Ralph whispers, "I'll go down and get the stock."
But Erma says suddenly, "Let me go with you. I must see that you are comfortable during your retreat from the world."
"I rather think I've looked out for myself pretty thoroughly," laughs Travenion, who seems in very good spirits, the strain of waiting having passed from his mind. Then he goes on earnestly, "God bless you, Erma, for thinking of me. Come down and see what I've done for myself. I can give you the stock there just as well as here."
So, lighting a candle for her, and guiding her steps very carefully, Ralph assists his daughter down the incline, and the two shortly come to the station, and turning along the level that runs away from the Mineral Hill Mine, Ralph pauses at the fourth set of timbers and laughs, "What do you say to this for a bachelor's apartment?"
To this his daughter cries, "Oh, sybarite!—you've even got champagne and dried buffalo tongues."
As he has, a dozen pints of Veuve Clicquot, likewise Château Margaux, as well as a couple of boxes of rare Havanas, and canned provisions; a soft mattress and warm blankets; a chair to sit upon, half a dozen novels and some current literature to kill time with, lots of candles to illuminate his retreat, and plenty of water in a small barrel.
"I'll be pretty comfortable here, I imagine," he says, contemplatively.
"No, you'll be cold," answers the young lady.
"Cold?—a hundred feet under the ground? This depth is the perfection of climate. It is neither too warm in summer nor too frigid in winter. I shall be very snug down here," he remarks; then chuckles, "while my friend Kruger is hunting for me through snow-storms and blizzards on the outer earth."
"Still it seems horrible," mutters the girl with a shudder, "for you to be buried under the ground. The air——"