"This is a pleasant surprise, Mr. Haynes! And you, Mr. Ellsworth, and you, Mr. Hippen."
"And we're equally surprised to find you here, Reade, and you, Hazelton," rejoined President Haynes. "But we feel more at home, already. You know, Reade, we're quite accustomed to looking upon anything as an assured success when you're connected with it."
"And, in its way, this mine is the biggest success we've backed yet," Tom declared readily.
Don Luis Montez, though he was keenly watchful, was delighted so far.
"What do you really think of this mine, Reade?" broke in Mr. Ellsworth.
"Is it all that a careful investor would want?"
"If you're getting what I think you are," Tom answered, "you're getting a lot more, even, than you might be led to expect. El Sombrero, if it includes the limits that I suppose the tract does, will be worth a great deal more than you are paying for it."
"The limits?" asked Mr. Ellsworth, keenly. "Don't you really know, Reade, what the limits of the property are?"
"Why, that is a matter to which I haven't given much attention, so far," answered Tom, with disarming candor. "But, if we can have a map of this part of the country, I'll quickly mark off the limits on which I think you should insist."
Don Luis caught at this readily.
"My good Carlos," Don Luis directed, turning to his secretary, "place in Senor Reade's hands a map of this part of the country."