Page 90 (1/1)

"He picks out the best pieces while he is working--the nuggets that are going to run a high per cent of gold--and pockets theht he carries them away"

"But--haven't you any policemen here? Why don't you stop the There would be a strike if we tried it But it has got to come to that soon The coht They can't have men hoisted up from their ith a hundred dollars' worth of ore stoay on them"

"Is it as bad as that, Mr Bleyer?" asked Lady Farquhar in surprise

"Sometimes they take two or three hundred dollars' worth at once"

"They don't all steal, do they?" dee of sarcasrimly "I'd like to know the names of even a few that don't I haven't been introduced to them"

"One hundred per cent dishonest," murmured Moya without conviction

"I don't guarantee the figures, Miss Dwight" The superintendent added grudgingly: "They don't look at it that way Bits of high-grade ore are their perquisite, they pretend to think"

Verinder broke in "They say your friend Kilmeny took ore to the value of two thousand dollars from the Never Quit on one occasion It ran to that aoes I've always rather doubted it"

"Why--since he is so dishonest?" Moya flung at him

"Don't think a man could carry away so much at one tirade ore the mine carries At Cripple Creek we found nearly four thousand on a ht car--looked like the fat boy in 'Pickwick Papers'"

"Should think he'd bulge out with angles where the rock projected," Lady Farquhar suggested

"The men have it down to a system there We used to search them as they left work They carry the ore in all sorts of unexpected places, such as the shoulder padding of their coats, their s scattered over the body The ore is pounded so that it does not bulge"

"Perhaps I'et aith two thousand at one tih

"Yes, let's think the worst of everybody that we can, Mr Verinder," came Moya's quick scornful retort

The Croesus of Goldbanks stood war and dapper a little man as could be found within a day's journey