“Unquestionably. And it apexes in my property.”
“Are you so sure of that?”
“Not a doubt in the world. I struck the top of the vein twelve feet below the surface. But it will never go to the courts.”
“Of course not.”
Gregory, who looked remote, almost blank, lost not an intonation of the other man’s voice, nor a flickering gleam in his cunning eyes. His own head was a little on one side, which, had Mr. Robinson had the good fortune to know him better, would have warned him that the young man for whom he had conceived a certain respect was thinking hard and to some purpose.
Douglas, who had a personal liking for his neighbor, unaware that he had been the chief instrument in the upsetting of skillful plans for untold wealth, readily gave permission to visit the mine as soon as the smoke from a recent blast would permit. Gregory and Mr. Robinson walked about to keep warm, the former pointing out the probability of a faulted ore vein under the aspens, and enlarging upon the great fortune bound to be Mrs. Blake’s in any case. Then as the man merely remarked, “Yes, charming woman, Mrs. Blake; thought the night of the Prom she was one of the prettiest women I ever saw. No dead easy game there”; Gregory refrained from kicking him and said innocently.
“Good thing the law compels creditors to present their claims within a limited time, or Amalgamated might grab this mine and bore through to my hill. I understand Judge Stratton was heavily in debt to the Anaconda Company when he died.”
Mr. Robinson’s face turned a deep brick-red, and he shot a piercing glance into the narrow noncommittal eyes opposite.
“Of course—it’s too late for that, but—Oh, well——” He broke off abruptly and walked toward the shaft as Osborne beckoned. Gregory stood a moment, his head bent forward. He had experienced the sensation of coming into contact with an electrical wave. But he was smiling pleasantly as he joined his guest at the shaft house.
After the visit to the mine, during which he amiably pointed out the dip of the vein toward his own property, and Mr. Robinson succumbed to the charm which never missed fire when Gregory chose to exert it, they walked back to the ranch, where a team awaited the ambassador at the foot of the hill.