By mid morning she and Ross had filled their ore buckets three times, loaded them on the burros and taken them from the mine to the camp. There they'd dumped the deposits onto an ever growing pile that Max and Elizabeth attacked feverishly, hammering the larger pieces into small silver samples to take to the assayer. Back in the mine again, Ross swung his pick at a rich chunk of ore, bringing it crumbling to earth. "One more day of this, Ramona," he said. "That's it. We'll have about all the weight the burros can handle. Even if we leave most of our gear here on the mountain, the beasts will be loaded down." "Does that mean we'll be heading back to Georgetown tomorrow?" "Most likely. The sooner we go back down and see what this strike is worth, the sooner we can make one more trip up here. I'd like several thousand dollars worth of silver before the snow falls." Ramona liked the sound of that. She grabbed Ross' arm and squeezed. "Oh, darlin', do you think we'll really have thousands?" He nodded.
