Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1920-05-21
CHAPTER vI.-continued.

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'I'lI have to admit" said billiard
tightly "that the odds are on the side
of the experts. But as for the ro-
nance" He smiled at Angela and.
wondered if he dared begin SO soon to
build up the framework of his mission.
''Pve been telling Angela that it's
mostly hard work. Once in a while
you do run into something lurid. of
course-romantic, if you want to call
it So I remember one bit out of my
own experience, Angela had dropped
the papers, and was listening as close
Hy as her father "a few years ago
some friends of mine bought up an old
abandoned property out in the Butte
region; bought it for a song. and it
was very quiet peaceful little song
at that, because metals had been dull
and to continue the metaphor-n1y
friends weren't in particularly good
voice just then. But after they'd TAX
en- title. they realized that they'd only
sung the first verse of the song, and
there were a lot more verses and a
pretty strenuous chorus. There was
shaft to be unwatered and a lot of
timber-work to be done; they were in
for a big expense, and their credit had
tucks in it, and the outlook wasn't any
TOO rosy. But thirty yards from the
main workings there was a fairish
sort of tunnel with the start Of a
winze-that's a blind shaft running
down obliquely from horizontal tun-
nel-and it pointed straight toward
the main shaft, and it occurred to
them that they could continue that
winze another few feet, strike their
main shaft about the hundred and
fifty foot level, and save a lot of labor
and expense that way by getting a
clean approach to the shaft instead
of taking lot of bother with it in its
decrepit condition. Well, they began
to go down that Wine, and inside of
ten feet they struck brand new and
Hnsuspected vein-there hadn't been
any outcrop showing; it was sheer,
unauthorized luck. Then they had
credit-they certainly did To make
a long story short, they pawned their
futures. and begged and borrowed ev-
cry penny they could lay their hands
on, and they developed that property
to the last cent, and when they had
perhaps two hundred thousand or SO
tons of four per cent copper in sight,
and there were indicated ore reserves
of another half a million tons, they
sold that property to a group of New
Workers for an utterly phenomenal
price. without ever having so much
as touched the original shaft for which
they'd bought the property"
couch J" said Cullen, and "Good-
ness (" said Angela.
"And," said Hilliard, smiling remi-
niscently eff the original owners had
pushed that Wine for couple of days
more than they did, or if my friends
hadn't decided to go at the problem
in exactly that way s. well, as say,
what's one mans romance is another
mans tragedy. My friends got their
Investment back in something less than
four months. and after that it was vel
vet. And the selling price was in the
neighborhood of two hundred times
what they'd paid for 1t. That's min
ing history, Mr.. Cullen" And indeed
It wss-and the only fabrication about
It was billiards. claim of friendship
for the lucky owners. This, as he as
sured himself, was salesman's license
every successful operator is a
s'friend" Of any salesman.
Cullen nodded thoughtfully; his
eyes were bright Angela was alter
nately regarding him with indulgent
pity, and sending I-toldyou-so mes
sages to Hilliard.
"Where was this-in Montana?"
"SilyeEbow county. Near Butte.
Yes, there is romance in that country,
Mr.. Cullen. It's in every tree and ev-
cry rock, and in every hill and valley
and under the ground. And I'm afraid
I'm just enough Of realist to find
most of my own under the surface"
ITO save my life," said Cullen. 81
can't help thinking of that region as
Mark Twain sort of country-som-
braros and six-shooters and Vigilantes
and stage coach hold-ups and gold dust
as medium of exchange. know it's
childish, but I've never been out there,
ana IT naru 10 get Over WnaU we
learned at school" He surveyed his
vaunted garden less arrogantly; the
fountain, which in his moments of
complacence had all the attributes of
geyser for him, was suddenly a
feeble faucet, and the tidy lawn was
no more seductive than a window-box.
''The up-to-date schoolbooks," said
changes in them. The West of the
early eighties is all gone, the atmos-
lphere is all gone, the old-style miners
ARE all gone; you used to see some pic
ituresque sights even ten years ago, but
nowadays you best realize how the in
Sdustry has changed when you see a
couple of pals hunting for work in an