Around the mouths of the shafts themselves the débris had accumulated astoundingly, showing that the contractors too had been industrious, but Lafond paid little attention to them. He was more interested in the clearing, levelling, trimming and digging which seemed to indicate the undertaking of rather extensive works above ground. Perhaps a dozen men were at work. Some were engaged in "trueing" the four great foundation beams of what was evidently to be a large building. Others squared smaller timbers near at hand. The remainder were measuring and indicating with a shovel the outlines of other and less pretentious structures. In a moment Billy came out ready to dissertate at length. "That thar is the boardin' house," he explained, "I thought at first I'd only make her big enough for thirty, 'cause that's as big a gang as I starts with; but then I figgers it out, an' it won't be long before I takes on more, so I thinks it jest as well to start where I ends. So she's goin' to accommodate sixty, two-story, you know. Then yere's the cookee's shack. I aims to have th' kitchen separate yere--don't like that Prairie Dog game nohow." (The "Prairie Dog" was the hotel; and the "game" was the inclusion of the kitchen and the dining-room in the same apartment.) "Then yere's to be the office. I uses my old shack for an office now. I aims to have three sleepin'-rooms, an' a dinin'-room and kitchen." "What for?" asked Lafond, a little puzzled. "For me." "For----?" "I don't aim to eat with the men. And over yander 'll be th' stables; and thar th' blacksmith's shop; and then the powder house is on th' other side of the gulch. The chicken house is beyond th' blacksmith's shop." "The what?" asked Mike. "The chicken house." "Oh," said Mike. "I ain't got the ground all broke yet," pursued Billy; "but the plans is all ready, and it ain't takin' long when once we git started. The stuff fer th' mill is comin' along slow," he observed, pointing to the red-painted machinery; "but I ain't aimin' to put her up till nex' spring. Can't do much with her till I gets th' shafts sunk." "No," agreed Lafond. "But I got th' plans fer that too. Come on in an' I shows them to you." He led the way into the little shack, and began to rummage in a valise full of papers. Lafond found the place in a litter of confusion. Scattered about in the wildest disorder were clothes, weapons, saddles, harness, knick-knacks and mining tools. Among the latter the half-breed noticed the sections of a pump--an expensive machine used only after a shaft has penetrated below the water level, but which Billy had already purchased. Lying half open among the dusty quartz specimens, empty ink bottles, rusty pens and old pipes, which cumbered the table, Mike perceived a large wooden box. "What's this?" he asked. Billy looked up red-faced from his search. "That?" he replied. "Oh, that's a stamper," and dived back into the valise.