With untiring zeal Norman gave himself to work on the dredge. Wolf refused to modify his original order that a full day should first be given as a labourer in the foundry and machine shops before he could devote himself to his invention.

This proved an advantage rather than a hindrance. By his unfailing courtesy, good fellowship, skill, and wit, Norman won his fellow workmen as warm personal friends. He was able thus to secure all the assistance he needed in his work.

Within two months the big dredge was finished.

From the first the regent had regarded Norman\'s fad with contempt. That he could succeed in making money out of dirt containing but twenty cents\' worth of gold to a ton was an absurdity on its face.

While the young inventor worked day and night with tireless energy the regent quietly perfected his grip on the life of the rapidly growing colony. To render escape from the island or communication with the coast more impossible than ever, he [284]established the strict system of double patrol around each community. No member of the Brotherhood was allowed to leave his room at night without permission. Beyond the outer patrol a mounted guard was established and the entire line of beach was guarded by watchmen in relays who reported each hour, day and night, by telephone to the commandant.

At the end of two months of Wolf\'s merciless rule the efficiency of labour had so decreased, it was necessary to lengthen the number of hours from eight to nine. As every inducement to efficiency of labour had been removed there was no incentive to any man to do more than he must without a fight with his guard or overseer. No vote was permitted on the question of increasing the hours of labour. The board of governors passed the order which Wolf wrote out for them without a dissenting voice.

Norman had no trouble in getting a gang of willing hands to push the monster gold-digger into position on one of the sand-points inside the harbour.

It was mounted on a float twenty-five feet wide and sixty-five feet long. For power it carried two fifty-horse-power distillate engines. Tom was in charge of one and Joe of the other. For raising the sand and gravel containing the gold [285]two big Jackson gravel-pumps were located on opposite corners at the front end of the float.

Old Tom blew the whistle, the engines started, and in an hour the pumps had raised a hundred tons of sand and gravel and deposited them in the concentrating flumes. Norman worked the dredge all night without a moment\'s pause and in twelve hours his pumps had lifted fifteen hundred tons of sand, showing a capacity of 3,000 tons per day. When the gold was extracted and weighed it was found that the dredge had averaged twenty cents from each ton of sand and that it would cost less than three cents a ton to operate the entire machinery of its production. The first experimental machine alone would net $500 dollars a day, or $150,000 a year. He could put five of these machines to work in three months and make $3,000 a day.


The invention stirred the colony to its depths. Norman\'s appearance was the signal for a burst of cheering wherever he went.

Wolf was dumfounded. He called his board of governors together at once and ordered them to enact a new law to meet the situation.

Norman announced in the Era that he would give the Brotherhood from the beginning one half the net earnings of his machines, and asked [286]the board of governors at once to grant him the men needed to build and operate enough dredges to reduce the hours of labour from nine to seven.

Wolf met the emergency with prompt and vigorous action. He suspended the editor for printing the announcement and set him to work carrying a hod.

He issued a proclamation as regent that the dredge in the hands of its inventor threatened the existence of the State, declared the law of inventions under which it was built suspended, and ordered Norman to at once operate the machine for the sole benefit of the State and begin the construction of twenty dredges of equal capacity.

When Norman received this order he set to work without a moment\'s delay and made a half-dozen dynamite bombs, gave one each to Tom and Joe and their assistants, laid in a supply of provisions, erected a tent on the beach beside the dredge, and set the big machine to work for all it was worth.

Wolf promptly ordered his arrest. The men who attempted to execute the order fled in terror at the sight of the bombs............