"And I," said Sedgwick, "have been nursing just such another dream, which
is to make $30,000 to go back and cancel the mortgage of $5,000 on the
old home place, and then to buy old Jasper's farm on the hill. It is a
daisy. It contains 300 acres and is worth $40 an acre. If I could do
that, I believe I could reconcile the old gent, and make him think I was
not so mightily out of the way after all when I fought at college and ran
away. But $30,000--good Lord! when will a man get $30,000 working for $4
a day on the Comstock?"

"It is a close, hard game," said Browning. Then there was silence, the
candle burned out, and in a moment more both miners were asleep.




CHAPTER III.

MAKING MONEY AT $4 PER DAY.


The men awoke early, and, as Sedgwick had predicted, by six o'clock, the
superintendent of the mine came down and went to the end of the drift.
On his return to the lower station of the shaft, Sedgwick approached him,
and holding out the bit of lagging, said in a low voice: "Mr. Mackay,
there are a few words written on that. Will you not kindly carry them to
the surface and read them?" Mr. Mackay took it and put it in the pocket
of the gray shirt which he always wore in the mine, saying jokingly:
"Tobacco needed on your watch?" "Worse, even," answered Sedgwick, and
walked away.