"This ain't the first plant I've put up, you know." He added--"I'll
guarantee that inside two weeks we'll be throwin' dirt. Eh, Smaltz?
Ain't I right?"
Smaltz, who was stooping over, did not immediately look up. Bruce saw an
odd expression cross his face--an expression that was something like
derision. When he felt Bruce looking at him it vanished instantly and he
straightened up.
"Why, yes," with his customary grin, "looks like we orter make a
_start_."
The peculiar emphasis did not escape Bruce and he was still thinking of
the look he had caught on Smaltz's face as he asked Banule:
"Is this mica right? Is it the kind you need?"
Smaltz looked at Banule from the corner of his eye.
"'Taint exactly what I ought to have," Banule responded cheerfully. "I
forgot to specify when I ordered, but I guess I can make it do--it's
good enough."
It seemed to Bruce that his over-strained nerves snapped all at once. He
did not recognize the sound of his voice when he turned on Banule:
"S'help me, I'm goin' to break every bone in your body if you don't cut
out that 'good enough'! How many hundred times have I got to tell you
that nothing's good enough on this plant until it's right?"
"I didn't mean anything," Banule mumbled, temporarily cowed.
Bruce heard Smaltz snicker as he walked away.
The sluice-boxes upon which Bruce was putting the finishing touches were
his particular pride. They were four feet wide and nearly a quarter of a
mile in length. The eight per cent grade was steep enough to carry off
boulders twice, three times, the size of a man's head when there was a
force of water behind them.
The last box was well over the river at a point where it was
sufficiently swift to take off the "tailings" and keep it free. The top
earth, which had to be removed to uncover the sand-bank, was full of
jagged rocks that had come down in snowslides from the mountain and
below this top earth was a strata of small, smooth boulders--"river
wash."
This troublesome "overburden" necessitated the use of iron instead of
wooden riffles, as the bumping and grinding of the boulders would soon
have worn the latter down to nothing. So, for many weary trips, a string
of footsore pack-horses had picked their way down the dangerous trail
from Ore City, loaded to their limit with pierced iron strips, rods,
heavy sacks of nuts and bolts.
It had been laborious, nerve-racking work and every trip had had its
accident, culminating in the loss of the best pack-horse in the string,
the horse having slipped off the trail, scattering its pack, as Smaltz
announced it, "from hell to breakfast."
But the iron strips and rods were made into riffles now, and laid. Bruce
surveyed the whole with intense satisfaction as he stood by the
sluice-boxes looking down the long grade. It was _his_ work and he knew
that he had done it well. He had spared no labor to have it
right--nothing had been just "good enough."
There was cocoa matting under the riffles of the first six boxes.
Half-way the length of the sluice-boxes the finest gravel, yellow and
black sand, dropped through perforated sheet-iron grizzles into the
"undercurrents" while the rocks and boulders rushed on through the
sluice-boxes to the river.
At the end of the undercurrents there was a wide table having a slight
grade, and this table was covered with canton flannel over which was
placed more riffles of expanded metal. And, as a final precaution, lest
some infinitesimal amount of gold escape, there was a mercury trap below
the table. While Bruce was expecting to catch the greater part of it in
the first six sluice-boxes he was not taking a single chance.
Now, as he stood by the sluice-boxes looking their length, he allowed
himself to dream for a moment of the days when the mercury, turned to
amalgam, should be lying thick with gold behind the riffles; to
anticipate the unspeakable happiness of telegraphing his success to
Helen Dunbar.
Even with the tangible evidence before his eyes it was hard to realize
that after all the struggle, he was so near his goal. The ceaseless
strain and anxiety had left their marks upon his face. He looked older
by years than when he had stood by the river dipping water into his
old-fashioned cradle and watching "Slim" scramble among the rocks.
But it would be worth it all--all and more--he told himself exultingly,
if he succeeded--as he must. His eyes shone with enthusiasm and he
tingled with his joy, as he thought what success meant.
A sound behind him brought him back to earth. He turned to see Toy
picking his way gingerly over the rocks.
"You old rascal!" he cried joyfully. "Dog-gone, I'm glad to see you,
though you don't deserve it."
"I come back now," the Chinaman announced serenely. "No go way no more I
think."