The Pike's Peak Rush Part 44

"Where'd you find Sol, Harry?" asked George.

"Down in Denver and Auraria. While I was d.i.c.kering for Duke he turned up. He'd been at Pike's Peak, and everywhere else. He turned up just in time."

"Isn't Mother coming? Don't I see Mother?" queried Terry of his father.

"We may send for her and George's mother after we get things straightened out here. But you'll see her in Denver, anyway. You and Harry'll have to go down there for some clothes pretty soon. She wants to see _you_ mighty bad."

"Is this rock gold rock? Doesn't look so. How do you know?"

"Sol says it is. Some of it, I mean. He knew as soon as he saw that piece Virgie brought down. And we're lucky that he's with us. He's an expert."

Sol had been tramping about with a spade, sc.r.a.ping here and there on both claims, and examining. He joined the group.

"There's considerable rotten quartz that can be sluiced, and probably some loose dirt to be washed; but there's a thundering fine vein or lode running right across. The best surface showing is on the True Blue, where that piece of rock came from, but I reckon that when we get down into what those fellows pretended was the bed-rock on the Golden Prize we'll find it just as rich. So part of us can be sluicing, while the rest of us rig some sort of a contrivance to crush the quartz and wash it with mercury, till a regular quartz mill is 'stablished near us." And Sol continued, using words and terms that only the men understood.

"Shucks!" acknowledged Terry. "We were looking for dirt; we didn't count the rock." So he turned to George, who was lifting Virgie from her pony.

"You did it, Virgie, with your piece of quartz. Now you're going to be rich."

"I don't want to be rich all alone," objected Virgie. "I don't want to be any richer than you or George or Harry or Sol or--or anybody of us."

She looked as if she were about to weep over it!

"Of course not, Virgie," called Harry. "You won't have to be rich all alone. That's a miserable state. But you can share with your father and Sol, and Terry and Father Richards and I have a mine, too, you know; and just to make sure that n.o.body'll be any richer than anybody else in the crowd, we'll all join together and we'll name the company the Virginia Consolidated!"

THE END