“Then,” said Houston, smiling and inwardly congratulating himself, “I do not see but that it is settled that I go to Silver City whenever you are ready.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Blaisdell, “you will not need to go down there for ten days or so, as the time will make no appreciable difference in the state of affairs there, and I shall need you here during that time, as some parties are coming out from the east to look at some mining properties, and both Morgan and myself will probably have to spend most of our time at the mines.”
That evening, at the boarding house, Houston sat apparently interested in a game of chess between Miss Gladden and Rutherford, but in reality, paying close attention to a conversation carried on in low tones between Mr. Blaisdell and Morgan. Only an occasional sentence was audible, but he could gather enough to satisfy himself regarding the nature of their plans.
“Clean the rubbish out of the shaft, and set a couple of men to work there for a day or two,” Mr. Blaisdell was saying; a few words were lost, and then he said, “Whenever I hear what day they are coming up, we’ll put on a good force.”
“They’ll have their own expert with them, I suppose?” asked Morgan.
“Yes,” answered Mr. Blaisdell, “but if he’s like the most of those eastern experts, Haight and I can fix him very easily.”
A little later the conversation ended, Mr. Blaisdell saying, as he rose to go to his room:
“It is a confoundedly poor property, but I think a few tons of ore from the Yankee Boy will sell it all right.”
This remark gave Houston considerable food for reflection, as the Yankee Boy was one of the richest properties owned by the New York company. He had that day received his first letter from his uncle, in New York, sent under cover of an envelope from the Chicago firm, and written in reply to a letter from himself mailed immediately upon his arrival at the mines; and Mr. Blaisdell and Morgan having left, Houston retired to his room to make his first report of the information he had secured and seemed likely to secure, concerning the ways and means of the western mining company; leaving the chess players deep in their game, and Lyle watching them.
Lyle, though keeping up her studies afternoons, had not been down to Jack’s cabin since the evening he had shown her the picture, partly on account of the storm, and partly because she feared her father might be watching her.