"In what line?" inquired Dunlop. "Are you miners---or machinists?"
"When we want to be really kind to ourselves," smiled Tom, "we call
ourselves engineers."
"Mining engineers?" demanded Mr. Dunlop, gazing at the two youths
in astonishment.
"No, sir. Neither Hazelton nor myself ever handled a mine yet," Tom
answered. "But we have done a lot of railroad work."
"Railroad work isn't mine digging," objected Mr. Dunlop.
"I'm aware of that, sir," Tom agreed. "Yet boring is largely
excavation work; so is tunneling. We've had charge of considerable
excavating in our services to railroads."
"Very likely," nodded Dunlop, reflectively. But how about the
assays for gold and silver? Sometimes, when searching for drifts
and runs of the metal we may need a dozen assays in a single week."
"We have the furnace with us, sir; the assay balance and all the
tools and chemicals that are used in an ordinary assay."
"You have?" asked Mr. Dunlop. "Then you must have come prepared
to go into this line of work.
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