.'

They started forth, Crinkett leading the way, and entered the
engine-house. As they went he said not a word, being aware that gold,
gold that they could see with their eyes in its raw condition, would
tempt them more surely than all his eloquence. In the engine-house the
three of them got into a box or truck that was suspended over the mouth
of a deep shaft, and soon found themselves descending through the bowels
of the earth. They went down about four hundred feet, and as they were
reaching the bottom Crinkett remarked that it was 'a goodish deep hole
all to belong to one man.' 'Yes,' he added as Caldigate extricated
himself from the truck, 'and there's a precious lot more gold to come
out of it yet, I can tell you.'

In all the sights to be seen about the world there is no sight in which
there is less to be seen than in a gold-mine. The two young men were
made to follow their conductor along a very dirty underground gallery
for about a quarter of a mile, and then they came to four men working
with picks in a rough sort of chamber, and four others driving holes in
the walls. They were simply picking down the rock, in doing which they
were assisted by gunpowder. With keen eyes Crinkett searched along the
roof and sides, and at last showed to his companions one or two little
specks which he pronounced to be gold. 'When it shows itself like that
all about, you may guess whether it's a paying concern! Two ounces to
the ton, my boys!' As Dick and Caldigate hitherto knew nothing about
ounces and tons in reference to gold, and as they had heard of nuggets,
and lumps of gold nearly as big as their fist, they were not much
exalted by what they saw down the 'Old Stick-in-the-Mud.' Nor did they
like the darkness and dampness and dirt and dreariness of the place.
They had both resolved to work, as they had often said, with their own
hands;--but in thinking over it their imagination had not pictured to
them so uncomfortable a workshop as this. When they had returned to the
light, the owner of the place took them through the crushing-mill
attached, showed them the stone or mulloch, as it was thrust into the
jaws of the devouring animal, and then brought them in triumph round to
the place where the gold was eliminated from the debris of mud and
water. The gold did not seem to them to be very much; but still there it
was. 'Two ounces to the ton, my boys!' said Crinkett, as he brought them
back to his house. 'You'll find that a 10