10 horses at 105.00 . . . . . . . $1,050.00 10 sets harness at 60.00 . . . . . 600.00 Mill machinery . . . . . . . . . . 6,500.00 Pumps, hoists . . . . . . . . . . 1,250.00 4 months' wages at 4.00 a day . . 4,800.00 2 1/2 months' boarding expenses . 610.00 Hay, tools, implements . . . . . . 1,165.00 Wagons, household goods . . . . . 2,560.00 Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . 2,112.00 Building roads . . . . . . . . . . 829.00 ---------- $21,476.00 "That is what has been spent up to date according to Knapp's accounts." "But hold on!" interjected Murphy; "he has drawn six drafts. That makes thirty thousand. Has he eight thousand in hand? Why did he have to draw the last draft?" "He doesn't know," replied Stevens grimly. "His bank balance," he declared, consulting the paper again, "is just $1,126.40. He says he doesn't know where the balance is." "Do you think----?" "Not at all. He is perfectly honest. That is the way he does things." "Here," went on Stevens after a moment, "is what remains to be done before we can even start to work. It is an estimate, but it is a close one; for, as I told you, I had assistance in making it out: Mills, pumps, hoists . . . . . . . $12,000.00 Sheds, ore-dumps, etc . . . . . . 1,500.00 20 horses and harness . . . . . . 3,200.00 Men, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 Wagons and tools . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 ---------- $26,700.00 That is to bring us up to the efficient working point. Now here are our liabilities: Miscellaneous bills . . . . . . . $850.00 Contract on 1,100 feet of shaft and tunnel at 20 a foot . . . . . . . . . 22,000.00 ---------- $22,850.00 That is what we owe, gentlemen," concluded Stevens, slapping his papers on the table and looking about him. "Now if you want to throw good money after bad, you can do so," he continued after a moment; "but this is a limited liability company and I am done. I am strongly in favor of pulling out some way to save our names as promoters of such a fool enterprise, but I think we should pull out. This man Lafond thinks he can do something with the property if he has a fair show, and perhaps we can save something through him. Our fifty thousand is _gone_--and more, after we've paid our debt to those men--and anything we can save out of such a mess seems to me clear gain." And so with equal haste they scrambled out. The first inexplicable phenomenon is the sanguine blindness such men show in going into mining; the second is the headlong thoughtlessness with which they draw out. Anything to get back to daylight apparently.