When Ellis Darrel came down to breakfast, he discovered that his uncle had gone away. Blixen, the most spirited driving horse in the stable, had been put to the road wagon, and Colonel Hawtrey had been last seen making for the Ophir trail.
“It’s something about Jode that’s taking him in that direction,” thought Darrel happily. “The old chap isn’t so hard-hearted as he wants me to think.”
All the way along the trail through Bitter Root Cañon Blixen gave the colonel a handful. The horse had not been out of the stable for two or three days, and was even more spirited and hard to manage than usual. Perhaps it was a good thing for the colonel that Blixen took all his attention. He had no leisure for disagreeable thoughts about Lenning.
The journey from Gold Hill to Ophir had not absorbed much of Blixen’s surplus energy, for he tore through the latter town at a tremendous clip. Hawtrey had to twist the reins around his hands and curb the plunging roadster with all his strength.
When well out of Ophir and close to the mine, the colonel passed Barzy Blunt, galloping the other way, with two bags roped behind him to the back of his horse. The colonel was too busy with Blixen to get a good look at the bags. Blunt shouted something to him as they rapidly passed each other, but he could not distinguish the words.
With a grind of wheels the road wagon lurched into the mining camp and up to the door of the headquarters adobe. A Mexican stood at the door.
“Where is the superintendent?” the colonel inquired.
“Him gone to stamp mill,” was the answer.
The colonel turned and started to drive up the slope toward the head of the mill. In taking this move it was necessary for him to cross the narrow railroad track by which loaded ore cars were carried full to the ore platform and empty away from it. To understand clearly what took place, a little description of the method of delivering ore to the Ophir Mill will be necessary.
The ore cars were of iron and supplied with suitable brakes. They were filled at the various shaft houses and drawn by teams up the incline to the ore platform. Here the teams were taken away, the brakes on the cars were set, and the wheels blocked with stones, and the unloading begun. When the unloading was finished, the blocking was knocked away, and the cars slid down the sleep slope of their own momentum.