Chapter XL - Page 2

to San Francisco, satisfied that it would yield at a rate that
would richly compensate him for his trouble. The Wide West people also
commanded their foreman to refuse any but their own operatives permission
to enter the mine at any time or for any purpose. I kept up my "blue"
meditations and Higbie kept up a deal of thinking, too, but of a
different sort. He puzzled over the "rock," examined it with a glass,
inspected it in different lights and from different points of view, and
after each experiment delivered himself, in soliloquy, of one and the
same unvarying opinion in the same unvarying formula:

"It is not Wide West rock!"

He said once or twice that he meant to have a look into the Wide West
shaft if he got shot for it. I was wretched, and did not care whether he
got a look into it or not. He failed that day, and tried again at night;
failed again; got up at dawn and tried, and failed again. Then he lay in
ambush in the sage brush hour after hour, waiting for the two or three
hands to adjourn to the shade of a boulder for dinner; made a start once,
but was premature--one of the men came back for something; tried it
again, but when almost at the mouth of the shaft, another of the men rose
up from behind the boulder as if to reconnoitre, and he dropped on the
ground and lay quiet; presently he crawled on his hands and knees to the
mouth of the shaft, gave a quick glance around, then seized the rope and
slid down the shaft.

He disappeared in the gloom of a "side drift" just as a head appeared in
the mouth of the shaft and somebody shouted "Hello!"--which he did not
answer. He was not disturbed any more. An hour later he entered the
cabin, hot, red, and ready to burst with smothered excitement, and
exclaimed in a stage whisper:

"I knew it! We are rich! IT'S A BLIND LEAD!"

I thought the very earth reeled under me. Doubt--conviction--doubt
again--exultation--hope, amazement, belief, unbelief--every emotion
imaginable swept in wild procession through my heart and brain, and I
could not speak a word. After a moment or two of this mental fury, I
shook myself to rights, and said:

"Say it again!"

"It's blind lead!"

"Cal, let's--let's burn the house--or kill somebody! Let's get out where
there's room to hurrah! But what is the use? It is a hundred times too
good to be true."

"It's a blind lead, for a million!--hanging wall--foot wall--clay
casings--everything complete!" He swung his hat and gave three cheers,
and I cast doubt to the winds and chimed in with a will. For I was worth
a million dollars, and did not care "whether school kept or not!"

But perhaps I ought to explain. A "blind lead" is a lead or ledge that
does not "crop out" above the surface. A miner does not know where to