Frank Merriwell, Juniors, Golden Trail | Page 7

sank back in his chair

thoughtfully and with the message in his hand.
CHAPTER III.
PORTER SHOWS HIS TEETH.
It was eight o'clock in the evening when Merry, Clancy, and Ballard
reached the mine and went hunting for the office of Pardo, the
superintendent.
The surface activities of a big gold mine, in full operation at night, are
as weird as they are interesting. The boys were deeply impressed as
they looked down into the valley where the mining, milling, and
cyaniding were going on.
The stamp mill, where the ore was pounded to powder and robbed of its
gold, was a huge, ramshackle structure. Although it had a framework of
heavy timbers, yet the strong skeleton was but loosely covered with
boards. Through wide cracks and many gaps in the sides of the building
a flood of light poured out, and the thunder of a hundred stamps filled
the camp.
Glimmering lights dotted the shadowy depths of the valley--some
shining through the windows of rough dwellings and others moving
about in the hands of workers. From the open door of, a blacksmith
shop poured a yellow glow from a forge, and against the roar of the
stamps arose the musical clink of hammer on anvil.
This blacksmith shop happened to be the first building the boy passed
on entering the camp. They stopped and asked the smith where they
would find the superintendent's office. The brawny fellow turned from
the anvil, stepped to the door, and pointed.
"There's the super's office, younker," he said to Frank, "where ye see
them two lights close together. Mebby he's there, an' mebby he's over
to town; anyways, the assistant super is on deck."
A person had to shout in order to make himself heard in the steady

tumult of the mill. Frank bawled his thanks, and he and his two
comrades pressed on toward the twin lights indicated by the
blacksmith.
These lights, it was presently discovered, came through two windows
of a small office building. A man was sitting out in front, tilted
comfortably back in a chair and smoking a pipe. He was a vague figure
in the shadows, and the visitors could not see very much of him.
"Is this Mr. Pardo's office?" Frank inquired, stepping close to the man
and lifting his voice.
"You've struck it," was the sociable rejoinder.
"Are you Mr. Pardo, the superintendent?"
"Strike two, my lad."
"Well, my name's Merriwell, and I--"
"And you've come here for a talk with that old hassayamper, Nick
Porter!" finished Pardo. "Mr. Bradlaugh has put me next." The super
laughed. "I suppose you know what a brilliant talker the prospector is?"
Unless violently agitated, about the only audible sound Porter ever
made was a grunt.
"We know all about that," Frank answered.
"Well," continued the super, "after the way he went off the handle in
Gold Hill he seems to be less talkative than usual. And less audible," he
added. "Whenever he bobs up in Ophir he makes it a rule to hang out in
this camp, mainly because one of our crusherman on the night shift is
an old friend of his. But he's a crusty old curmudgeon, and I never
hanker much to have him around. He's up in the head of the mill with
Joe Bosley now. Come on, Merriwell, and I'll show you and your
friends where to find this precious prospector."
The obliging superintendent got out of his comfortable chair and started

along a camp trail that led up a steep incline. Along the top of the rise
showed one side of the mill glowing ruddily against the night sky.
Here there was a long, elevated platform upon which ore from the mine
was unloaded. A man could be seen moving spectrally around and
shoveling ore into a crusher set in the mill wall.
Pardo paused, halfway up the low hill and drew Merriwell toward him.
"That's Bosley, the crusherman," said he. "He'll tell you where you can
find Porter. Bring the prospector to my office, if you like. It isn't quite
so noisy as the mill, and you can talk to better advantage."
The super turned and went back. Frank and his friends moved on to the
ore platform, jumped to the top of it, and yelled their query at Bosley.
"Nick?" the crusherman bawled, leaning for a moment on his shovel,
and appraising the boys as well as he could. "Oh, he's communin' with
himself in the feed loft. Right through that hole," he finished, pointing
to an opening in the wall, "and down the steps."
Frank led the way through the opening, and, at the foot of the steps, he
and his chums found themselves in a small inferno. The bright,
shimmering stems of twenty batteries, each of five stamps, were
marking time