Hy fished a slip out of the bundle in his old pocket-book and handed it to me.
AGAMEMNON G. JONES, _Assayer_, Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis.
_Sample left by Mr. Idaho Kid_ _No. 36,943_.
Value per ton. Gold ...................................... $362.13 Silver .................................... 186.90 Platinum .................................. 14.77 Lead ...................................... 2.06 Iridium ................................... .02 Osmium .................................... .00003+ Copper .................................... 18.54
"Now, that was the worst that Aggy had ever sprung on anybody, because this Idaho Kid looked as if he hadn't been three weeks away from his mother; instead of which he was a hootin', tootin' son-of-a-gun in reality, and you might say he'd cut his teeth on a miner's candlestick.
"When the Kid saw that miraculous result, his eyes bunged out; then he took a long breath and wrecked the place. Aggy left at one that morning for fear that worse might follow. He fetched this paper with him to remind him that 'genius has its limitations,' he said. But he didn't seem to learn anything by it. Next he took up engineering. He hit a blame good job on Castle Creek. The people wanted to turn the creek through a tunnel, so that they could work the bed, and at this point it was rather an easy business. The stream made a 'U' about three-quarters of a mile long, the bottom prong being at least a hundred and fifty feet below the water-level on the top one--a smashing good fall--so Aggy started in on the down side to bore the hole up. Well, everything went lovely. He'd come around with his plans and specifications twice a day, and draw his hundred once a week regular for his great labours. At last, however, the shift-boss said they must be getting pretty near water; he could hear it roar through the face of the tunnel, he said. But Aggy told him not to be alarmed; he had it all worked out, and they weren't within forty foot of breaking through."
[Illustration: He'd come around with his plans and specifications twice a day]
"So at it they went again, as cheerful as could be, and the next news they got, down comes the face, and they were being piped through four hundred foot of black-dark tunnel, trying to guess what was up, bumping and banging against the walls, and the whole of Castle Creek on top of them. My, Chinamen weren't a circumstance. Aggy said they boiled out of the lower end of the tunnel where he was standing so fast he couldn't recognise them, and, as a matter of fact, three or four of 'em were washed a mile down creek before they could make land. Aggy gathered that it was time to move again, so he pulled back for Idaho. There wasn't anybody really drowned, except old Tom Olley, a cousin-Jack whose only amusement in life was to wear out his pants laying low for cinches in the stud-poker game, and you couldn't rightly say he was any loss to the community. So Aggy used to regret sometimes that he hadn't stayed to face the music. They might have played horse with him for a while, but 'twould soon have blown over--miners not being revengeful by nature--and he was to have had an eighth interest, besides his salary, if the thing was a success.