CHAPTER III.
PORTER SHOWS HIS TEETH.
It was eight o'clock in the evening when Merry, Clancy, and Ballard reached the mine and went hunting for the office of Pardo, the superintendent.
The surface activities of a big gold mine, in full operation at night, are as weird as they are interesting.

The boys were deeply impressed as they looked down into the valley where the mining, milling, and cyaniding were going on.
The stamp mill, where the ore was pounded to powder and robbed of its gold, was a huge, ramshackle structure.

Although it had a framework of heavy timbers, yet the strong skeleton was but loosely covered with boards.

Through wide cracks and many gaps in the sides of the building a flood of light poured out, and the thunder of a hundred stamps filled the camp.
Glimmering lights dotted the shadowy depths of the valley--some shining through the windows of rough dwellings and others moving about in the hands of workers.

From the open door of, a blacksmith shop poured a yellow glow from a forge, and against the roar of the stamps arose the musical clink of hammer on anvil.
This blacksmith shop happened to be the first building the boy passed on entering the camp.