o examine their defences in
detail, the young engineer suggesting that they should entrench the camp
in a systematic way, and also the machinery which would be erected on
the river's bank.

There were but two directions from which they could be attacked; for the
precipitous range of the Black Hills, standing behind Minturne Creek
with its semicircular rampart, protected their rear and sides, so that
they had only their front face to guard, along the course of the stream,
following the gulch.

The same safeguards which they had adopted before were redoubled in the
face of the second warning they received by the account Ernest Wilton
brought back with him of the Indian savages in their neighbourhood,
their day and night watch being maintained with the strictest
regularity.

The teams were soon unloaded and started on their return journey, and
with the exception of the men engaged in clearing out the quartz from
the mine, all hands set to to erect the water-wheel and stamps, which
operation, as all the pieces of timber were fitted and numbered, was an
easy and rapid one.

In three weeks afterwards all was ready for a start. Five hundredweight
of quartz was then weighed out and carried down to the stamps, the gear
which connected the machinery with the great wheel which was revolving
in the river was connected, and the stamps began to rise and fall with a
heavy regular rhythm.

The quartz was thrown in beneath the stamps shovelful by shovelful, and
in an hour and a half the last fragment was used up. For another half
hour the stamps rose and fell, then the water running through them was
no longer milk-white, and the stamps were stopped. Then the blankets
spread upon the ways by which the mud-charged gold had flowed were taken
up and washed, the quicksilver was taken out of the concentrators and
passed through wash-leather bags, in which great rolls of amalgam
remained. These were placed in large crucibles to drive off the
quicksilver, and then removed from the furnace and the gold placed in
the scale. To this was added the fine gold from the blankets. Ernest
Wilton added the weights, and around him stood Mr Rawlings and all the
miners off duty.

"Just a hundred ounces," he said, "five hundred ounces to the ton;
speaking roughly, 1800 pounds a ton."

"Hurrah!" shouted Seth Allport, his ringing voice making itself heard
above the sound of the rushing water and the echoing chorus of the men's
cheers; but, an in