r.

"Are you Mr. Pardo, the superintendent?"

"Strike two, my lad."

"Well, my name's Merriwell, and I--"

"And you've come here for a talk with that old hassayamper, Nick
Porter!" finished Pardo. "Mr. Bradlaugh has put me next." The super
laughed. "I suppose you know what a brilliant talker the prospector is?"

Unless violently agitated, about the only audible sound Porter ever made
was a grunt.

"We know all about that," Frank answered.

"Well," continued the super, "after the way he went off the handle in
Gold Hill he seems to be less talkative than usual. And less audible,"
he added. "Whenever he bobs up in Ophir he makes it a rule to hang out
in this camp, mainly because one of our crusherman on the night shift is
an old friend of his. But he's a crusty old curmudgeon, and I never
hanker much to have him around. He's up in the head of the mill with Joe
Bosley now. Come on, Merriwell, and I'll show you and your friends where
to find this precious prospector."

The obliging superintendent got out of his comfortable chair and started
along a camp trail that led up a steep incline. Along the top of the
rise showed one side of the mill glowing ruddily against the night sky.

Here there was a long, elevated platform upon which ore from the mine
was unloaded. A man could be seen moving spectrally around and shoveling
ore into a crusher set in the mill wall.

Pardo paused, halfway up the low hill and drew Merriwell toward him.

"That's Bosley, the crusherman," said he. "He'll tell you where you can
find Porter. Bring the prospector to my office, if you like. It isn't
quite so noisy as the mill, and you can talk to better advantage."

The super turned and went back. Frank and his friends moved on to the
ore platform, jumped to the top of it, and yelled their query at Bosley.

"Nick?" the crusherman bawled, leaning for a moment on his shovel, and
appraising the boys as well as he could. "Oh, he's communin' with
himself in the feed loft. Right through that hole," he finished,
pointing to an opening in the wall, "and down the steps."

Frank led the way through the opening, and, at the foot of the steps, he
and his chums found themselves in a small inferno. The bright,
shimmering stems of twenty batteries, each of five stamps, were marking
time before their eyes like, a row of steel soldiers. Each stamp weighed
eight hundred and fifty pounds, and it rose and fell ninety-five times
to the minute. The uproar was s