THE FAIRY CAVE.Silver Caves,Page 202.
THE FAIRY CAVE.Silver Caves,Page 202.
THE FAIRY CAVE.
Silver Caves,Page 202.
brown carbonates of lead, greenish chlorides of silver and pure white talc. At several points in this remarkable chamber small openings appeared, apparently leading to similar chambers beyond and above.
Choosing one of these apertures opposite the breach by which they had entered, they enlarged it somewhat, until one by one they could squeeze through into a natural tunnel which ran for a hundred feet or more on an upward slant. Following it slowly, they clambered over boulders of galena, cubic crystals of lead, almost always accompanied by silver, and left the first of human footprints upon mounds of soft gray carbonates. Here, as before, the walls and roof showed themselves to be solid masses of chloride and carbonate ores of silver, through which small deposits of the telluride of gold were lying like plums in a pudding.
Returning to the starting-point the explorers broke down another doorway, and passing through a second natural tunnel adistance of about forty feet, found indications of other chambers and passages beyond.
“It would seem,” cried Mr. Anderson, who was now more astonished than were our young friends, the fortunate owners;—“it would seem as though nature had selected choice treasures from her great storehouses, and had placed them in these chambers and made them beautiful with glittering crystals, wrought in the heart of these remote mountains, on purpose to lure men to still greater exertions and richer rewards of labor and perseverance.”
“She’s had to wait a good while for visitors to her show,” Len remarked.
“Yes,” Mr. Anderson replied, “but that is no matter. Nature is never in a hurry. She can afford to be patient and wait, and let things move slowly. With her ’a thousand years is but a day.’ She has had, and will have, all the time there is.”
“For that matter,” Max remarked, catching up the strain, “what is this little bit of beautyand interest, curious as it is, beside the splendid shows nature arranges for us, with never wearying change, from morning till night.”
“And from night till morning,” added the superintendent, remembering the brilliant heavens spread over the clean-aired mountains.
“Nevertheless, for our purposes,” said Mr. Anderson, heartily, “this does very well indeed, and I compliment you most sincerely on your success.”
Then they made their way out and told their wonderful tale. The storm had wholly cleared from the mountains, and the sun was shining brilliantly, robing the magnificent landscape, softened by autumn haze, in its most glorious garb.
Buckeye Jim and Morris were hearty in their congratulations, and began to build enthusiastic hopes that their own worthless Aurora might be pushed into a similar group of silver-caves. But that lode lay on thewrong side of the porphyry partition, and I regret to say that the money they afterwards spent in trying the experiment was wholly wasted.
The deputy sheriff from Denver was not greatly moved; said he had heard tall stories before; knew how to boom a prospect-hole as well as the next man, and altogether made himself disagreeable by his air of unbelief and his sneering tone. It is wise, no doubt, to be cautious, but it is very unfortunate for a man, and especially for a young man, to get into such a state of mind that no statement is to be credited, nothing considered genuine, and no man accepted as honest and well-meaning.
As for the prisoners, they were sullen, irritated by the good fortune of those whom they had intended to ruin, and spent their time in planning vengeance upon Old Bob for misleading them and getting them into a scrape from which they could see no escape,—since, in fact, there was none.
“Fools aye see ither folk’s faults, and forget their ain,” Sandy informed them when he had become disgusted with their profane growling and threats.
Of all the company in the cabin, indeed, Sandy McKinnon, naturally, was the one most deeply interested in this marvelous find, which, for him, meant a sudden and unhoped-for good fortune out of his brief essay in America.
“Hech, man,” he cried out, “it’s jest the old days of Alladdin an’ his lamp—the open-sesame business, ye mind. Why, the riches o’ it must be untold!”
Thenext morning, after all the rest had started for town (for Stevens was quite able to travel, despite his wound), Mr. Anderson and his adviser sat down to a business talk with our heroes.
“As I understand it,” the capitalist began, “you were anxious to sell an interest in this mine, and hoped to persuade me to buy such an interest. Is that so?”
“It is,” came in double response from Max and Lennox.
“Do you still wish to sell, in view of the remarkable disclosures yesterday?”
“I do not see how otherwise we are to get money to carry on the work,” said Max, “and therefore, though we should be glad to retainthe whole, I fear we shall be obliged to dispose of a part.”
“How great a part?”
“Last week,” replied Max smiling, “I should have said half, but now I think a quarter would be enough to take off, at any rate, as the first slice.”
“What is your idea of price?”
“Well, yesterday my partners and I had agreed upon a price, but I fear that wont do for to-day, since Len and Sandy here seem to think the mine looks a little more promising than heretofore.”
You should have seen the grins that passed around that circle and answered one another.
“We would like to hear what you have to offer,” Len suggested, addressing Mr. Anderson.
“Well,” the capitalist answered, “I’ve been thinking about it, and am free to say, that I feel disposed to join with you,—buy a share of your mine, organize a new firm, and go in for its thorough development; but before Ican say what I am willing to give, I must know more than I do as to the probable cost of certain preparations, such as the drainage of the mine, the availability of timber for inside bracing, etc., the cost of making a wagon road up here, the kind of winter houses which will be needful, and various other things. How would ten thousand dollars strike you as payment for half the mine?”
Sandy’s eyes opened wide. That is a great deal of money to a Scotchman. Lennox looked as though he was just ready to jump at it, but Max calmly raised one foot over his knee and said quietly:
“It doesn’t come within sight of the proper figure.”
Mr. Anderson laughed, and put on his hat for a tramp up the cliff, where, Max had said, it might be possible to head off the water.
A week later all assembled in Mr. Anderson’s office in the Camp to hear his proposition.
“I will give you,” he said, “fifty thousand dollars in cash for one half of the mine, for if I cannot have more than a quarter, it will not pay me to touch it; a new partnership to be made between us four for continuing the work, and the profits to be divided according to the amount which each one contributes under the new arrangement toward putting the mine in a shape to produce and sell ore.”
This proposition was accepted. And while the proper papers were being made out, the three members of the old firm of Brehm, Bushwick & Co. went aside to settle their own affairs preparatory to dissolving the partnership.
“McKinnon,” said Len, as spokesman, “Max and I have been studying what ought to be your share of this money. We think that the circumstances have been so peculiar, that it would not be doing as well by you as we want to, if we stick by the old agreement, and at the same time we felt that you were not quite even with us in the affair. Wethought we would split the difference by offering you ten thousand dollars and a chance to come into the new firm for so much as you choose to re-invest. Will that be satisfactory?”
“Parfectly—parfectly, and I thank ye for your leeberality, since I wadna hae blamed ye had ye stuck to the original terms, though, to be sure, they would ’a’ fallen far short o’ what ye are proposin’. But, I ha’ had eno’ o’ the mining business. It’s no what I was cut out for, I’m thinkin’, and wi’ all respect to you, and carryin’ away a life-long gladness, that I ever met ye, I will take my belongings back to auld Scotland and aye stay there.”
And so he did.
The new firm, Mr. Anderson, Max and Lennox, put the Silver Caves, as they called the new mine, into fine shape; constructed wagon-roads, built good houses in place of the old cabin, and in a few years were carrying on one of the most extensive mines in that part of the mountains. It came to be only one in agroup of good mines which were discovered on both sides of the creek, when men learned what kind of ore to look for in that district. But none of them have ever excelled this in value, nor is any company more likely to reach a higher and higher prosperity, than this first mine and its managers, in which we have been interested; a success due not to luck, but to keen eyes, willing hands, and stout hearts.
THE END.