NUGGETS!
Weeks had passed since the accident, and Jim was still in the
hospital. The disaster had been costly to the colliery, but not
crippling. The shafts--always the most costly portion of mine
development--had not been injured. Many of the galleries had been
reopened. The great ventilation fans were working again at full speed.
The cages of coal were whirling up the shaft as of old.
Otto, after a short rest, had gone to work. The old miner was well
satisfied with the fulfilment of his prophecies. The "knockers" had
indeed tasted blood, for the two men in the old workings had never
been found. As the mining engineer had supposed, that section of the
mine must be abandoned forever. Moreover, Otto's forecast that Clem
would be rescued, uninjured, also had come true.
Clem, indeed, was recovering, but the doctor declared him as yet
unfit to resume the arduous work of hewing below ground. Accordingly,
Owens had given him a temporary position as assistant to the safety
inspector of the mine, for the accident had awakened the interest of
the men in safety work, and the young fellow was quite competent to
help in the simpler forms of instruction.
Anton was still in a weak state. His lungs were affected. He was
living at home with his mother, Owens having granted the boy leave on
full pay until he was entirely well again.
As the mine fell more and more into its old routine, Owens found
himself oftener at the hospital. The remembrance of old times was
strong in him, and the mine owner seemed to renew his youth in the
rude speech of the prospector, sprinkled as it was with mining terms
once so familiar to his ear.
Jim's liking for his employer was rapidly growing into comradeship. He
was fully conscious of Owens' delicacy in never referring to the
secret and began to feel that here, at last, was a rich man he could
trust. In the course of time, it was the old prospector who brought
the matter up, first.
"Has Clem ever said anything more to you about my mine?" he asked
abruptly.
Owens started, but he got a grip on himself at once. When he answered,
it was in as casual a tone as he could assume.
"Not another word. I don't suppose he has, to anybody. He seems to
know enough not to talk. You heard how he snubbed the reporter!"
"I know. I heard him. He's square, is Clem. But I ain't never yet
asked him what I said, down there in the mine. It's been eatin' me,
all the time I've been lyin' here. To think I kep' it quiet all these
years, an' then go blurt it out, jest 'cos I was hungry!"
"You haven't any reason to blame yourself for that, you were
unconscious. And, like you, I believe Clem is as straight as a
string."
"Ay," agreed Jim, "he shows color in every pan (specks of gold in
every handful of washed sand). I'd ha' gone West, judgin' from what he
said the other day, if it hadn't been for him."
"You certainly would."
"An' that makes us pards (partners) in a way, don't it?"
Jim paused, and then burst out again, "But I can't help wonderin'
jest how much I told!"
"You'll have to ask Clem that. You remember, he said nothing to the
reporter except that, in your delirium you were talking about gold."
"Gold! Did I say gold? Are you dead sure that I said gold?"
"That's what Clem told, anyway."
"Then I must sure ha' been dreamin'!" Jim's tone was both embarrassed
and evasive.
Owens saw, at once, by the prospector's manner that he was nervously
fearful of having betrayed himself and that he wanted to drop the
subject. This seemed a sure sign that the hinted discovery was true.
It was a ticklish moment. The mine-owner realized that if the matter
were dropped, now, he might never have another chance to get back to
it. Any attempt on his part to renew the subject would be sure to
arouse Jim's suspicion. If he were to be of any service to the old
prospector, he must seize the present opportunity.
"Too bad that it isn't gold then," he said, half commiseratingly.
"There's nothing in all the world that can make a man rich in a
minute, as gold can. I saw that, often enough, in Australia. That's
the land of nuggets, Jim, big ones! Most of them were found by sheer
luck, and it was poor men who found them, too, mostly.
"The Australian black-fellows--pretty much savages, those
fellows--knew gold, long before the white men came. They used to make
their javelin-heads of gold because it's the easiest metal to work,
when cold, and is found pure.
"So it was not so surprising, Jim, that one of the first big gold
finds was made by a black-fellow, a husky tattooed chap who owned no
property except a small apron of matting for his middle, a bunch of
feathers for his hair, a long-handled stone hatchet, and a boomerang.
"This Cl'ck, as he was called, was employed as a shepherd by Dr. Kerr,
a large sheep-owner in New South Wales. Cl'ck was a fairly intelligent
fellow and had learned to talk a few words of English. He knew gold
when he saw it. Just at the time I'm speaking of, the whole world was
excited over gold, for it was just after the discovery of gold in
California in 1848 and the great gold rush of '49."
"My father was one of the 'forty-niners,'" put in Jim, eagerly.
"So you're of the real Argonaut breed, then!" exclaimed Owens, but he
did not push the enquiry, preferring to allow Jim to tell his story in
his own way and in his own time. In order, however, to keep the
subject of gold present in Jim's mind, he continued:
"For some time there had been vague hints that there might be gold in
Australia, but, before the time of the 'forty-niners' no attention had
been paid to it.
"For example! Once, in 1834, a ticket-of-leave man (convict out on
parole), working in New South Wales, found a small nugget of pure gold
in the earth and brought it to the nearest town to sell. Being a
convict, he was at once arrested for having possession of the gold,
and not being able to explain how he had got it. His story that he had
found it in the earth was laughed at, for never--so far as the
Australians knew, then--had gold been found in nuggets. As it
happened, a white settler had lost a gold watch a little time before.
The weight of the nugget was just about that of the weight of the case
of a gold watch. The ticket-of-leave man was accused of having stolen
the watch, thrown away the works and melted down the case. He was
found guilty and punished with a hundred and thirty lashes."
"Whew, that was pilin' it on heavy!" commented Jim.
"They had to be severe in those days," Owens explained. "Botany Bay
and Port Jackson were penal stations. In those days there were about
fifty thousand white folks in New South Wales and three-quarters of
them were convicts. That meant ruling with an iron hand, if mutiny was
to be prevented.
"Twice, after that, white settlers found signs of gold, but in such
small quantities that the deposits were not worth working by the
primitive means employed at that time. In 1841, signs of gold were
found not far from Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, but the
Governor personally asked the finder to keep the matter a secret for
there were 45,000 convicts in the colony by that time, and he was
afraid that news of a gold-find might start a revolt that the military
would not be able to quell.
"Two years later an even more curious discovery was made. Mr. H.
Anderson, who owned a sheep-station where now are found the great
gold-fields of Ballarat--in the province of Victoria, south of
New South Wales--threw away the finest chance to become a
multi-millionaire that ever came to any man.
"While walking from the home kraal (corral) to his house, in company
with a neighbor, he saw on the ground a small piece of white quartz
shining in the sun and noticed a few thin streaks of yellow in the
quartz.
"He picked it up in a casual way, cast a glance at it, and handed it
to his companion.
"'We're the richest men in the world,' he said, jokingly. 'You and I
are running sheep over a gold-mine.'
"This jesting statement was literally true.
"But the other, who knew just enough about such matters to be really
ignorant, wanted to display his small store of knowledge.
"'Gold!' he said contemptuously, 'that's what they call fool's gold.
It's pyrites of some sort. Tut, tut, man! Golden nonsense! The only
gold in this country is what grows on the backs of sheep.'
"Mr. Anderson, trusting to his companion's supposed better knowledge,
threw the piece of quartz at a pair of wallabies (small kangaroos)
that were leaping about, near by, and thus lost the chance of
becoming the richest man in Australia. Five years later came the news
of the gold-finds in California, and the more thoughtful men in New
South Wales remembered these vague stories about gold having been
found in the island continent.
"Now, let us get back to Cl'ck. His employer, Dr. Kerr, had bidden him
keep his eyes open for any signs of gold, during his wanderings over
the wild pasture land with his flocks. He promised to give him five
pounds--a large sum for a black-fellow, in those days--for any piece
of gold he should bring in, no matter how small.
"One day, in February, 1851, while leading his flocks to water at
Meroo Creek, Cl'ck happened to see what looked like a smudge of yellow
on the surface of a good-sized bowlder of quartz. He chipped at it
with his long-handled hatchet, and there, solidly embedded in the
bowlder, was a huge chunk of gold. It weighed over 102 pounds and was
sold for over $20,000.
"This accidental discovery, which made Kerr rich, and which,
incidentally, gave Cl'ck a hut and a sheep-kraal of his own, was
amazing enough in itself. Even in California, which was then regarded
as the very fountain-head of gold, no such nugget had been found.
Yet, a couple of weeks later, a strike was made of such importance as
to throw even the Black-fellow Nugget in the shade. This second strike
determined the fortunes of Australia.
"One of the 'forty-niners,' who went to the California gold-fields in
the first ship that sailed from Sydney after the news of the
Sacramento discoveries had reached Australia, was a prospector called
E. H. Hargraves. He got to California in the middle of the rush, but
luck was against him.
"As happened so often with the men who knew only a little mining, he
thought he could do better than merely follow the crowd. He staked a
claim that looked more promising than the ground on the outskirts of
the established mining camps. The claim proved worthless, or nearly
so.
"Seeing the vast crowds streaming into California, and being convinced
that there would not be gold enough for all, Hargraves decided to go
home, rather than to stay in the California gold-diggings and die of
hunger--as so many of the forty-niners did."
Jim nodded assentingly. He knew those stories. Many a one had his
father told him. He was well aware that the trail of gold is a line
of graves.
"On his way back home," Owens continued, "Hargraves remembered that he
had seen ground in New South Wales which bore a marked resemblance to
the regions where gold had been found in California. It was not
ordinary alluvial gold land, such as prospectors were apt to seek, and
no one had ever suspected that gold might be found there. Hargraves
had kept his eyes open, when in California, and had realized that
alluvial gold was but a beginning, that the biggest amount of wealth
lay in a reef.
"Reaching Sydney in December, 1850, Hargraves made his way towards
what is now the town of Bathurst. He was out in the field,
prospecting, when the Black-fellow Nugget was found, and heard nothing
about it.
"Near the end of February, 1851, working in Summerhill Creek, he
discovered sure signs of gold, though in no such alluring quantity as
had been found on the creeks leading into the Sacramento River. He
worked steadily up the creek, not only panning as he went, but also
striking off to right and left to see if the ground gave promise of a
reef. There, on the last day of the month, he found a bowlder of
quartz and gold, or, to speak more correctly, a detached piece of
quartz from a reef, the greater part of which was almost pure gold and
weighed 106 pounds.
"Hargraves was a man of sense. Instead of hurrying back to the nearest
town with his find, selling it and blowing the money, he did some
further prospecting. He collected specimens from different parts of
the neighborhood, realizing that he had made a discovery not less
sensational than when Sutter found the first gold in his mill-race in
California.
"Then he went straight to the government authorities of New South
Wales, and, in addition to establishing his own claims, he asked that
a reward be given him by the government. The governor, anxious to stop
the emigration from New South Wales to California, and realizing that
a gold-find would bring enormous wealth and prosperity to the colony,
made him a grant of $50,000 and a pension, providing that he would
reveal the gold-bearing locality to the authorities, first, and
providing the territory should produce a million dollars' worth of
gold.
"Hargraves was as good as his word. He showed not only the famous
Lewis Ponds, Summerhill, but also another and even bigger field on
the upper waters of the Macquarie River. Owing to their prior
information, the authorities were able to establish mining laws and
good government before the rush set it, and Bathhurst was freed from
the wild orgy of lawlessness which marked the days of the
'forty-niners.'
"All this, Jim, was a wonderful jump forward for New South Wales, and
the town of Sydney boomed. But it was equally bad for the other
provinces of Australia, and Victoria, being the nearest, suffered
most. Almost every man able to wield a pick or rock a miner's cradle,
deserted his work and rushed to Bathurst. The gold was so easy to
separate from the quartz that a man could get rich using no other tool
than an ordinary hammer.
"Shepherds and even sheep-owners deserted their flocks, farmers let
their land go to weed, merchants abandoned their shops, manufacturers
allowed their machinery to rust, school-teachers locked the doors of
schools, and workmen of every line of labor flocked to Sydney and
toiled along the widely beaten track to Bathurst.
[Illustration: AUSTRALIA'S TREASURE-HOUSE.
One of the shafts of the Kilgoorlie Gold Mine, more than 1000 feet
below the surface.
_From "Mines and Their Story," by Bernard Mannix Sidgwick and
Jackson._
_Courtesy of Kilgoorlie Gold Mining Co._]
[Illustration: IN THE RICHEST GOLD MINE IN THE WORLD.
Drilling the rock for blasting on the Rand Reefs of South Africa; the
compressed-air drills give a million blows a day, each with the force
of half a ton.]
"The authorities of the province of Victoria were in despair. The
colony was plunging into ruin. Something must be done at once. They
offered a huge reward to any one who should find gold within two
hundred miles of Melbourne. On the very same day, two men came to
claim the reward. One had made a strike on the Plenty River, the other
on the Yarra-Yarra. In August, 1851, came the discovery of gold at
Ballarat, gold in its pure form and in large grains. The Bendigo
fields developed immediately after.
"Then came a rush unparalleled! Money came easy, just as it comes easy
to any man who has the good luck to be first at a strike. Every one
got rich in Ballarat. There were no blanks. It was the richest ground
that ever was found. The grains of gold were so big that they stuck
out and looked at you!
"Geelong, which was the nearest town to Ballarat, was deserted. Three
months after the discovery of gold the mayor of Geelong complained
that there were only eleven men and over three thousand women and
children in the town."
"Ay," agreed Jim, "and I remember in Pot-Luck Camp, the first time a
decent woman came into the town, a miner offered her a bag of
gold-dust to just shake hands with him. I've seen seven camps in a
string, wi' maybe a thousand men in each an' nary a woman in the lot!"
"A camp like that becomes right wild," Owens agreed. "Ballarat, for a
while, was about as dangerous a place as ever the world saw.
Ticket-of-leave men from New South Wales, escaped or paroled convicts
from Tasmania, roughs that had been run out of camps by vigilance
committees in California, Chinese and Malays swarmed there. The
diggers refused to take out licenses, fired on the police, charged the
military stockade, and when the troops charged back and took 125
prisoners, a jury acquitted every one of the mutineers as upholders of
individual liberty. If a man did not find gold, he starved at the
exorbitant prices demanded for food; if he did make a strike, the
chances were ten to one he would be murdered the next day. Colorado,
at is worst, could not be compared with early days at Ballarat.
"Bendigo followed right after. That was a nugget corner. During the
year 1852, alone, three big nuggets were found there, one of 24
pounds, one of 28 pounds, and one of 47 pounds. All these nuggets
revealed outcrops and the finders all became rich men.
"One of them was found in a queer way. A prospector, or 'fossicker' as
they call them back there, had been panning all along a small creek,
finding hardly enough color to pay him for his day's work. He was
walking on the very edge of the bank, scanning every stone he came to,
but seeing no prospects. Suddenly the bank caved in under him,
throwing him into the water. He came up, spluttering, and there, right
in front of him, the water was washing off the dirt, was one of the
purest nuggets that Australia ever produced. That was probably the
most profitable bath in history."
"Some men are born lucky!" declared Jim, enviously.
"That's true," Owens agreed, "and it has been a characteristic of
Australia that all the big finds have been made by lucky accidents.
Even recent discoveries are no exception. Did you ever hear the story
of Pilbarra and the crow?"
"Never did."
"It's a classic in Australian gold mining. It's as queer a story as I
know. It doesn't sound true, a bit, but all the documents in the case
are on record.
"One fine day, a youngster in West Australia--clear across the other
side of the continent from Bathurst and Ballarat--was idling along a
narrow track, as youngsters will, even when sent on a hurried message.
On his way, he saw a black crow hopping some distance away. With a
natural boy movement, he picked up a stone and shied it at the crow.
The bird gave a loud croak and flew away a little distance, but in the
same direction in which the boy was walking. Presently the crow was
within throwing distance, again. The boy stooped to pick up another
stone.
"Just as he was about to let fly, however, he noticed some gold specks
in it and took it home. There he showed it to his father, who was an
employe in the convict prison there. His father showed it to the
Warden, as he was compelled to do, for he was also a convict, though a
'trusty.'
"The much-excited Warden knew that the governor of the colony ought to
be notified at once, but how was he to do so without the secret
leaking out through the telegraph office? Forgetting, in his
excitement, that the governor did not know as much about the matter as
he did, he sent the following message:
"_'Boy here has just thrown stone at crow.'_
"He entirely neglected to mention that there was anything special in
either the stone or the crow.
"The telegram puzzled the governor not a little. But he had a sense of
humor, and he replied to the Warden's telegram with the following
message:
"_'Yes; but what happened to the crow?'_
"The Warden realized his former omission, and risking discovery,
telegraphed:
"_'Stone, gold.'_
"The telegraph operator, not seeing how this could be a reply to the
governor's question thought an error had been made and forwarded the
message:
"_'Stone cold.'_
"The governor thought his friend the Warden must have gone crazy, but
he was not to be outdone. He wired back:
"_'Forward crow.'_
"This time it was the turn of the Warden to be puzzled, and, as soon
as his duties would permit, he went to the capital--almost a
thousand-mile journey--taking, not the crow, but the stone filled with
specks of gold. This was in 1888. Over half-a-million dollars' worth
of gold was taken from Pilbarra before the end of the year.
"The richest gold field in Australia was hit on by accident four
years later. This was Kimberley. Signs of gold had been found there in
1882, and again in 1886 but not enough to be worth working. In 1892
two prospectors started out to explore the region. They worked for
weeks and found nothing. One of them, thoroughly disgusted, gave up
the search and started for home.
"Two nights after, while camping, his horse became restless and
started to plunge and kick at a wombat, near by. The prospector got up
to quiet the beast, fearing he would break the picket-rope. On his
way, he stumbled over a stone, which, in the light of early dawn, he
saw to be rich in gold. He pegged out a claim at once, fetched his
partner, and the two men took out $50,000 worth of gold in three
weeks. This was the beginning of the great Coolgardie field.
"In the same region, about 24 miles away, not long after the opening
of the Coolgardie field, a miner just missed wealth. There was a small
camp there, but one man had no luck. While sitting dispiritedly in his
dog-tent, just before going to sleep, he began to burrow with his
fingers in the loose soil on which he was slouching and discovered a
small pocket of gold. He was so excited that he shouted out the news
to the camp.
"Before he could realize what was happening, the other miners crowded
round, and pegged out claims to the very borders of his tent. All he
got out of it was the small bit of ground on which his tent stood. The
pocket only yielded a hundred dollars' worth of gold, his neighbors to
right and left, got more than ten times that amount in the first three
days.
"I could go on for hours, Jim, telling you about the Australian
gold-fields, but I've said enough to show you that I meant what I said
when I suggested that it was a pity that you hadn't found gold. The
mining of every other metal needs a lot of capital to begin with--as
gold does, when you begin to work a reef--but, in nearly every gold
deposit, there are placers or pockets where a man can clean up
quickly."
Jim's face was glowing with a lively interest. His excitement had
grown as the mine-owner proceeded.
"And these here nuggets," he queried, "what makes 'em? Where do they
come from? We don't find anything like that over here!"
"No," agreed Owens, "you don't. Chunks like 'The Welcome Stranger'
which sold for $48,000 and which was found right in the road, the
wheel of a passing wagon having cut through the soft earth and exposed
it, are peculiar to Australia. Even South Africa, which is the largest
gold-producing country in the world, hasn't any nuggets like that.
"As for where nuggets come from, Jim, that's a bit of a puzzle. Some
say they grew in the earth, water heavily laden with gold, depositing
more and more of the metal in the one place; other scientists claim
that the nuggets were made in the days when the earth was all fire,
and that the nuggets have been there ever since. Neither theory
answers all the facts. It's truer to say that we don't know, yet, how
nuggets came to be, nor why Australia has most of them.
"Some day, Jim, if you're interested, I'll try to explain to you the
geology of gold. It's pretty complicated. I did a lot of study on it,
when I was a young chap. Somehow, I seemed to be one of the men who
didn't have any luck at the diggings. So I took to assay work
(ore-testing), out there in Australia, and made more with my little
assay outfit than most of the miners did with their claims."
Jim propped himself up on one elbow and stared fixedly at the
mine-owner.
"You know how to make an assay, yourself?"
"Roughly, yes. Of course, only for field work, you understand. I don't
pretend to be a mineralogical chemist."
"You can do it yet?"
"I suppose so. I haven't done any for years. This coal-mine business
has kept me busy. But I've still got my portable assay outfit up at
the house. I kept it for old-time's sake."
Jim's eyes glistened eagerly.
"You go to my cabin, Owens," he said, and it was noticeable that he
dropped the "Mr.," "and five long paces due north from my kitchen
window, you dig! You'll find a chunk of ore, there. Assay it, and then
come back here!"
"But--"
The old prospector waved the interruption aside, impatiently.
"Do it, and then talk!"
Owens shrugged his shoulders and left, but little less excited than
Jim.
That evening, during the middle of the night shift, when no one was
likely to see him, the mine-owner went to the spot designated and
began to dig. A foot or two beneath the surface, he found the chunk of
ore. He put it in his pocket and hurried to his own house.
It was nearly dawn before he completed the assay. Then he put the ore
and his memorandum of results in the safe and went to bed for a short
sleep.
That morning, after breakfast, he returned to the hospital. He found
Jim in an excited state.
"No, Mr. Owens, there's nothing wrong with him," the doctor explained,
"only he hasn't slept all night. He's been asking for you, every few
minutes."
When the mine-owner entered the ward, Jim struggled up to a sitting
position.
"What about it?" he queried.
Owens closed the door carefully, came up to the sick man's bedside,
and answered quietly,
"About 110 grains of gold to the ton and 800 ounces of silver. There's
some native copper, too."
"It's a real find then?"
"It isn't what you'd call rich," the Australian answered cautiously.
"How about this, then?"
Jim took his old coat, which he had got the hospital attendant to
bring him the night before, ripped open a seam, showing a narrow tube
of buckskin running around the hem, and, opening its mouth, poured out
a few grains of yellow metal into the palm of his hand.
"Free gold!" he said, triumphantly.
One glance of a trained eye sufficed.
"That's the stuff, sure enough. But you didn't find much of it, eh?"
"Where do you get that idea?"
"The grains are big enough to pan easily. If there was much of it, you
wouldn't have left the place without cleaning up a good stake."
"There is plenty of it. But I had to get out."
"Why, then?"
"To save my skin. An' I couldn't get back there."
"Back where?"
"Where I found it."
"That doesn't tell me much."
"It ain't intended to."
"Then why," said Owens, showing irritation, "did you show me the ore
at all?"
Jim looked at him under lowered eyelids.
"Have you ever been a prospector, honest?"
The owner of the coal mine put his hand in his breast pocket.
"I thought this might interest you," he said, "so I brought it along.
That's me!"
He put his finger on one of the figures in the picture that he handed
to the prospector. It showed a young fellow, bearded, in the typical
Australian digger's rig-out, panning gold. The photograph was an old
one, evidently, and there was no doubt that it was a resemblance of
Owens in his youth.
"Ay, it's you," said Jim.
For some minutes there was silence. The mine-owner let the prospector
think the matter out in his own way. Finally, with an air of desperate
determination, Jim began:
"I'm gettin' old, now, an' times has changed since I found that ore. I
ain't never give up hope of gettin' back there, but it don't look like
it, now. I ain't the man I was. This last spell has crippled me up,
pretty bad, too. I ain't never goin' to be right husky, again. The
doctor says so."
"You can have a job above ground, here, as long as you want to."
Jim nodded appreciation of the offer.
"That's a square deal," he admitted. "But," he went on viciously,
"I've had enough o' coal. I don't want to see a bit o' coal again,
long's I live! I want to get back to God's country."
"Which is?"
"Where I found that!" replied Jim, evasively.
Owens made no protest. He kept silent, being sure that his companion
would go on to talk.
"I'm gettin' old," Jim repeated, after a while, "an' it takes two
things to get where I found that ore--a tough constitution an' money.
I got neither. It's a job for a young fellow."
"I'm not much younger than you are," suggested Owens.
"Clem is."
"Well?"
"But he hasn't got any more money'n I have."
The mine-owner bent a level glance at the old prospector.
"Don't beat about the bush so much, Jim. If you don't want to say
anything, why, drop the whole business. If you have anything to say,
spit it out! You want me to grub-stake you? Is that it?"
"Me an' Clem. I won't do nothin' without Clem. A man has to have a
pardner."
"I've no objection to Clem. On the contrary. But I don't grub-stake a
man just because he shows me a bit of ore! I've been in the game too
long for that. How do I know where that gold comes from? It might have
been picked up from some mine now working at full blast. As for the
gold-dust--why, it would be queer if you hadn't found some of it,
somewhere.
"No," he went on, anticipating Jim's interruption, "I'm going to do
the talking for a minute. You wanted to be sure I was a prospector. I
showed you. You wanted to be sure I knew enough about gold to make an
assay. I've done that for you.
"But confidence can't be all on the one side. You'll have to show your
cards, the same way. You'll have to convince me that you're on the
square, too. I'm not suspecting anything, mind, but this has got to be
an open-and-shut deal, or I don't go in.
"Tell me who you are, where you've been, what you've done and what you
know about gold deposits, anyway. I've got to know where you found
this ore, how you came to find it, and why you haven't been able to
get back there. You'll have to show me some proof, to start with, and
what chances there are of taking the necessary machinery to the
place, before I think about investing any capital.
"You can keep back the exact location of the strike to the last, if
you like. If it sounds right, why, I'll think about it. But, mark you,
Jim, I make no promises. You can talk, or not, just as you choose. I'm
not hunting trouble, understand, this colliery keeps me busy enough.
But if you want help, maybe I can give it to you. That ore deposit--if
it's a deposit--can either be let alone or developed. If you let it
alone, it's no good to anybody. If it's developed, there's a chance
that it might make money for the both of us. Decide! It's up to you!"
Silence fell in the hospital ward. Jim's eyes were far away, evidently
in that strange and distant land where he had made his find. Then he
turned a piercing glance on the mine-owner, who returned it frankly.
The old prospector cleared his throat and swallowed hard. For a moment
he seemed about to speak, and then stopped himself. At last his
features settled into decision.
"Send for Clem to come here to-morrow," he said, "I'll tell the
yarn."