ithal so rusted that even had it boasted all the component parts of a
six-shooter, it could not have been fired by any human agency. He had
a shovel, a skillet, and a quart tin cup. He had likewise a
steel-headed and long-handled hammer, in good condition; this being,
indeed, the only item of his outfit which seemed normal and in perfect
repair. McGinnis was a skilled mechanic and a millwright and could use
a hammer as could but few other men.

On the morning after his arrival McGinnis rolled early out of his
blankets, ate his breakfast of flapjacks and water, and put his hammer
in his hip pocket, where some men put a gun who do not know how to
carry a gun. McGinnis spoke to no one in particular, but headed up
into the mouth of the curving valley where stood the silent works of
the New Jersey Gold Mills Company. He was not cast down because he
found no one whom he could ask for work. He whistled as he walked
through the open and barn-like building, looking about him with the eye
of a man who had seen gold mills before that time.

"They've got their plates fixed at a lovely angle!" said he; "and
there's about enough mercury on 'em to make calomel for a sick cat.
There's been _talent_ in this mill, me boy!"

He crawled up the ore chute into the bin, and cast a critical gaze upon
the rock heaped up close to the crusher. Then he examined the battery
of stamps with silent awe. "This," said McGinnis, softly to himself,
"is the end of the whole and intire earth! Is it a confectionery shop
they've got, I wonder? They do well to mash sugar with them lemon
squeezers, to say nothing of the Homestake refractories."

He passed on about the mill in his tour of inspection, still whistling
and still critical, until he came to the patent labor-saving ore
crusher, which some inventor had sold to the former manager of the New
Jersey Gold Mills Company, along with other things. McGinnis drifted
to this instinctively, as does the born mechanician, to the gist of any
problem in mechanics.

"Take shame to ye fer this, me man, whoivver ye were," said McGinnis,
and the blood shot up under his freckles in indignation. "This is so
bad it's not only unmechanical and unprofissional--it's absolutely
unsportsmanlike!"

His ardor overcame him, and, hammer in hand, he swung down into the ore
bin underneath the crusher. "Here's where it is," said he to himself.
"With the jaw screwed that tight, how cud ye hope to handle this
stuff--e