Page:Dick Hamilton's Fortune.djvu/232

220 stuff. "It's like planting gold in a garden. It grows, you know. This mine is our garden."

"They're 'salting' the mine," whispered Dick to his companions.

Off to one side another man was drilling holes in the soft rock. The musical clink of his hammer on the drill sounded faint and far off, so muffled was it.

"Haven't you got that stuff ready yet?" called the man with the drill. "I've got all the holes bored. Hurry up and get it in or it won't be hard by to-morrow, and there's no telling when that Hamilton kid may take a notion to drop in and visit his mine," and he laughed.

"Oh, I guess I can keep him away for a few days yet," answered one, whom Dick recognized as Forty-niner Smith. "I've got a game I haven't played. But I guess this stuff is mixed enough. Say, it's the best scheme I've struck yet for 'sweating' a mine. Beats the shotguns all to pieces."

From their hiding place the boys watched what the men did. The mixture with the gold particles in it was poured into the holes the man had dug. The boys could see now that it was not mortar, but concrete, which was being used. To Dick the whole scheme was now plain.

The men poured a lot of gold dust into some concrete, and mixed it up with water until it was about as thick as paste. Then they put it into holes drilled in the rocky walls of the mine. The concrete hardened and became almost like the