In a twinkling her frivolous mood vanished.
"Oh, we are prosperous, desperately prosperous. We have power drills, and electric ore-cars, and a crib, and a chute, and a hoist, and an aerial tramway down to the place where the railroad yard is going to be—all the improvements you can see and a lot more that you can't see. And our pay-roll—it fairly frightens me when I make it up on the Saturdays."
"I see," he nodded. "All going out and nothing coming in. But the money is all here, safely stacked up in the ore bins. You'll get it all out when the railroad comes."
"That is another thing—a thing I haven't dared tell father and Stevie. When I was in Mirapolis this morning I heard that the railroad wasn't coming, after all; or, rather, Tig had heard it and he told me. We were digging for facts when you met us on Chigringo Avenue—trying to find out if the rumor were true."
"Did you find out?" he asked.
"Not positively. That is why I left the note at your office begging you to come up if you could spare the time. I felt sure you would know."
"It means a great deal to you, doesn't it?" he said evasively.
"It means everything—a thousand times more now than it did before."
His quick glance up into the suddenly sobered eyes of the girl standing on the step above him was a voiceless query and she answered it.
"We had no working capital, as I think you must have known. Once a month father or Stevie would make up a few pack-saddle loads of the richest ore and freight them over the mountains to Red Butte. That was how we got along. But when you sent me word by Tig that the railroad company had decided to build the Extension, there was—there was—a chance——"