Digging for Gold

“Not much. There was an old man who had a claim somewhere near where I met you, but I don’t think he made much. Finally he got discouraged and went away. That’s a good while since.”

“Evidently he doesn’t suspect anything,” thought Grant. “All the better. We shan’t have any competitors.”

“Then you don’t think he took much gold away with him?” he said aloud.

“No. I guess he wasn’t calc’lated for a gold miner.”

“He might have taken a lesson of you, Paul,” suggested Mrs. Crambo.

“I never had a good claim,” answered the master of the house. “If I had I’d have done as well as the next man.”

“It depends on who the next man was,” said his wife.

“There aint any more money in mining,” said Crambo dogmatically. “All the claims are petering out.”

“I guess you are the one that’s petered out.”

“Perhaps you’d like to go into the business yourself, Mrs. C.”

“No, thank you. I’ve all I can do to take care of you and the farm. Help yourself to the doughnuts, Mr. Cooper.”

“Thank you,” said Tom. “I haven’t eaten a doughnut before, since I left home. Your doughnuts can’t be beat.”

Mrs. Crambo was pleased with this tribute to her cooking, and was very gracious to her new boarders. After supper she showed them to a chamber on the second floor, well and comfortably furnished.

“You two gentlemen will have to room together,” she said. “This is the only room I have to spare.”

“We shan’t object,” said Tom. “Grant and I are friends and partners, and are not likely to quarrel.”

“Crambo and I never quarrel,” she said, with a significant laugh. “He knows better.”

“Yes my dear,” said Paul meekly.

“We’re in luck, Grant,” said Tom. “For the first time in months we shall live like Christians.”

“I hope you won’t be offended, Tom, but I like Mrs. Crambo’s cooking better than yours.”

“That’s where you show your good taste. I wasn’t intended by nature for a cook, and I can say the same for you.”

The next morning the two friends set out after breakfast for the deserted claim. They opened it up, and soon found traces of past workings.

They had been there for about a couple of hours when Paul Crambo came along.

“What’s up?” he asked, in surprise.

“We’ve gone to work,” answered Tom.

“That must be the claim the old man used to run.”

“Very likely. I thought some one must have been at work here before.”

“Likely you’ll get discouraged and go off, as he did.”

“We’ll try to make enough to pay our board. That’ll keep us here, even if we don’t succeed very well.”

“I never like digging for gold,” said Crambo. “It made my back ache.”

“Grant and I will try it awhile.”

Mr. Crambo looked on awhile and then sauntered away. It made him uncomfortable to see others work hard. He became fatigued himself out of sympathy.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE BEGINNING OF SUCCESS

Tom and Grant met with little success during the first two days, and were correspondingly disappointed. After all the high hopes with which they had entered upon this new enterprise, it was certainly discouraging to realize scarcely more than at Howe’s Gulch. But on the third day they struck a “pocket,” and in the next two days took out five hundred dollars.

“That’s the way to do it, Grant,” said Tom, his face fairly radiant. “It pays to dig for gold at this rate.”

“So it does, Tom. I felt sure the old gentleman wouldn’t deceive us.”

“If it will only last, we shall make our fortunes.”

“This pocket won’t last, of course, but we may strike another. You know Mr. Gibbon told us he took out ten thousand dollars in six months.”

“That is true, so we may hope for a good streak of luck.”

“There is one thing I have been thinking of, Tom. Where shall we keep our gold-dust?”

Tom looked doubtful.

“If we could send it away,” he said, “it would be better. Of course, if we keep it under our own charge we may be robbed.”

“To begin with, we must not let any one know how well we are doing.”

“That is important. The news would attract adventurers and thieves.”

Finally it was decided to keep the dust for the present in a box at their boarding-place. In the room the two partners found a sailor’s chest which had been left by a former boarder, who had left the house in arrears. Grant bought it of Mr. Crambo for a couple of dollars, and Paul seemed glad to get rid of it at that price. There was a good lock upon it, and into this chest their daily findings were put, till at the end of a fortnight, they had, according to Tom Cooper’s estimate, about one thousand dollars.

Of their good luck neither Mr. nor Mrs. Crambo had the slightest idea.

“How are you making out at the mines, Mr. Cooper?” asked Mrs. Crambo one evening.

“So, so!” answered Tom indifferently.

“You’ll never make your fortune at that there mine,” said Paul.

“Oh, well, we are not ambitious,” rejoined Grant. “If we make enough to pay our board and a little more, we shall not complain.”