o
mend the broken links in a knight's armor, and how to temper one of the
old-fashioned two-handed swords, it was possible to comprehend, that from
that germ would expand the brains that would by and by construct a steel
ship or bridge; when the first rude spindle was fashioned, all the
commencement necessary to create and work the world's looms was made.

Out of these accomplishments, commerce was born; foreign commerce
required ships, and so the ships were supplied; with commerce was
developed a financial system, and soon it was discovered that after all
the chiefest power of the world was money; that the swiftest way to win
money was to perfect machinery so that out of raw material forms of
beauty and of use could be wrought, and thus in regular chain the majesty
of England expanded from the first day that an Englishman was able to
convert from the dull iron ore something which the world would want,
until ships laden with her wares reached all the world's ports, and to
barbarous lands she became an iron nation more terrible than the first
iron nation.

The world's highest civilization does not come from the fruitful fields,
but from the darkness of the deep mines. Power and independence come with
the digging and working of the baser metals; full civilization waits upon
the production of enough of the royal metals to give to the people wealth
in a form that enables them to command the best attainable talent and
forces to serve them, and enough of leisure to enable them to put forward
their best efforts.

Below the surface of the story which makes this book is a deeper story of
what may be performed by brave hearts when they leave the fruitful fields
behind them and turn with all their hearts to woo the desert that turns
her forbidding face to them at their coming, and holds, closely hidden
within her sere breast, her inestimable treasures.

CHAPTER II.

INDICATIONS.

"What think you of it, Jack?"

"It is growing soft in the drift, Jim; the stringers of ore are growing
stronger and giving promise of concentrating soon."

"So it strikes me," was the response, "and when Uncle Jimmie Fair was
down here an hour ago, I put two things together, and they have kept me
thinking ever since."

"And what were the two things, Jim?"

"Why, Jack, did you hear him sigh as he moved the candle along the face
of the drift, and hear him say, 'You are doing beautifully, my sons,
beautifully; I never had better men,' an