"Then I'll undertake it," he said, with a little vibration in his voice.
Devine looked hard at him again. "Feel sure you can do it? You'll want good nerves."
"I think I can," said Brooke, with a quietness the other man appreciated.
"Then you can go down to the Mineral Development's new shaft, where they have one of those tramways working, and see how they swing their ore across the valley. I'll give you a line to the manager. Start when you're ready."
Devine said nothing further as they turned back towards the mine, but Brooke felt that the bargain was already made. His companion was not the man to haggle over non-essentials, but one who knew what he wanted and usually went straight to the point. Brooke left him presently, and, turning off where the flume climbed to the dam, came upon Jimmy, tranquilly leaning upon his shovel while he watched the two or three men who toiled waist-deep in water.
"I was kind of wondering whether she wouldn't be stiffer with another log or two in that framing?" he said, in explanation.
"Of course!" said Brooke, drily. "It's more restful than shovelling. Still, that's my affair, and you'll have to rustle more and wonder less. I'm going to leave you in charge here."
Jimmy grinned. "Then I guess the way that dam will grow will astonish you when you come back again. Where're you going to?"
Brooke told him, and Jimmy contemplated the forest reflectively.
"Well," he said, "nobody who saw you at the ranch would ever have figured you had snap enough to put a contract of that kind through. Still, you have me behind you."