"Well, that's a question," he began, "that I can answer better when I get a report on this ore. It's all mixed up with quartz and ought to be milled, by rights, before I even ship it; but since the trucks are going back--well, if it turns out the way I calculate it might bring me forty dollars a unit." "A unit!" repeated the Widow, her voice low and measured. "Well, I'd just like to know how much a unit is?" "A hundredth of the standard of measure--in this case a ton of ore. That would come to twenty pounds." "Twenty pounds! What, of this stuff? And worth forty dollars! Well, somebody must be crazy!" "Yes, they're crazy for it," answered Wiley, "but it's just a temporary rage, brought on by the European war. The market is likely to break any time." "Why--tungsten!" murmured the Widow. "Who ever heard of such a thing? And it's been lying here idle all the time." "How much would that be a ton?" piped up someone in the crowd, and Mrs. Huff put her head to one side. "Let's see," she said, "forty dollars a unit--that's one hundredth of a ton. Oh, pshaw, it can't be that. Let's see, twenty pounds at forty dollars--that's two dollars a pound; and two thousand pounds, that's--oh, I don't believe it! I never even heard of tungsten!" "No, it's a new metal," replied Wiley ever so softly, "or rather, it's an acid. The technical magazines are full of articles that tell you all about it. It's found in wolframite, and hubnerite and so on; but this is calcium tungstate, where it is found in connection with lime. The others are combined variously with iron or manganese----" "Yes, manganese," broke in Charley importantly. "I know that well--and wolfite and all the rest. It certainly is wonderful how they build them big cannons that will shoot for twenty-two miles. But it's tungsden that does it, tungsden in connection with electricity and the invisible rays of raddium." "Oh, shut up!" burst out the Widow, thrusting him rudely aside and seizing a fresh handful of the rock. "I just can't hardly believe it." She gazed at the glossy fragments and then at the muckers, industriously loading the trucks; and then she cocked her head on one side. "Let's see--two times twenty--that's forty dollars a ton. No--four hundred! Why, no--four thousand!" She stopped short and made a hurried re-calculation, while a murmur ran through the crowd, and then Death Valley Charley gave a whoop. "Four thousand!" he shouted. "I told ye! I knowed it! I claimed she was rich, all the time!" "You did not!" snapped the Widow, putting her hand under his jaw and forcibly stifling his whoops. "You poor, crazy fool, you knew nothing of the kind--you sold out for five thousand dollars!" She pushed him away with a swift, disdainful shove that sent him reeling through the crowd and then she whirled on Wiley. "And I suppose," she accused, "that you knew all the time that this dump here was nothing but tungsten?"