hesitated. She needn’t be looking down, he thought, for she was ever so
much shorter than tall Philip.
“It’s not much of a place, Ilium,” Philip went on, as if a little
geographical remark would fit in here as well as anything else, “and I
shall have plenty of time to think over the responsibility I have taken,
and–” his observation did not seem to be coming out any where.
But Ruth looked up, and there was a light in her eyes that quickened
Phil’s pulse. She took his hand, and said with serious sweetness:
“Thee mustn’t lose heart, Philip.” And then she added, in another mood,
“Thee knows I graduate in the summer and shall have my diploma. And if
any thing happens–mines explode sometimes–thee can send for me.
Farewell.”
The opening of the Ilium coal mine was begun with energy, but without
many omens of success. Philip was running a tunnel into the breast of
the mountain, in faith that the coal stratum ran there as it ought to.
How far he must go in he believed he knew, but no one could tell exactly.
Some of the miners said that they should probably go through the
mountain, and that the hole could be used for a railway tunnel. The
mining camp was a busy place at any rate. Quite a settlement of board
and log shanties had gone up, with a blacksmith shop, a small machine
shop, and a temporary store for supplying the wants of the workmen.
Philip and Harry pitched a commodious tent, and lived in the full
enjoyment of the free life.
There is no difficulty in digging a bole in the ground, if you have money
enough to pay for the digging, but those who try this sort of work are
always surprised at the large amount of money necessary to make a small
hole. The earth is never willing to yield one product, hidden in her
bosom, without an equivalent for it. And when a person asks of her coal,
she is quite apt to require gold in exchange.
It was exciting work for all concerned in it. As the tunnel advanced
into the rock every day promised to be the golden day. This very blast
might disclose the treasure.
The work went on week after week, and at length during the night as well
as the daytime. Gangs relieved each other, and the tunnel was every
hour, inch by inch and foot by foot, crawling into the mountain. Philip
was on the stretch of hope and excitement. Every pay day he saw his
funds melting away, and still there was only the faintest show of what
the miners call “signs.”
The life suited Harry, whose buoyant hopefulness was never disturbed.
He made endless calculations, which nobody could understand, of the
probable position of the vein. He stood about among the workmen with the
busiest air. When he was down at Ilium he called himself the engineer of
the works, and he used to spend hours smoking his pipe with the Dutch
landlord on the hotel porch, and astonishing the idlers there with the
stories of his railroad operations in Missouri. He talked with the
landlord, too, about enlarging his hotel, and about buying some village
lots, in the prospect of a rise, when the mine was opened. He taught the
Dutchman how to mix a great many cooling drinks for the summer time, and
had a bill at the hotel, the growing length of which Mr. Dusenheimer
contemplated with pleasant anticipations. Mr. Brierly was a very useful
and cheering person wherever he went.
Midsummer arrived: Philip could report to Mr. Bolton only progress, and
this was not a cheerful message for him to send to Philadelphia in reply
to inquiries that he thought became more and more anxious. Philip
himself was a prey to the constant fear that the money would give out
before the coal was struck.
At this time Harry was summoned to New York, to attend the trial of Laura
Hawkins. It was possible that Philip would have to go also, her lawyer
wrote, but they hoped for a postponement. There was important evidence
that they could not yet obtain, and he hoped the judge would not force