noon
He scrambled above and studied the pulp , slipping it through his fingers and feeling its fineness , and speculating whether or not they would be troubled with any solution of lead that would render the milling difficult and slime the plates so that the gold would escape to go roistering down the creek with waste water . It did feel very slippery , and he was reassured . He was eager to get to the assay-house and make his first assay of `` tailings , '' refuse from the mill , to discover what percentage of gold they were saving , and , in parlance , `` How she would run on mill test . '' Fascinated in his inspection and direction of certain minor changes , he was astonished when the noise suddenly dropped from fortissimo to a dull whine , as the mill slowed down to a stop for the noon hour . And the afternoon passed as quickly while he worked over the bucking board -- a plate used to crush ore for assaying -- in the assay-house , and watched the gasoline flare and fume in his furnaces to bring the little cupels , with their mass of powdered , weighed , and numbered samples , to a molten state . He took them out with his tongs , watched them cool , and weighed , on the scales that could tell the weight of a lead pencil mark on a sheet of paper , the residue of gold , thus making his computations . He was not pleased with the result .