"How do youse tell a fake gold mine?" asked Tim. "Is it like a lead nickel or counterfeit money so youse can tell by bitin' a chunk of it?" "Hardly," replied Dick, with a laugh. "I've been reading up about mines lately, and, according to the book, the most common way of making a fake mine is to 'salt' it, or 'sweat' it." "Salt it?" repeated Frank. "I've heard of salting cattle, but never mines." "That doesn't describe it very well," went on Dick, "but that's what they call it. Sometimes it is termed 'sweating.' By either way it means making the ore in the mine look as if it was filled with gold, when, in fact, the gold had only been put there by some man who wanted a worthless mine to look like a good one." "How do they do it?" asked Tim. "The most common way is to take some real gold dust, put it into a shotgun, load it heavily with powder and shoot it at the side of the mine. The gold particles are shot into the rock a little way and it appears like real ore. They do this several times down the sides of a rocky mine and it looks very much like the real thing. After a man has bought the mine and begins to dig, he discovers it's all a fake." "Wow!" exclaimed Tim. "T'ink of shootin' gold out of a gun. I wish somebody'd take a few shots at me. Easy ones, of course, so's I could live to enjoy it." "There are other ways of making fake mines," went on Dick, "but I didn't read much about them." "Do you think the Hop Toad and Dolphin mines are fakes?" asked Frank. "That's what I'm afraid of. But I'm pretty sure Smith and his confederates didn't use any such method as shooting the gold into the rocks. It's in too deep for that, and they could hardly hope to fool the assayer that way. No, they must have some new scheme, and maybe I can discover it." The boys walked along briskly, and, almost before they realized it, they saw that they were approaching the mine. "Now, go easy," advised Dick. "We first want to see if there is anyone in sight. If not, we'll take a trip down." Near the mouth of the shaft was some machinery used to lift the bucket from the mine. The boys could see the dull gleam of the coals under the boiler of the hoisting apparatus, for the fire had been banked. But there was no sign of anyone around, and, after peering cautiously about, the boys reached the edge of the shaft. "Now, if dey had an elevator fer us it would be dead easy," spoke Tim. "But I don't see how youse is goin' to git down." "Wait until I take a look," replied Dick. He approached the mouth of the mine and uttered an exclamation that brought the other boys to his side. "There's a ladder leading down," he said. "We can use that. Now to explore a gold mine."