Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/21

Rh was ashamed of himself for letting an old man do all the hard work. He had his reward. He began to feel that he was developing some back muscles and others in his arms. For the first time in years he was filling his lungs at each breath. It was beginning to be a real pleasure to bring down the hammerhead with a sounding swang on the mushroomed top of the drill, to feel the steel grind and bite into the rock, and note Lyman, with a grunt, turn the point slightly for the next driving blow while he poured a little water from a can into the hole. But the prospect was only a pit in the solid stone, a long way from being a mine, or even looking like one.

"You see," said Lyman, encouragingly, as he shoved the bottle up to Healy and Lefty, who were nearest the dance hall, with Stone on the right of Lyman, nearest the door, "you can't tell a thing 'bout the dyke. Trenton made his strike a'most at grass roots. Up on Split Peak they found high-grade after eighty foot."

"Gawd!" ejaculated Lefty. "And us honly down heighteen! That rock's 'arder than the 'eart of a petrified miser. Fair turns the edge of the drills like they was pewter, 'stead of steel."

"The porphyry don't seem to foller the natural dip," went on Lyman. "Seems to have found a reg'lar level, like it had been poured in liquid."

"If that rock was ever liquid," broke in Lefty, "then the bloomin' pyramids was built of mush."

"No sayin' how fur we may have to go," continued Lyman, placidly, used to Lefty's comments. "You