"Let us leave it at the point at which there will be the least ill-feeling," he cut in; and from that he switched without preface to a discussion of the varying ore values in a newly opened adit of the mine.
When he was gone I went into Barrett's room. As I have intimated, one of the troubles of mine-owning—if the mine be a producer—is to hold the smelter people in line. Like other Cripple Creek property owners, we had been up against the high costs of reduction almost from the first, and we were constantly sending test consignments of our ore to various smelters throughout the country, and even to Europe, in order to obtain checking data.
"About that car-load of Number Three ore we are sending to Falkenheim in California," I said to Barrett. "I'm going to break away and go with it if you have no objections."
Barrett looked up quickly.
"I think that is a wise move, Jimmie; a very wise move," he said gravely; and this meant that he, too, had been reading the Denver newspapers. Then he added: "We can get along all right without you, for awhile, and you may stay as long as you like. When will you go?"
"To-day; on the afternoon train."
"Straight west?—or by way of Denver?"
"Straight west, over the Midland, I guess."
This is what I said, and it is what I meant to do when I went back to my own office to set things in order for the long absence—for I fully meant it to be long. My office duties were not complicated, and the few things to be attended to were soon out of the way. One of the letters to be written was one that I did not dictate to the stenographer. It was to the Reverend John Whitley, enclosing a draft to be forwarded to my sister in Glendale. Ever since he had served me in the matter of returning Horace Barton's pocketbook, I had used him as an intermediary for communicating, money-wise, with my people. He had kept my secret, and was still keeping it.
The business affairs despatched, I crossed to the hotel to pack a couple of suit-cases. All these preliminary preparations included no word or line to Polly. I promised myself that I should write her when it was all over. The thing to be done now and first was to drop out as unostentatiously as possible. So ran the well-considered intention. But when I went down to an early luncheon there was a telegram awaiting me. It was from Agatha Geddis, and its wording was a curt mandate. "Expect you on afternoon train. Don't fail."