand yards. This company has been paying dividends for fifteen years!”
Mr. Blount thanked the obliging American, who, like all respectable miners, was well-mannered to strangers, the sole exception being in the case of a party that have “struck gold” in a secluded spot, and naturally do not desire all the world to know about it. But even they are less rude than evasive.
He looked at his watch and decided that he had not more than enough time to get back to Bunjil in time for lunch. So he shook hands with Mr. Hiram Endicott and set out for that nucleus of civilisation.
Making rather better time on the return journey, he arrived much pleased with himself, considering that he had accomplished an important advance in bush-craft and mineralogy.
Sheila welcomed him in a clean print dress, with a smiling face, but expressed a faint surprise at his safe return, and at his having found the road to the sluice-working, and back.
“Why! how could I lose the way?” he demanded, justly indignant. “Was not the creek a sufficiently safe guide?”
“Oh! it can be done,” answered the girl archly. “There was a gentleman followed the creek the wrong way, and got among the ranges before he found out his mistake; and another one—he was a newspaper editor—thought he’d make a near cut, found himself miles lower down, and didn’t get back before dark. My word! how hungry he was, and cross too!”
“Well, I’m not very hungry or even cross—but I’m going to wash my hands, after which lunch will be ready, I suppose?”
“You’ve just guessed it,” she replied. “You’ll have tea, I suppose?”