"Nor me, either, Jack; and if we strike ore here, it ought to be good,
because, as I reckon it, since we left the Gould and Curry shaft, we have
drifted out of the G. & C. ground, clear through the Best and Belcher,
and some distance into the Consolidated Virginia, and by the trend of the
lode, if we could find an ore body here, it would be in regular course
from the Spanish and Ophir croppings."

"How long have you worked here, and how much have you saved, Jack?"

"It is three years and a month since I went to work in the Belcher,"
was the reply; "I made $400 in Crown Point stocks, and I have saved
altogether $2,800 and odd."

"I beat you by a year's work, Jack, and I have, I believe, $3,300 or
$3,400 in the bank. Suppose we try a little gamble in stocks. If we could
get an ore body here, this stock would double in a week, and it will not
fall very much lower if we do not find anything."

"All right, Jim, if you say so. Meet me to-morrow at eleven o'clock at
the California Bank, and we will put in and buy a few shares."

"Agreed," was the answer; "but our twenty minutes are up and we must go.
But, Jack, _mum_ must be the word."

"Mum goes," said Jack.

It was a queer spot where this talk was held. It was by the air-pipe in
the drift which was run from the 1,200-foot level of the Gould and Curry
shaft on the Comstock ledge in Nevada, north toward where the great
bonanza was found in the Consolidated Virginia Mine. In the face of the