ight when the team, making a wide detour
to avoid being heard from the Lawrenceburg, reached our location on the
slope of the spur. We all helped with the loading; and when all was
ready, Gifford, whose turn it was to go to town, borrowed Barrett's
shot-gun and climbed to a seat beside the driver.

With every precaution taken--a dragging pine-tree coupled on behind the
load to serve instead of the squealing brakes, and many injunctions to
the driver to take it easy and to do his swearing internally--the
outfit made more noise than a threshing-machine bumping down the gulch.
We kept pace with it, Barrett and I, following along the crest of the
spur with an apprehensive eye on the Lawrenceburg. But there was no
unusual stir at the big plant on the other side of the ridge; merely
the never-ceasing clank and grind of the hoist and the pouring thunder
of the ore as the skip dumped its load into the bins.

Having nothing to detain him in town, Gifford made a quick trip and was
with us again a little after four o'clock in the morning. At the crack
of dawn Barrett and I were in the shaft under a new division of time.
Now that we had the team hauling for us, we chopped up the shifts so
that there would be two of us in the hole continuously, day and night.

Again I have the memory of a week of grinding toil, broken--for me, at
least--only by the nights when it came my turn to ride to town on the
load of ore. On both occasions I recall that I went fast asleep on the
high seat before the wagon had gone twenty rods down the gulch; slept
sitting bolt upright, with the shot-gun across my knees, and waking
only when the driver was gee-ing into the yard of the sampling works in
town; lapses that I may confess here, though I was ashamed to confess
them to my two partners.

During this second week we heard nothing from Blackwell or from any of
the Lawrenceburg contingent. But several strangers had drifted along,
stopping to peer down our shaft and to ask multitudinous questions.
Knowing well enough that we could not keep up the killing toil
indefinitely, and that the discovery crisis was only postponed from day
to day, we yet took heart of grace. The purchase money for the ore was
pouring in a steady stream into Barrett's bank to our credit; and with
the accounting for the third wagon-load we had upward of $80,000 in the
fighting fund.

Gifford went in as wagon guard on the Monday night load, and getting an
early start from the