she is quite apt to require gold in exchange.

It was exciting work for all concerned in it. As the tunnel advanced
into the rock every day promised to be the golden day. This very blast
might disclose the treasure.

The work went on week after week, and at length during the night as well
as the daytime. Gangs relieved each other, and the tunnel was every
hour, inch by inch and foot by foot, crawling into the mountain. Philip
was on the stretch of hope and excitement. Every pay day he saw his
funds melting away, and still there was only the faintest show of what
the miners call "signs."

The life suited Harry, whose buoyant hopefulness was never disturbed.
He made endless calculations, which nobody could understand, of the
probable position of the vein. He stood about among the workmen with the
busiest air. When he was down at Ilium he called himself the engineer of
the works, and he used to spend hours smoking his pipe with the Dutch
landlord on the hotel porch, and astonishing the idlers there with the
stories of his railroad operations in Missouri. He talked with the
landlord, too, about enlarging his hotel, and about buying some village
lots, in the prospect of a rise, when the mine was opened. He taught the
Dutchman how to mix a great many cooling drinks for the summer time, and
had a bill at the hotel, the growing length of which Mr. Dusenheimer
contemplated with pleasant anticipations. Mr. Brierly was a very useful
and cheering person wherever he went.

Midsummer arrived: Philip could report to Mr. Bolton only progress, and
this was not a cheerful message for him to send to Philadelphia in reply
to inquiries that he thought became more and more anxious. Philip