"But where are we to get power?"
"By using what we already have. Our great engine is a double one. We are using only one of its cylinders. We have only to connect the other in order to have all the power we need."
"But what about steam?"
"That's easy to make. We have several unused boilers, and as we burn nothing under our boilers but culm—the finely slaked coal for which there isn't a market, even at a tenth of a cent a ton—it will cost us absolutely not one cent to make all the steam we need."
"You seem to have thought it all out."
"I have done more than that. I have worked it all out. I must work all day in a heading, of course, in order to make bread and butter. I have worked at night over these problems."
"And you are sure you've got the right answers?"
"Greatly more than sure—absolutely certain!"
"Very well. You are now chief engineer, or anything else you please, at a chief engineer's salary. You are to go to work at once digging the new ventilating and pumping shaft. You are to proceed at once to install your other improvements, and, when you report to me that there is no longer any use for the mules in the mine, I'll bring them all out and sell them. I'll look to the payments incidental to your work. My mission here is to make this mine a paying property. To that end, you are to bear in mind, I have an entirely free hand, and all the money needed is at my command. Now let that finish business for to-night. I want you to spend the rest of the dark hours in telling me your story and Mary's. I want to know all that has happened to both of you since—well, since she told me she loved you and not—me. You don't mind sitting up for the rest of the night?"
"Certainly not. I've sat up with you on far smaller provocation."