162 MINING. 



week or more to get a new one, but the 

 men will put in another hole or two and 

 measure the lines of the vein, and so the expert can get 

 all the information necessary without risking his 

 precious life in going below. The young man is only 

 too glad to get out of the difficulty, and the honesty of 

 the old man, who has half interest in the enterprise 

 anyway, and the simplicity of the miners, who have no 

 interest in the business at all, all tend to allay any sus- 

 picions that might arise. So another hole is drilled while 

 the expert is at the mouth of the shaft, and it is fired off 

 and the loosened material sent up, but the old man still 

 insists upon having still another hole put in and fired 

 off so the young man can be f ally satisfied, and the 

 material loosened by the shot is sent up. The young man 

 fully satisfied, goes back to New York, gives in his re- 

 port and the old man get his $50,000 for half of the mine. 

 The company is being formed, arrangements made for 

 immediate and energetic work, contracts for machinery 

 and supplies entered into, and the fortunate organizers 

 take a trip out to the place themselves along with the 

 first employees, who are sent out to begin work ; but 

 when actual work begins nothing can be found of any 

 mineral vein whatever in the shaft, all is simply country 

 rock. The new comers did not understand the way the 

 old man had mined rich mineral from that shaft until 

 after the first effects of the disappointment had passed 

 away in bad language and abuse of the same honest, 

 simple, old man. Then when the old man could get a 

 word in, he simply said in the language of the immoral 

 Tweed, " What yer going to do about it?" and what 

 could they do about it in the wilds of Arizona, where 

 the law of the survival of the fittest reigned, and the 

 fittest was the one who had the best arms and could 

 handle them the quickest and with certain aim. When 

 they called the old man a cheat and threatened the law, 



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