The Golden Chimney: A Boy's Mine

Ben Ralston and his cousin Beth were sitting on the northern slope of Russian Hill, one of the many hills of San Francisco. At the foot of the elevation the black buildings and...

“No, I guess it won’t.” Mr. Madge meditated for a moment. He needed money badly, to finish a pet tunnel in his “Bonanza Princess” mine. The sum that Ben could give would be a sm...

“How do you do, Mr. Mundon?” he replied. “Yes, I think it will need an arastra to crush the bricks.” His grave face showed that already the cares of the undertaking were preying...

Ben’s first impulse was to go home and change his clothes, which showed the contact of dust and soot; but it was past three o’clock and he was afraid if he did not make haste he...

The watch was continued for several nights, but in vain. As none came to claim the opium, it was taken away and a valuation of two thousand dollars was placed upon it, of which...

Ben did not like to admit his ignorance, but he very much desired some further information on the subject of mules before he entered the arena of the auction. He had a guilty co...

“That’s a good idea, Mundon. We’ll have to do it, or hire a watchman, as soon as we begin to work the stuff. We might as well get used to it first as last.”

“It’s nearly time for us to know ’bout where we stand,” remarked Mundon, as he flung several shovelfuls of mortar, brickdust, and soot into the “jigger.” He then added some quic...

On the night following the first clean-up, Ben was awakened about midnight. He had been sleeping so heavily that for some minutes after awakening he did not realize where he was...

The next morning Ben saw a picture of himself above the title “Our Boy Miner,” in one of the daily papers. He felt the sensationalism of it, but he could not deny that it please...

“They say that he was in with the smugglers and led you to discover their opium so that you’d get the reward,--and then he’d cheat you out of it.”

The house in which Beth lived was a dreary structure perched on the northern slope of the steep hill above the Works. A dispute, common in the settlement of property boundaries...

Although Ben had been eager to go in search of his strange informer, yet when he set forth he almost regretted not having brought a companion. He knew that the address given mus...

Mr. Hale was in his office, when Ben reached there; but the latter concluded that he would hear the result of the lawyer’s investigation first, reserving his bit of information...

Within the Works they found everything, with the exception of the amalgam which Syd had taken, exactly as they had left it. Mundon was particularly pleased to find the “jigger”...