of "tailings," refuse from the mill, to
discover what percentage of gold they were saving, and, in parlance,
"How she would run on mill test."

Fascinated in his inspection and direction of certain minor changes,
he was astonished when the noise suddenly dropped from fortissimo to a
dull whine, as the mill slowed down to a stop for the noon hour. And
the afternoon passed as quickly while he worked over the bucking
board--a plate used to crush ore for assaying--in the assay-house, and
watched the gasoline flare and fume in his furnaces to bring the
little cupels, with their mass of powdered, weighed, and numbered
samples, to a molten state. He took them out with his tongs, watched
them cool, and weighed, on the scales that could tell the weight of a
lead pencil mark on a sheet of paper, the residue of gold, thus making
his computations. He was not pleased with the result. The green lead
was not as rich as they had believed.

"It won't pay more than fifty cents a ton with the best milling we can
do," he said to Bill, who came eagerly into the assay office.

"But you know the old idea--that she gets richer as we go down?" his
partner asserted. "If it pays fifty cents a ton at the mill plates,
we'll open up the face of the ledge and put on a day and night shift.
We can handle a heap of ore with this plant. It begins to look to me
as if the Cross is all to the good. Come on. Let's go down to the
power-house and see how things look down there when we're working."

They had been contemplating a new timber road, and, after visiting the
power plant and finding it trim, and throbbing with its new life, they
cut across and debouched into the public road leading up the canyon, by
the banks of the stream, to the Rattler. When almost at the fork,
where their own road branched off and crossed the stream to begin its
steep little climb up to the Croix d'Or, they saw a man standing on
the apron of the bridge, and apparently listening to the roar of their
mill. His back was toward them, and seemingly he was so absorbed in
the sounds of industry from above that he did not hear them approach
until their feet struck the first planks leading to the heavy log
structure. He turned his head slowly toward them, and they recognized
him as Bully Presby. It was the first time either of them had seen him
since the evening in the camp.

"So you're running, eh?" he asked Dick without any preliminary
courtesy.

"Yes, we started the mill to-day."