“Well, here goes,” said Bill, grinning from 83 under his sou’wester as they entered the cage with lamps in hand. “We’ll see how she looks if the air pipes aren’t broken.”
They saw the slimy black sides of the shaft slip past them as Bells Park dropped them into the depths, and felt the cage slow down as he saw his pointer above the drum indicate the approach of the six-hundred-foot level. They stepped out cautiously, whiffed the air, and knew that the pipes, which had been protected by the water, were intact, and that they had no need to fear foul air. The rusted rails, slime-covered, beneath their rubber boots, glowed a vivid red as they inspected the timbering above, and saw that the sparse stulls, caps, and columns were still holding their own, and that the heavy porphyritic formation would scarcely have given had the timbers rotted away. Dank, glistening walls and a tremulous waving blackness were ahead of them as they cautiously invaded the long-deserted precincts, scraping and striking here and there with their prospector’s picks in search of the lost lead.
“About two hundred feet from the shaft, Bells said,” Dick commented. “And this must be about the place where they cut through pay ore 84 in search of another lobe of the Bonanza Chute. What thieves they were!”
He suddenly became aware that his companion was not with him, and whirled round. Back of him shone a tiny spark of flaring light, striving to illumine the solid blackness. He paused expectantly, and a voice came bellowing through the dark:
“Here it is. The old man’s right, I think. This looks like ore to me.”
Dick hastened back, and assisted while they broke away the looser pieces of green rock, glowing dully, and filled their sample sacks.
Three hours later they stood over the scales in the log assay-house above, and congratulated each other.
“It’ll pay!” Dick declared gleefully. “Not much, but enough to justify going on with the work. I am glad I wrote Sloan that I should draw on him, and now we’ll go ahead and hire a small gang to set the mill and the Cross in shape.”
They were like boys when they crossed to the engine house and told the news to the hard-worked engineer, who chuckeled softly and asserted that he had “told them so.”
“Now, the best way for you to get a gang 85 around here,” he said, “is to go down to Goldpan and tell ‘The Lily’ you want her to pass the word, or stick a sign up in her place saying what men, and how many, you want.”