For the expenses have been great. What with buying provisions at frightful prices, buying implements and some bits of machinery, paying for the crushing of quartz that never yielded more than delusive traces of gold, and so on and so forth, our slender capital has melted away into nothingness. True, we have formed ourselves into a company, and have tried to sell some scrip. But the market is flooded with mining shares just now, and ours are not worth a bottle of whisky apiece. Moreover, "O'Gaygun's Claim" is fast becoming the laughing-stock of the field. There are no believers in it except ourselves. Every other claim that proved as valueless as ours has been long ago abandoned; only we stick to our tunnel, driving at it with frantic energy. And our life is harder here than in our shanty. We are ill-provided, and have all the wet and mud and mire of the rainy season now to help make things uncomfortable for us. Our food is coarse, and not too plentiful. Damper, tea, salt-pork, potatoes, and not always all of those. Is it any wonder we are despondent?
As I stand there that evening, cogitating over the gloomy outlook, two of the others come out of the tunnel bearing a sackful of stone between them. I see a new expression on their faces, and eagerly turn to them.
"Something fresh. Hush! Not a word. Come into the house, quick!"
So says Dandy Jack to me, hoarsely and hurriedly. Alas! poor man, he is hardly a dandy at present, and even his complacent calm seems to have forsaken him at last.
In the hut we anxiously crowd together, examining the specimens just brought out of the mine. There are lumps of grey and dirty-white quartz, flecked with little spots and speckles of metallic yellow. Is it gold? That is the question.
"Ah! it's just the same ould story!" growls O'Gaygun. "Mica or pyrites, that's about all we've the luck to find, bad cess to them! All's not gould that glitters, boys; an' there's precious little av the thrue stuff comin' our way."
"Shut up, you Irish croaker!" says Dandy Jack, without moving, as he lies on his face near the fire, intently examining a piece of quartz, licking it with his tongue, scratching it with his nails, and hefting it in his palms. "There's many a rough dirty stone that hides good gold within it. And," he adds, rising up, "we have got it this time. Boys! we've struck the reef!"
A few minutes later we were scouring down to the battery, bearing samples of the precious stone; and before the camp had gone to rest that night a hubbub and excitement had spread through it, for, it was the common topic of talk that rich stone had been discovered upon "O'Gaygun's Claim." Next day and next week we were besieged. Crowds wanted to see the claim, numbers wanted to buy shares in it, and would give hundreds and even thousands of pounds for them. We were elate, excited, conceited, madder than ever with our luck, that at last had come.
Well, eventually it proved that the find was but a "blind reef," a "pocket," a mere isolated dribble from the main continuous vein we had at first supposed we had struck. But it filled our pockets, giving us more wealth than we had ever before possessed. Had we been wiser we might have made more money by selling the claim directly after the find; but we held on too long. However, we made a very pretty little pile, not a fortune exactly, but the nucleus of one; and finally we sold the claim for a good round sum to a joint stock company, cleared out, and separated on the various ways we had chalked out for ourselves.