“I don’t know that I was thinking of occultism, even,” said Ora lightly. “But it is interesting to find these old things have atmosphere for you as well as for me——”
“Why is it your favourite room? Because it has ‘atmosphere’?”
“I don’t know. I doubt if I have ever given the matter a thought.”
“So this is your favourite room.” Ida turned her back on it. “H’m. Well, maybe I’ll understand some things better one of these days than I do now. Perhaps,” with one of her uncanny dashes of intuition, “I’ll understand it when I do you.”
“Let us go up to the attic and look it over. I’ll have the table and benches made tomorrow.” Something was moving toward expression in her own mind, but she flung it aside and ran up the stair followed by Ida, who dismissed the subject as promptly.
XII
THERE had been a good deal of haggling over the lease of the Oro Fino Primo mine, the engineers demanding a three years’ lease and bond, proposing to purchase it at the end of that period for fifty thousand dollars. Nor were they willing to pay more than ten per cent. in royalty, displaying the assay report on the ore and arguing that after the necessary outlay on development work, the ore body might be too small to repay them.
Mark, however, was determined not to close with them until he had visited the claim with Gregory Compton, and this proved to be impossible for several weeks. The engineers, unable to proceed, had dismissed their men. They threatened to withdraw their offer and look for another abandoned property. Mark told them to go ahead, and they remained in Butte.
In the course of a month Mark and Gregory were both free on a Sunday. They took a train for Pony, hired a rig and drove over to the Stratton claim, dignified by the name of mine.
The claim was on a small tableland between Gregory’s own hill, which terminated just beyond the borders of his ranch, and another slope covered with pines and firs. The engineers had put up a windlass, retimbered the shaft, sunk it twenty feet lower, and added a pile of dirty looking ore to the original half-obliterated heap about the collar of the shaft.