The baron laughed.
“Here is the history,” he said; “it is a peculiar one, such as could happen nowhere but in America. This woman, when she was quite young, worked as a waitress in a public restaurant at a place in the western part of the United States called Denver. She met there one day a young man who was a miner, married him and went back with him into the mountains to search for gold. That was admirable, was it not? They kept searching for a long time, and they did not find any gold, but at last they found copper—a mountain of it. My informant tells me that this is not an exaggeration—that it was really a mountain, though it is there no longer.
“This young man had no money, and to develop a mine of copper, even when you have it all together in one mountain, takes a great deal. For a long time nobody believed his story about this mountain, but at last he secured enough money from some men in Denver to build a little mill. But it was not profitable, partly because it was far from the market and the railroad would not extend itself for such a small mill, but principally because it was necessary to pay so high wages to the men who worked the mill. It was very hard to get any men at all, and they could charge what they pleased. So the mill had to be closed, and it looked as though the man had failed—that he would have to sell his mountain for a very small sum. The years were passing; neither the man nor the woman were as young as they had been—especially the woman. She had had two children. She was discouraged. She wanted him to sell. But he would not.
“Now regard how strange are the ways of providence. One day a young man came to him and said, ‘I hear you cannot work your mill because labour is so dear.’
“‘That is so,’ said the other.
“‘Then I have a proposal to make. I have some friends in the country from which I come, strong, active young men like myself, who wish to come to America, but who have no money. If you will bring them to America, they will work for you for two years and you will give them but to eat and sleep. After that, we will arrange a fair wage.’
“Eh bien, the man raised money enough to bring to America twenty of these young men, and they went to work for him. They worked well, and soon twenty more were brought over, and then fifty more, and then a hundred more. At the end of five years, a little city had grown up at the foot of that mountain of copper, and the man who had made the proposal to bring over the first ones governed it. And all the men in that city came from my country.”
The baron paused for a moment to enjoy the start of surprise which the countess could not wholly repress.
“So it is that story you are telling me!” she said.
“Shall I go on?”