“I shall have to ask you to be a little more explicit, Mr. Blaisdell,” Houston replied.
“Why don’t you come to the point, Blaisdell?” said Rivers impatiently. “What’s the use of beating about the bush? The long and the short of it is just this,” he added, turning to Houston, “you have been taking upon yourself what did not concern you, prying around, late at night, in mines with which you had nothing whatever to do, in company with miners who had no more business there than you had.”
“To what mine do you refer?” asked Houston, with exasperating persistency.
“I mean the Lucky Chance, and you know it,” retorted Rivers angrily.
“Mr. Rivers,” said Houston, in a tone that Blaisdell had heard on a former occasion, and with a steel-like glitter in his eyes that was anything but attractive to either of the gentlemen present; “Mr. Blaisdell knows, if you do not, that since my first coming here, whatever kind of work has been assigned to me, I have thoroughly familiarized myself with it. When I was given charge of these mines I had reason to suppose that each and every mine owned by the company was included under my supervision, and if there were any which the officers of the company, for reasons of their own, wished excluded from such supervision, it was their business so to inform me. I have not been so informed. Mr. Blaisdell himself took me into that mine, and nothing was said to lead me to suppose that that mine was any exception to those placed in my charge, and your informant, if he chose so to do, could tell you that I have inspected in like manner each and every mine under my supervision, taking with me one or both of the same men, when the mine happened to be one with which I was not familiar.”
“His intentions were all right,” interposed Mr. Blaisdell, “he was over-zealous, that was all.”
“Intentions be damned!” said Mr. Rivers, angrily, “he was altogether too officious, and I won’t have it; people in my employ have to know their place and keep it.”
“That is all very well,” said Houston, in cutting tones, “but I will not ask you, Mr. Rivers, or any one connected with this company, to tell me my place.”
“What!” exclaimed Rivers in a rage, “let me tell you, young man, it is to your interest to be a little careful.”
“Is it?” answered Houston scornfully; “Mr. Rivers,” he added, advancing toward that gentleman, “why don’t you discharge me? Wouldn’t that be to your interest?”