her so you could dig it out with a shovel. She's full of it. But they
won't get at her and work her."

Then he'd take a look at the pink and blue certificates of the Corona
Jewel and slam the drawer on them in disgust. Worse than that was
the Silent Pine,--a clear case of stupid incompetence! Utter lack of
engineering skill was all that was keeping the Silent Pine from
making a fortune for its holders.

"The only trouble with that mine," said Jeff, "is they won't go deep
enough. They followed the vein down to where it kind o' thinned out
and then they quit. If they'd just go right into her good, they'd get
it again. She's down there all right."

But perhaps the meanest case of all was the Northern Star. That
always seemed to me, every time I heard of it, a straight case for
the criminal law. The thing was so evidently a conspiracy.

"I bought her," said Jeff, "at thirty-two, and she stayed right there
tight, like she was stuck. Then a bunch of these fellers in the city
started to drive her down and they got her pushed down to
twenty-four, and I held on to her and they shoved her down to
twenty-one. This morning they've got her down to sixteen, but I don't
mean to let go. No, sir."

In another fortnight they shoved her, the same unscrupulous crowd,
down to nine cents, and Jefferson still held on. "They're working
her down," he admitted, "but I'm holding her."

No conflict between vice and virtue was ever grimmer.