"
"Was it salted?" called out a man from the lower end of the table.
"Yes," replied Mason; "not the mine, but the cord-wood. The two
poor prospectors had bored auger holes in each stick, stuffed 'em
full of gold dust and plugged the openings. It was the ashes that
panned out $1,200 to the ton."
Mason was roaring, as were one or two about him. Portman looked
grave, and so did Breen. Nothing of that kind had ever soiled
their hands; everything with them was open and above-board. They
might start a rumor that the Lode had petered out, throw an
avalanche of stock on the market, knock it down ten points,
freezing out the helpless (poor Gilbert had been one of them), buy
in what was offered and then declare an extra dividend, sending
the stock skyward, but anything so low as--"Oh, very
reprehensible--scandalous in fact."
Hodges was so moved by the incident that he asked Breen if he
would not bring back that Madeira (it had been served now in the
pipe-stem glasses which had been crossed in finger-bowls). This he
sipped slowly and thoughtfully, as if the enormity of the crime
had quite appalled him.
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