Back Aa

Golden Chimney: A Boy's Mine

Close

[Pg 200] <h2>CHAPTER XV BEN CHOOSES A PROFESSION</h2> Within the Works they found everything, with the exception of the amalgam which Syd had taken, exactly as they had left it. Mundon was particularly pleased to find the “jigger” undisturbed. “Here’s the slag I mean, Ben. I’ve dreamt about that there identical lump fur three nights runnin’.” Mundon pointed to the rugged top of a lava-like bowlder, which reared itself from a corner of the earthen floor. “I guess you’re right about the metals there are in it,” said Ben; “but it might be an aerolite for all I know.” “What’s that? Say it again.” “An aerolite? It’s the lump of metal they find when a meteor falls and it’s unlike anything found on this earth.” [Pg 201] “O, a fallin’ star. I knew a man who wrote some poetry about one that fell in Australia. He called it ‘stardust,’ but I s’pose a hard-as-nails professor would call it—by the name that you do.” While speaking, Mundon was surveying the ground. “I’ve got a scheme, Ben, to grade all this stuff ’cordin’ to its value.” “How do mean?” “Why we’ve had ’sperience enough to see that’d be the best way to economize our time and labor. We’ll assay it and grade it till we know ’bout where we stand.” “It’ll be an awful lot of work to do it.” “Yes, it’ll be tejus, but it’ll pay better in the end. We’ll—if you say so, Ben, ’course it’s your own business; but I’m jest tellin’ you how I’d do if ’twere mine—we’ll sep’rate the stuff ’cordin’ to size first, and then ’cordin’ to value.” [Pg 202] “It’s a good plan. Don’t defer to me any more—you idiot! It makes me feel so mean when you do it. You know as well as I do that I don’t know the first thing about this business.” “You’re the boss, Ben,” Mundon laconically replied. “I don’t doubt that the slag and muck and all the rest of it are valuable,” said Ben; “but the chimney—our golden chimney—is the thing we’re sure of now. Maybe the day’s cleanup ’ll be more, or maybe it’ll be less, but we know it’ll be gold!” “You’re right—we’ve tested that and we’re sure of it. But we mustn’t despise the rest, on that account. Now, here’s where the roaster stood—it must hev stood here, ’cause it couldn’t hev stood any place else. Well, I’m goin’ to sink a shaft here.” Mundon stooped as he spoke, and with his pocket-knife he dug a small hole, from which he unearthed several small lumps of metal. [Pg 203] “Just as I thought,” he said as he weighed them in his hand,—“lead ore that’ll assay heavy in silver.” “Then, there are those dumps,—made when the furnaces were put in, you thought. We haven’t touched those yet.” “You mean outside, where the old fence stood?” “Yes. Why, just look here.” Ben drew Mundon outside the gates to where some mounds rose from the beach. “It’s my opinion that this board that’s nailed on the fence here, opposite these heaps, was put here to mark them.” “They’re heaps of waste, most likely. Somethin’ ’s ben scratched into the wood. Let’s see what it is.” They carefully examined the board, and Ben deciphered the inscription, “Waste Bullion.” “Just think!” he cried, “that old Madge has let this pile of stuff that’s[Pg 204] one third solid silver, maybe, stay here all these years! And Mr. Fish, close as he is, too,” he added. “It’s awfully funny!” “It ain’t funny that Fish didn’t do nothin’ with it, ’cause he’s the kind that just collects rents and forecloses mortgages. He wouldn’t put up a cent in any venture like this; he’d call it oncertain. But old Madge is a born miner. Well, it is funny. He’ll be wild.” “There used to be a shed inside the old fence, in a sort of an outside yard,” Ben remarked, “but they both fell down years ago.” “That so?” Mundon replied, as he stooped and carefully examined the ground. “Yes, here’s the posts the shed rested on. We’ll excavate five or six feet deep here, on the site of the old shed. It’s bound to pay us fur our trouble.” [Pg 205] “After it’s been all these years on the open beach?” “What’s that got to do with it? Nobody’s ever mined here. It stands to reason that they’d hev stored more val’able stuff in the shed than they would in the open. And there’s the signboard, a-tellin’ us that these dumps are waste bullion.” During the weeks that followed their return to their claim the partners worked industriously. They sifted the result of their labors in three dumps, graded according to value. The first was coarse base bullion, which assayed at two hundred dollars a ton. One piece, the largest, weighed about twenty pounds; the smallest pieces were the size of peas. The second pile consisted of fine bullion, its component particles ranging in size from a pea to a pinhead. This assayed at one hundred and fifty dollars a ton. A third pile averaged from[Pg 206] seventy-five dollars to one hundred dollars a ton. The total product of this, representing a week’s work, they estimated to be about seventeen hundred dollars. The site of the old shed was excavated, and water was brought to the spot in a flume; for Mundon thought best to wash the ground in a rocker before putting it through the “jigger.” The result amply repaid them for their trouble. “This beats me! Rockin’ on the beach of San Francisco and makin’ our two and three hundred dollars a day,” said Mundon, one day as they were digging several feet below the surface. <div class="center"> <ANTIMG src="images/i215.jpg" alt="Rockin on the beach of San Francisco" /></div> “‘Rockin’ on the beach of San Francisco and makin’ our two and three hundred a day,’ said Mundon.” “It beats anything I ever heard of,” Ben replied; “but I’m willing it should.” Ben worked so hard during the day that he was too tired when night came to do anything but go to bed as quickly as possible. [Pg 207] One Sunday afternoon he paid a visit to Beth. He had not seen her for some time, and was anxious to know what progress she was making at school. She saw him coming and came running to meet him. “Will you walk out to the Point, Ben?” “Yes. We don’t do any work on Sunday.” “Well, it’s come true, Beth,” he said when they were well away from the house; “most of it has, at any rate.” “O, I’m so glad!” “We’re far enough along now to form a pretty correct figure of what there is in sight, and we’ve got four weeks more to work in.” “How much will you make?” “Well, how much do you guess?” “O, I don’t know,” the girl earnestly replied. “You say it’s come true, and you must mean your fortune we used to talk about; so I guess you’re not[Pg 208] disappointed. Everybody’s so curious to know what you’re making.” “They can keep on being curious. I had enough of people’s curiosity before,” he grimly added. “The work on the beach we have to do outside, but we don’t allow a soul inside the gates now.” “I know you don’t; and they say the reason is that you’re not cleaning up anything and don’t want any one to know it.” Ben gave a dry laugh. “Or else we don’t want any one to know how much we’re making. Why wouldn’t it work that way?” “It would,” said Beth. “Do tell me, Ben; I’m just dying to know! How much will it be?” “From ten to twelve thousand dollars.” “What! You don’t really mean it?” “Indeed I do. But you mustn’t tell yet a while.” [Pg 209] When they reached the house on their return, Mrs. Hodges awaited them in the doorway. “Found any nuggets, Ben?” she facetiously remarked. “No,” he laughed. “That yarn about finding them in chimneys was a fairy tale, I think. But we’ve found the stuff to make them out of, which answers our purpose quite as well.” Her husband looked over her shoulder. “If the lease was never recorded, or was done wrong, Ben, couldn’t Fish oust you if he wanted to?” “I suppose he could, strictly speaking,” Ben replied. “But, you see, he overreached. He played a mean, dishonest trick in having a false entry made in the record, and now he doesn’t dare to come back for fear of being arrested.” “But he’ll come back some time when the thing’s blown over.” [Pg 210] “Well, I’ll be through with the Works by that time,” Ben remarked as he bade them good-night. When the last day came it was with considerable regret that the partners made preparations to leave the Works forever. “I don’t want to stay one day longer than the time I’m entitled to,” said Ben. “It’s paid us well for our work, but I wouldn’t care to go through it all again.” “It has been sort of a worrisome job,” Mundon replied. “Still it’s big pay. Seven thousand dollars for a boy like you to make in three months! Besides, there’s worry in all sorts of business, and a man’s jest got to make the best out of it,” he philosophically added. “Do you know, Ben,—now that it’s all over, I kin tell you,—I know there was a time when you mistrusted me; not exactly mistrusted, either, but[Pg 211] you had the thoughts out of which mistrust is made. O, you needn’t say you didn’t,” he exclaimed as Ben made a gesture of dissent. “I knew jest as well as if you’d told me so that you did. I ain’t a-holdin’ it up agin you, neither. I know how many there was to put sech things into your head agin a stranger, like I was.” “Well, I didn’t let them stay there, Mundon. I trusted you all through.” They heartily shook hands. “I b’lieve you did, boy; I b’lieve you did. It’s ben a tough job, though, in places. What with the smugglin’ business, and your gettin’ cut, and the injunction, too. But takin’ it all through, jest lumpin’ it, you don’t regret it, do you?” “No,” Ben replied. “We got through by the skin of our teeth, in places,” he continued. “It was a chance, though, that I didn’t lose every cent I had in the world. It was just the merest [Pg 212]accident that that Chinaman overheard those two rascals and put us on their track. Besides, we weren’t dead sure—we couldn’t be—that there was any gold in the old ramshackle Works when I bought them. It’s too much like gambling to suit me. I’m not saying a word against your going into whatever you want to, but, for myself, I’m going to choose something that’s slower and surer.” “Made up your mind, yet, what it’ll be?” “Yes,—I’m going to Berkeley,—to college—to fit myself to be a mining engineer.” “That’s the very best thing you can do.” “I’m glad that you approve. You see, I’ve got money enough to carry me through; and if I’ve got brains enough, too, I’m all right.” “Goin’ to stick to minin’—I see.” [Pg 213] “Yes, Mundon, but with this difference, I’m going to equip myself to mine for others—I needn’t mine for myself unless I choose to.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2