"I have many questions to ask about your mine—I believe I had almost said our mine." The lawyer smiled cordially. "To begin with, how about water and fuel?"
"Lots of it. A cedar brake, checker-boarded all along the mountain. There's where it gets the name, Ajedrez Mountain—Chess Mountain; kind of laid out in squares that way. Good enough for mine timbers, too. Big spring—big enough so you might almost call it a creek—right close by. It's almost too good to be true—couldn't be handier if I'd dreamed it! But," he added with regretful conscientiousness, "the water's pretty hard, I'm sorry to say. Most generally is, around copper that way. And it'll have to be pumped uphill to the mine. Too bad the spring couldn't have been above the mine, so it could have been piped down."
Prompted by more questions he plunged into a glowing description of Ajedrez Mountain; the marvelous scope of country to be seen from the summit; the beauty of its steep and precipitous cañons; the Indian pottery; the mysterious deposit of oyster shells, high on the mountain-side, proving conclusively that Ajedrez Mountain had risen from the depths of some prehistoric sea; ending with a vivid description of the obstacles to be surmounted by each of the alternate projects for the wagon road up to the mine, with estimates of comparative cost.
At length it drew on to the hour for Mitchell's dinner and Pete's supper, and they parted with many expressions of elation and good-will.
From his window in the Algonquin, Pete Johnson watched Mitchell picking his way across to the Iroquois House, and smiled grimly.
"There," he confided to his pipe—"there goes a man hotfoot to dig his own grave with his own tongue! The Selden kid has done told Uncle McClintock about Stan being in jail. She told him Stan hadn't written to Cousin Oscar about no jail, and that I wasn't to tell him either. Now goes Cousin Oscar on a beeline to tell Uncle how dreadful Stanley has went and disgraced the family; and Uncle will want to know how he heard of it. 'Why,' says Oscar, 'an old ignoramus from Arizona, named Johnson—friend of Stanley's—he told me about it. He came up here to get me to help Stanley out; wanted me to go out and be his lawyer!'
"And, right there, down goes Cousin Oscar's meat-house! He'll never touch a penny of Uncle's money. Selden, she says Uncle Mac was all for blowing him up sky-high; but she made him promise not to, so as not to queer my game. If I get Oscar Mitchell out to the desert, I'll almost persuade him to be a Christian…. She's got Old McClintock on the run, Mary Selden has!
"Shucks! The minute I heard about the millionaire uncle, I knowed where Stan's trouble began. I wonder what makes Stan such a fool! He might 'a' knowed!… This Oscar person is pretty soft…. Mighty nice kid, little Selden is! Smart too. She's some schemer!… Too smart for Oscar!… Different complected, and all that; but her ways—she sort of puts me in mind of Miss Sally."
CHAPTER XII
Mr. Oscar Mitchell was a bachelor, though not precisely lorn. He maintained an elm-shaded residence on Front Street, presided over by an ancient housekeeper, of certain and gusty disposition, who had guided his first toddling steps and grieved with him for childhood's insupportable wrongs, and whose vinegarish disapprovals were still feared by Mitchell; it was for her praise or blame that his overt walk and conversation were austere and godly, his less laudable activities so mole-like.