But there was no appearance of silver.
These holes were the beginnings of tunnels, and the purpose was to drive them hundreds of feet into the mountain, and some day tap the hidden ledge where the silver was.

Some day! It seemed far enough away, and very hopeless and dreary.

Day after day we toiled, and climbed and searched, and we younger partners grew sicker and still sicker of the promiseless toil.

At last we halted under a beetling rampart of rock which projected from the earth high upon the mountain.

Mr.Ballou broke off some fragments with a hammer, and examined them long and attentively with a small eye-glass; threw them away and broke off more; said this rock was quartz, and quartz was the sort of rock that contained silver.
Contained it! I had thought that at least it would be caked on the outside of it like a kind of veneering.