Therefore, instead of working here on the surface, we must either bore down into the rock with a shaft till we came to where it was rich--say a hundred feet or so -- or else we must go down into the valley and bore a long tunnel into the mountain side and tap the ledge far under the earth.

To do either was plainly the labor of months; for we could blast and bore only a few feet a day--some five or six.

But this was not all.

He said that after we got the ore out it must be hauled in wagons to a distant silver-mill, ground up, and the silver extracted by a tedious and costly process.

Our fortune seemed a century away! But we went to work.