“There’s gold in this ball--or I’m not alive,” the other replied. “Wo-o-w!” Ben flung his cap among the rafters, and, seizing the ball of amalgam, he sent it after the cap. “Here, young feller, don’t you go plumb crazy! That’s heavy! Want ter kill us? Give me that ball--I ain’t through with it yet.” Ben returned the ball. “I had to let off steam or bust!” he said. “Now, we’ll see what we’ll see,” said Mundon, as he repeated the process he had followed with the first handful of amalgam, until he had three good-sized lumps. “The gold’s inside of them?” Ben asked. “Course it is,--that is, we’ve reason to s’pose so.” “How ever are we going to get it out! I say, Mundon, I’d have made a pretty fizzle of this business without you.” “You’d have had to found somebody else, that’s all,” Mundon modestly replied. “Next, I take the retort,--see that it’s cold,--and chalk it well. Watch me, Ben,--most anybody can set an egg on end after they’ve seen it done. Next, I wrap these here baseballs--base is good!--in paper and put ’em in the retort,--so. Then I jam the cover down tight. Now, give me a lift, Ben. This here’s pretty heavy, I reckon.” The retort did not seem heavy to Ben as they lifted it to the furnace; and he concluded that Mundon had asked him to help him, in order that he might feel that he was more than a spectator. “He’s got the finest feelings,” Ben said to himself. “He’s always trying to make a fellow feel comfortable.” They built a roaring fire in the furnace. “Now, you kin tend that fire fur two hours, Ben,” said Mundon, “while I go down-town and see ’bout gittin’ some more coal and a few little things we need. I’ll be right back. Don’t forget--you got to keep that there retort red-hot the whole time.” “Yes, yes. And then what do we do?” “Well, you got to keep the retort red-hot for two hours, as I told you, just a dull red-hot; but at the last you pile on the coal till it’s a reel cherry-red.” “And after that?” “O, I’ll be here to show you what to do afterwards.” During the following two hours Ben watched the furnace and plied it with coal. A rap on the doors attracted his attention, and he admitted Beth and little Sue. “Mother asked us to tell her when you got the first gold from your Golconda. Have you got any yet?” Sue asked. “I know what that means, too, for Beth told me the story.” “Not yet, Sue,” Ben replied. “Maybe you’re just in time to see some, though. We’re nearly ready to open the retort.” He flung in a shovelful of coal. “I’m glad you came down, Beth, to see it; for if we get any it’ll be the result of your idea.” “Nonsense, Ben! O, Sue,” she exclaimed as she looked up the long funnel of the chimney to where it pierced the blue sky, “think of any one’s sitting on those little sticks and being hoisted up that frightful distance! It makes me dizzy to think of it. How did you ever get the rope over the top?” she inquired of Ben. “Mundon did it,” Ben explained, “one day, when he sent me off to buy the mule.”