The next morning the two friends set out after breakfast for the deserted claim. They opened it up, and soon found traces of past workings.
They had been there for about a couple of hours when Paul Crambo came along.
“That must be the claim the old man used to run.”
“Very likely. I thought some one must have been at work here before.”
“Likely you’ll get discouraged and go off, as he did.”
“We’ll try to make enough to pay our board. That’ll keep us here, even if we don’t succeed very well.”
“I never like digging for gold,” said Crambo. “It made my back ache.”
Mr. Crambo looked on awhile and then sauntered away. It made him uncomfortable to see others work hard. He became fatigued himself out of sympathy.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE BEGINNING OF SUCCESS.
Tom and Grant met with little success during the first two days, and were correspondingly disappointed. After all the high hopes with which they had entered upon this new enterprise, it was certainly discouraging to realize scarcely more than at Howe’s Gulch. But on the third day they struck a “pocket,” and in the next two days took out five hundred dollars.
“That’s the way to do it, Grant,” said Tom, his face fairly radiant. “It pays to dig for gold at this rate.”
“So it does, Tom. I felt sure the old gentleman wouldn’t deceive us.”
“If it will only last, we shall make our fortunes.”
“This pocket won’t last, of course, but we may strike another. You know Mr. Gibbon told us he took out ten thousand dollars in six months.”
“That is true, so we may hope for a good streak of luck.”
“There is one thing I have been thinking of, Tom. Where shall we keep our gold-dust?”
“If we could send it away,” he said, “it would be better. Of course, if we keep it under our own charge we may be robbed.”
“To begin with, we must not let any one know how well we are doing.”
“That is important. The news would attract adventurers and thieves.”
Finally it was decided to keep the dust for the present in a box at their boarding-place. In the room the two partners found a sailor’s chest which had been left by a former boarder, who had left the house in arrears. Grant bought it of Mr. Crambo for a couple of dollars, and Paul seemed glad to get rid of it at that price. There was a good lock upon it, and into this chest their daily findings were put, till at the end of a fortnight, they had, according to Tom Cooper’s estimate, about one thousand dollars.