“My friends,” said David Morning, “I have called you together that we may have a more perfect understanding before entering upon the most important part of the labor that lies before us. You have doubtless felt surprised at the extent of the work which has been done in this cañon without there being any ore, or indications of ore, in sight. But your surprise will change to astonishment when you know, as you soon must know, how extensive and rich a body of gold quartz is here. It has been and still is my desire to withhold from the world any knowledge, or, at least, any accurate knowledge, of the amount of gold that will be produced. I conclude that the best method for securing secrecy is to make it in the interest of all concerned to keep the secret, and I desire to say now that each one of you, whether miner, millman, mechanic, laborer, teacher, clerk, clergyman, or physician, every man who is or who may be on the pay-rolls, who shall faithfully discharge the duties for which he was employed, and shall remain in such employment for one year, without in the meantime leaving this cañon, and who shall not by letter, or otherwise, communicate any information concerning the working or yield of the mine, will be presented by me at the end of the year with the sum of $5,000 in addition to his pay. Those who remain until the end of the second year will receive a further present of $10,000, and those who remain until the end of the third year will receive a still further present of $15,000. Those who choose to go, or who may be compelled to leave here because of either misconduct or misfortune, will receive nothing but their pay. Should any die, the present for that year will, at the expiration of the year, be paid to his family—if here. If strangers visit this cañon, I shall expect you not to entertain them or converse with them. Those of you who correspond with friends will please say nothing whatever as to any facts concerning this property, or any opinions you may have about it or about me. It is only with your co-operation and good faith that the secrets of this mine can be kept. Any one of you may, to a certain extent, betray those secrets. Should he do so, he will not only defeat my plans but deprive himself of the fortune which I expect to pay each of you as the price of three years of work and reticence.” The proposition of Morning was agreed to with unanimity, and with an enthusiasm and gratitude which can be comprehended when it is understood that even the sum of $5,000 represented to the most industrious and frugal workman the savings of from five to twenty years. Three days afterwards the crosscuts were in ore, cars loaded with the yellow-seamed quartz began to discharge into the chutes and feeders, and the music of two hundred stamps resounded in the Santa Catalinas.