“Well,” answered Mackay, “that will be $10 for one, will it not?”

They answered, “Yes.”

The Bonanza King thought for a moment, and then said:  “It is this way, boys.  I have been picking up a few shares of the stock on my own account lately, and do not need any ready money at present, but there are a good many sick and bruised miners down in the hospital.  If, when you sell, you can see your way clear to send them down a few dollars, that will do more good than to divide with me, for I would be liable to lose the money any day in these crazy stocks.”

They thanked him with swimming eyes and broken voices, and started to retire, when he called them back, and said:  “I bought that stock because I noticed that you were not just like some of the others down in the mine, and I knew if the money should be lost you would neither of you reproach me.  But I called you back to tell you that while I do not think there is any hurry about selling your stocks, dealing in mining shares is a risky business, as a rule, especially when you have nothing but a guess to go on; and I do not believe I would, if in your places, take that up for a business.”

Then some one else came in, and the miners retired.

They determined not to sell just then, and both went back to work at 4 in the afternoon of that day.

The young men continued their daily toil.  After the stock reached $35 per share, it hung at that figure for a long time, but they felt no uneasiness.  They saw the hurry of the work in opening the Consolidated Virginia and the C. & C. shafts; they saw a new great quartz mill being erected, but they saw something else which pleased them much more, which was that the more the great ore body was sunk and drifted upon, the bigger it grew.  In the early winter of 1874-5, the stock began to climb up.  It jumped to $80, then $85; then, almost in a day, to $115, and so on up to $220.  The strain on the minds of the two young miners was very great, but they held on.  There was another little lull, and then towards spring it started up again.

When it reached $480, Browning said to Sedgwick:  “Bless my soul, Jim, I have not slept for three nights.  I have been thinking that hundreds of people have been waiting for the stock to touch $500, and when it does, they will unload and break it down.  Had we not better sell?  It will give us as much money as we can manage.”

“I guess you are right, Jack” said Sedgwick.  “I believe it will still go a good deal higher, but if it does, let those who buy our stocks make it.  As you said, it will bring us as much money as we can manage.  It takes a brave man to sell on a rising market.  Let us be brave.”

So they gave the order for the sale of the stock, but that day it jumped to $520, and when the returns were made, they found to their credit, $1,040,000.  The stock touched $900 per share a few days later.

The result well-nigh paralyzed them.  “At $4 per day, this is not bad, Browning,” said Sedgwick.