United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ahead of him the funnel reached its narrowest point, a squarish hole still broad enough for five men to pass abreast, that opened into a deepening expanse. Coming toward the rising, hard-rock lip of it, he went down on his belly, crawled forward, and looked over into the heart of the thing he feared.
A circular came to Denver, announcing the drilling contests and giving his name as one of the contestants; then a personal letter from the Committee on Arrangements, requesting him to send in his entry; and at last there came a messenger, a good hard-rock man named Owen, to suggest that they go in together.
It was all right for Old Whiskers and men of his stripe, whose profession was predatory itself; but when the hard-rock miners and road-makers came in the heady wine of triumph lost its bead. There are no palms of victory without the dust of vain regrets to mar their gleaming leaves, and when he saw Wilhelmina riding in from Jail Canyon he retreated to a doorway and winced.
Chances are you'll break away when you get to where you're makin' it, anyway. This is kind of a special job, though. Demarest himself wrote a personal letter about the two jerkline skinners. They're not for him, it seems just to be shipped down with the other skinners and muckers and hard-rock men we're sendin' him. The jerkline skinners are for 'Jerkline Jo. Ever heard that name?
She was quiet now, with averted eyes and the sad, brooding face of a nun; and she worked early and late in the crowded dining-room, serving meals to the hard-rock miners. He had closed down his cook-house to give them some patronage, when the first mad rush of prospectors was past; but though they fed his men and took the money that he had paid them, they owned no obligation to him.
The somebody in this instance proved to be one Patrick Carmody, formerly a hard-rock boss on the Midland branch construction, and now the working superintendent of a company which was driving a huge drainage tunnel under a group of the big mines of the district. The meeting-place was the lobby of the hotel, and at the Irishman's invitation I sat with him to smoke a comradely cigar.
It is a substantial place, with good business houses and many comfortable homes electric-lit, steam-heated, well protected against fire better than against flood and, though it does not display the style and luxury of the palmy days of Nome, it has amenities enough to make disinterested visitors and passers-by wish that its hard-rock hopes may be realised.
And if you don't, that's all right, there's no hard feeling between us and you can go and buy from the Professor. You wasn't born yesterday and you're a good, hard-rock miner; so enough said, there's the claim, right there."
He was quietly dressed, and gave the distinct impression that he had come up from the mines, and had known a hammer and drill a typical "hard-rock man." "Gentlemen," he said, "I am representing the Consolidated Miners' Association." He drew a neat card from a leather case in his pocket, and presented it, and was asked to seat himself. "What can we do for you?" Dick asked, wasting no time on words.
Word Of The Day