Carfax had not yet returned, and Tregarvon began to wonder if he had forgotten the proposed Whitlow expedition. By this time it seemed altogether probable that the drilling could be resumed within an hour or two, and the mining gambler’s passion to stay in the game until the last card had been turned fought against cool-headed prudence for first place in the struggle Tregarvon was making to decide as to what he should do.
If he should leave the mountain before the drilling began, the uncertainties would still be unresolved. On the other hand, if Consolidated Coal meant to hold him rigidly to the terms of the option, it became crucially necessary that he should know in advance what this final drilling-test was going to prove. If it should prove only another failure, the opportunity to sell must not be allowed to lapse. But if the test should prove that he had at last discovered the workable mother-vein.... Tregarvon gasped at the golden possibility, and the offer of a paltry tenth of a million shrank to nothing.
He was wishing, for the hundredth time, that Carfax would come and help him to decide, when a buggy drawn by a high-stepping black horse appeared among the trees on the opposite side of the glade. Tregarvon recognized the equipage at once. It was Thaxter’s, and the round-bodied bookkeeper was alone. The victim of indecision pulled himself together quickly. Chance, or the kindlier gods, had given him his opportunity, and he meant to improve it.
Thaxter came across to the tool shanty with the Cheeryble smile in commission.
“Still spending your good money on the kite-flying, are you?” he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder at the new power-plant. “I don’t know as I can blame you so very much: I was young and enthusiastic once, myself. You’ve worked wonders getting that thing up the mountain in such a short time. Somebody told me you were hung up with a strike, or something of the sort, and as it was our Saturday half-holiday, I thought I’d drive up and condole with you.”
Tregarvon offered the bookkeeper a seat on the shanty step, saying: “We were hung up, temporarily, but we are getting into shape now.”
“So I see,” returned the jovial little man; and for a space the talk ran upon the difficulties of mountain installations and the drawbacks of having to depend upon picked-up labor in a region where labor was scarce. After a time, Thaxter broached the option matter of his own accord.
“You got my note the other day, I presume?”
“Promptly,” Tregarvon acknowledged. “I was planning to go to Whitlow this afternoon.”
“And you changed your mind?”