A tunnel would cost many
thousand dollars, and what good would it accomplish beyond satisfying
the public curiosity and my own?
My personal resources were wholly insufficient for the achievement.
Mr. Ward, who held the government's funds, was away. I even thought
of trying to interest some millionaire. Oh, if I could but have
promised one of them some gold or silver mines within the mountain!
But such an hypothesis was not admissible. The chain of the
Appalachians is not situated in a gold bearing region like that of
the Pacific mountains, the Transvaal, or Australia.
It was not until the fifteenth of June that Mr. Ward returned to
duty. Despite my lack of success he received me warmly. "Here is our
poor Strock!" cried he, at my entrance. "Our poor Strock, who has
failed!"
"No more, Mr. Ward, than if you had charged me to investigate the
surface of the moon," answered I. "We found ourselves face to face
with purely natural obstacles insurmountable with the forces then at
our command."
"I do not doubt that, Strock, I do not doubt that in the least.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that you have discovered nothing of
what is going on within the Great Eyrie."
"Nothing, Mr. Ward."
"You saw no sign of fire?"
"None."
"And you heard no suspicious noises whatever?"
"None."
"Then it is still uncertain if there is really a volcano there?"
"Still uncertain, Mr.
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