Making an appointment with Steel for that evening, Morning deposited his copper samples with an assayer, and, walking to the Court House, he filed the notice of location of the Morning mine with the county recorder. Two hours later he had the report of the assayer upon the copper samples, showing an average of twelve per cent of carbonate copper in the ore. This was not so rich as had been predicted by Steel, but was of sufficient value to warrant the purchase of the copper prospects at the low price which had been fixed upon them, provided that arrangements could be made for economically working them, and Morning had already formulated in his own mind a plan of action by which the working of the copper lodes could be made to advance his project of working the gold lode so as to conceal the extent of its yield.
Morning calculated that the amount of money needed for labor, supplies, machinery, and buildings, to work the mines in accordance with his plans, would be about $300,000, and his first thought was to obtain this money by breaking down, and shipping to reduction works in California or Colorado, about thirty tons of the quartz before he should commence the work which he projected for the concealment of the ledge.
With his own hands he could mine and sack such an amount of ore in a fortnight, and with the aid of half a dozen pack animals, managed by himself, transport it a mile or two from the rift, where it might be thrown into the channel cut by the waterspout, and, with a blast or two, be covered with rocks and dirt until teams should be brought from Tucson for it.
With this idea uppermost, he sought the freight agent of the railroad company of Tucson.
Then he came in contact with the system in vogue on the Pacific Coast—and possibly elsewhere—that of a one-sided railroad partnership with the producer, on the basis that the producer furnish all the capital and suffer all the losses, the railroad company providing neither capital, experience, nor services, but taking the lion’s share of the profits.
“What,” said Morning, “will your freight charges be for three car loads of ore to Pueblo or San Francisco?”
“What kind of ore?”
“Gold-bearing quartz in sacks.”
“What does your ore assay?” inquired the agent.
“What has that got to do with it?” questioned Morning sharply.