It's pinching out." Fairchild followed his gaze, to see in the torn rock above him only a narrow streak now, fully an inch and a half narrower than the vein had been before the powder holes had been drilled.

It could mean only one thing: that the bet had been played and lost, that the vein had been one of those freak affairs that start out with much promise, seem to give hope of eternal riches, and then gradually dwindle to nothing.
Harry shook his head.
"It won't last." "Not more than two or three more shots," Fairchild agreed.
"You can't tell about that.

It may run that way all through the mountain--but what's a four-inch vein?
You can go up 'ere in the Argonaut tunnel and find 'arf a dozen of them things that they don't even take the trouble to mine.

That is, unless they run 'igh in silver--" he picked up a chunk of the ore from the muck pile where it had been deposited and studied it intently--"but I don't see any pure silver sticking out in this stuff." "But it must be here somewhere.

I don't know anything about mining--but don't veins sometimes pinch off and then show up later on ?" "Sure they do--sometimes.