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Rumors were flying fast that a big bonanza, "bigger than the Consolidated Virginia," had been discovered on the six-hundred-foot level, and the great public was rushing to Pine Street to throw its dollars into the blind pool against Knapp, Decker and the El Dorado bank. And I had been able to get a scant one thousand five hundred shares when the call was over.
"Bully boy! I'm with you!" encouraged the older miner, throwing the cumbersome boots into the corner, and coming over behind Dick, where he could inspect the plans across the angle of the other's broad shoulder. "How does she dope out?" "We cut the green lead on the six-hundred-foot, at a hundred and ten feet from the shaft, didn't we?
At the bottom of the first six-hundred-foot descent it made a mighty shower of mist like escaping steam from a giant rift in some titanic boiler, and soon reached the floor of the valley. The road from El Portal comes up on the north side of the river. We passed El Capitan, which rears its massive head three thousand three hundred feet in the distance, perpendicularly above the river.
They saw the slimy black sides of the shaft slip past them as Bells Park dropped them into the depths, and felt the cage slow down as he saw his pointer above the drum indicate the approach of the six-hundred-foot level. They stepped out cautiously, whiffed the air, and knew that the pipes, which had been protected by the water, were intact, and that they had no need to fear foul air.
It was enough to bring despair to any boy's heart. But Henry Ives was made of good stuff, he was a first-class Boy Scout and on his scout coat in the trunk were four Merit Badges. He had the spirit of his father, who had often bucked the November storms on Lake Superior in his great six-hundred-foot freighter, and danger inspired him.
The compressor shivered and vibrated as the pistons drove clean, sweet air through the long-disused pipes, and at last the partners knew they could reach the anticipated six-hundred-foot level and form their own conclusions. "Well, here goes," said Bill, grinning from under his sou'wester as they entered the cage with lamps in hand. "We'll see how she looks if the air pipes aren't broken."
The tiny craft nosed her way among giant steamers, six-hundred-foot freighters, coal barges, lighters, fire boats, tugs, scows, and all the other kinds of vessels that crowd the river-harbor of a great lake port. Viewed from below, the steel structure of the viaduct over the river stretched out like the monstrous skeleton of some prehistoric beast.
One millman's bought himself a hotel in Seattle with what he got away with. There was enough ore packed off in dinner-pails from the Bonanza Chute to heel half the men who tapped it. They were always lookin' for more of 'em. They passed through a lead of ore that would have paid expenses, on the six-hundred-foot level, and lagged it rather than hoist it out. I know!
They walked across to the hoist, entered the cage, and felt the sinking sensation as they were dropped, rather than lowered, to the six-hundred-foot level. The celerity of the descent almost robbed him of breath, but he thought of sturdy old Bells' boast, that he had "never run a cage into the sheaves, nor dropped it to the sump, in forty years of steam."
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