l:

"Good work! Watch Borradaile carefully. Don't let him out of your
sight. Important. Letter on the way.

"YOUR FATHER."

Mr. Bradlaugh also gave a long whistle as he sank back in his chair
thoughtfully and with the message in his hand.

CHAPTER III.

PORTER SHOWS HIS TEETH.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when Merry, Clancy, and Ballard
reached the mine and went hunting for the office of Pardo, the
superintendent.

The surface activities of a big gold mine, in full operation at night,
are as weird as they are interesting. The boys were deeply impressed as
they looked down into the valley where the mining, milling, and
cyaniding were going on.

The stamp mill, where the ore was pounded to powder and robbed of its
gold, was a huge, ramshackle structure. Although it had a framework of
heavy timbers, yet the strong skeleton was but loosely covered with
boards. Through wide cracks and many gaps in the sides of the building a
flood of light poured out, and the thunder of a hundred stamps filled
the camp.

Glimmering lights dotted the shadowy depths of the valley--some shining
through the windows of rough dwellings and others moving about in the
hands of workers. From the open door of, a blacksmith shop poured a
yellow glow from a forge, and against the roar of the stamps arose the
musical clink of hammer on anvil.

This blacksmith shop happened to be the first building the boy passed on
entering the camp. They stopped and asked the smith where they would
find the superintendent's office. The brawny fellow turned from the
anvil, stepped to the door, and pointed.

"There's the super's office, younker," he said to Frank, "where ye see
them two lights close together. Mebby he's there, an' mebby he's over to
town; anyways, the assistant super is on deck."

A person had to shout in order to make himself heard in the steady
tumult of the mill. Frank bawled his thanks, and he and his two comrades
pressed on toward the twin lights indicated by the blacksmith.

These lights, it was presently discovered, came through two windows of a
small office building. A man was sitting out in front, tilted
comfortably back in a chair and smoking a pipe. He was a vague figure in
the shadows, and the visitors could not see very much of him.

"Is this Mr. Pardo's office?" Frank inquired, stepping close to the man
and lifting his voice.

"You've struck it," was the sociable rejoinde