"Cool enough for a look, now, I think," Reade announced.
Harry bounded eagerly toward the crucibles, feeling them with his hands.
"Plenty cool enough," he reported. "But how did you guess, Tom?"
"I didn"t guess," Reade laughed. "I"ve timed the crucibles before this, and I know to a minute how long it ought to take."
"What a chump I am!" growled Harry, in contempt for self. "I never think of such things as that."
Tom now carefully emptied the crucibles. In the bottom of each was found a tiny bead of half-l.u.s.trous metal, which miners and a.s.sayers term the "b.u.t.ton."
"The real stuff!" glowed Hazelton.
"Ye-es," said Tom slowly. "But the next question is whether the b.u.t.tons will weigh enough to hint at good-paying ore. Even at that, these b.u.t.tons are only from surface ore."
"But the ore underneath is always better than the surface ore,"
contended Hazelton.
"Usually is," Tom corrected. "If we get good enough results from this a.s.say it will at least be worth while to stake a claim and work it for a while."
Harry waited with feverish impatience. Tom Reade, on the other hand, was almost provokingly slow and cool as he carefully adjusted the sensitive a.s.saying balance and finally weighed the b.u.t.tons.
Then he did some slow, painstaking calculating. At last he looked up.
"Well, sir?" asked Jim Ferrers.
"From this surface ore," replied Tom calmly, "twenty-eight dollars in gold to the ton; silver, six dollars."
"That"s good enough for me!" cried Ferrers, his eyes brightening.
"Wow! Whoop! Oh---whee!" vented Harry, then ran and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the surveying transit.
"Yes; I guess we"d better go along and do our staking," a.s.sented Tom.
"And I"ll be ready at daylight to file the claim at Dugout City,"
promised Jim. "I won"t sleep until I"ve seen our papers filed."
"You"ll file the claim in your own name, Jim," Tom suddenly suggested.
"No; I won"t," retorted Ferrers. "I"ll play squarely."
"That will be doing squarely by us, Jim," Tom continued. "We don"t want to use up our claim privileges on one stretch of Nevada dirt."
If we can find claims enough we"ll stake out three, and then pool them all together in a gentlemen"s agreement."
"That"s a good deal of trust you"re showing in me, gentlemen," said Jim huskily.
"Never mind, Jim," returned Reade quietly. "You can show us, you know, that we didn"t waste our confidence."
While they were still talking the three came in sight of the ridge.
"Look there!" gasped Harry suddenly.
"Dolph Gage and his tin-horn crowd!" flared Jim Ferrers, in anger.
"Hang the fellow! This time I"ll-----"
"Stop fingering your rifle, Jim," ordered Reade. "Remember, nothing like fighting! If they haven"t filed notice in due form on the claim, we"re safe yet. If they have-----"
"Look!" hissed Ferrers.
At that moment Dolph Gage could be seen nailing a sheet of white paper to a board driven into the soil.
"We"ve staked what you want, I reckon!" bellowed Gage laconically.
"Staked it in due form, too, if you want to know."
"I guess we"ve lost that claim," said Tom slowly.
"Have we?" hissed Jim Ferrers.
CHAPTER VII
READY TO HANDLE THE PICK
"Keep off this ground!" yelled Dolph Gage, s.n.a.t.c.hing up his rifle.
"Stop that nonsense," Tom bellowed back in his own l.u.s.ty voice.
"You"ve no right on this ground."
"Yes, we have, if you want to know," Tom continued. "You haven"t filed your papers at Dugout yet."
"How do you know we haven"t?"
"I"ll take a chance on it," smiled Tom amiably, as he and his companions continued to walk nearer.
Jim Ferrers held his rifle so that it would take him but an instant to swing it into action if the need came.
"If you"ve filed your papers for this claim" Tom continued, lowering his voice somewhat as they drew nearer to the four rascals. "Have you any such paper to show us?"
"Perhaps not," growled Dolph Gage, his evil eyes seeming to shoot flame. "But we"ve got our notice of claim nailed up here. We got it here first, and now you can"t file any mining entry at Dugout City for this bit o" ground."
"Not if your notice is written in the prescribed language," Tom admitted.
"Well, it is. Now, keep off this ground, or we"ll shoot you so full of holes that you"ll all three pa.s.s for tolerable lead mines!"
"If you don"t shoot and make a good job of it," Reade insisted, "I"m going to look over your notice of claim and see whether it"s worded in a way that will hold in law."