Carnally started.
"It's a great plan! Will you want me?"
"Of course! I'd be helpless without you."
"No," Carnally corrected him with a smile. "So far, I've given you hints about things you couldn't be expected to know; but I've taught you all I can, and you take your right place now. You're boss in this new proposition, and I'll be glad to be your second."
"Thank you," said Andrew. "We'll start for the Landing to-morrow and see Graham."
They left the mine at daybreak, and on reaching the town Andrew had first of all an interview with Graham's employer. The president of the lumber company sat at a desk in his office at the mill and listened attentively while Andrew explained the object of his visit. He was an elderly man with a keen but good-humored expression, and once or twice he glanced at Andrew as if surprised. When the latter had finished, the mill-owner took a box from a shelf.
"Have a cigar," he said.
Andrew lighted one and looked round the room. It was dusty and dingy, with a rough board floor; and a cloud of steam from a neighboring stack obscured the light that entered the windows. A rusty stove stood at one end, with a desk near it which Graham had occupied for twenty years.
"So the mine has not turned out all you expected?" commented the lumber-man.
"Far from it," Andrew acknowledged.