“We shall probably find out more about all these things before we are much older on the job,” he replied; and then, vengefully: “If I can catch him at it, I promise you I’ll make him sorry!”
After they reached the head of the inclined track and had signalled to Tryon at the foot to let them down in the tip-car, Tregarvon outlined his plan for the broken day.
“We’ll go down and get out the auto and my engineering instruments, motor back to the drilling plant, and do a little surveying on our own account. Beyond that, you may take the car and kill time with it as you please. I’ll stay and help Rucker.”
The programme was carried out in due course. By ten o’clock they were back on the mountain top with the surveying instruments. Placing the transit upon the tripod marks under the tree on the edge of the glade, Tregarvon took a forward sight to the eastward, with Carfax holding the target-staff on the spot where the burnt torch was found. Then, without changing the position of the instrument, Tregarvon signalled Carfax to go back, halting him at the cliff edge, and moving him to right and left until the target was once more in line with the cross-hairs of the telescope.
“What developments?” he inquired, when the staff-bearer came up.
“Nothing startling. Your line of sight merely picked up the second of the two marked trees, whatever significance that may have.”
“You may be sure it has some significance, if we were shrewd enough to figure it out,” Tregarvon asserted. Then: “What will you do with yourself until dinner-time?”
“Oh, I don’t know; chase around in the car awhile, maybe, if you can’t use me here. Perhaps I may be able to pick up a clue or so—if I can find anybody to talk to.”
Tregarvon stripped off his coat and went to work with Rucker and the helpers, and in this manner the better part of the day was accounted for. Late in the afternoon, when the blacksmithing of new irons left him without an occupation, he yielded to a prompting which had been urging him all day, and went for a long tramp which took him over the route covered by the drilling plant in its several removals.
The sun had gone behind the mountain when he finally came out at the tramhead and signalled for the cable-car to take him down. Tryon answered the signal and started the machinery, and in a few minutes Tregarvon was landed at the Coalville level, where he found Carfax waiting for him on the porch of the office-building.