"Yes, you're careless," Bruce answered vigorously, "and I'm telling you straight it worries me; I can't help wondering if your carelessness extends to your work. There, you know, you've got me, for I can't tell. I must trust you absolutely."
Banule shrugged a shoulder-"This ain't the first plant I've put up, you know." He added--"I'll guarantee that inside two weeks we'll be throwin' dirt. Eh, Smaltz? Ain't I right?"
Smaltz, who was stooping over, did not immediately look up. Bruce saw an odd expression cross his face--an expression that was something like derision. When he felt Bruce looking at him it vanished instantly and he straightened up.
"Why, yes," with his customary grin, "looks like we orter make a start."
The peculiar emphasis did not escape Bruce and he was still thinking of the look he had caught on Smaltz's face as he asked Banule: "Is this mica right? Is it the kind you need?"
Smaltz looked at Banule from the corner of his eye.
"'Taint exactly what I ought to have," Banule responded cheerfully. "I forgot to specify when I ordered, but I guess I can make it do--it's good enough."
It seemed to Bruce that his over-strained nerves snapped all at once. He did not recognize the sound of his voice when he turned on Banule: "S'help me, I'm goin' to break every bone in your body if you don't cut out that 'good enough'! How many hundred times have I got to tell you that nothing's good enough on this plant until it's right?"
"I didn't mean anything," Banule mumbled, temporarily cowed.
Bruce heard Smaltz snicker as he walked away.
The sluice-boxes upon which Bruce was putting the finishing touches were his particular pride. They were four feet wide and nearly a quarter of a mile in length. The eight per cent grade was steep enough to carry off boulders twice, three times, the size of a man's head when there was a force of water behind them.
The last box was well over the river at a point where it was sufficiently swift to take off the "tailings" and keep it free. The top earth, which had to be removed to uncover the sand-bank, was full of jagged rocks that had come down in snowslides from the mountain and below this top earth was a strata of small, smooth boulders--"river wash."
This troublesome "overburden" necessitated the use of iron instead of wooden riffles, as the bumping and grinding of the boulders would soon have worn the latter down to nothing. So, for many weary trips, a string of footsore pack-horses had picked their way down the dangerous trail from Ore City, loaded to their limit with pierced iron strips, rods, heavy sacks of nuts and bolts.