They did not
dance nor twinkle in their adamantine setting. The furnace fire painted
the faces of the men an Indian red, glanced on brightly colored blanket
and serape, but was eventually caught and absorbed in the waiting
shadows of the black mountain, scarcely twenty feet from the furnace
door. The low, half-sung, half-whispered foreign speech of the group,
the roaring of the furnace, and the quick, sharp yelp of a coyote on
the plain below were the only sounds that broke the awful silence of the
hills.
It was almost dawn when it was announced that the ore had fused. And it
was high time, for the pot was slowly sinking into the fast-crumbling
oven. Concho uttered a jubilant "God and Liberty," but Don Jose Wiles
bade him be silent and bring stakes to support the pot. Then Don Jose
bent over the seething mass. It was for a moment only. But in that
moment this accomplished metallurgist, Mr. Joseph Wiles, had quietly
dropped a silver half dollar into the pot!
Then he charged them to keep up the fires and went to sleep--all but one
eye.
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