They retired to the wooden bunks Salter had placed at their disposal; and early the next morning they left the mine. Vane got his hand dressed when they reached the little mining town at the head of the railroad, and on the following day they arrived in Vancouver.
CHAPTER XXI
VANE YIELDS A POINT
The short afternoon was drawing toward its close when Vane came out of a large building in the city. Glancing at his watch, he stopped on the steps.
"The meeting went pretty satisfactorily, taking it all round," he remarked to Carroll.
"I think so," agreed his companion. "But I'm far from sure that Horsfield was pleased with the stockholders' decision."
Vane smiled in a thoughtful manner. After returning from the mine, he had gone inland to examine a new irrigation property in which he had been asked to take an interest, and had got back only in time for a meeting of the Clermont shareholders, which Nairn had arranged in his absence. The meeting, of the kind that is sometimes correctly described as extraordinary, was just over, and though Vane had been forced to yield to a majority on some points, he had secured the abandonment of a proposition he considered dangerous.
"Though I don't see what the man could have gained by it, I'm inclined to believe that if Nairn and I had been absent he'd have carried his total reconstruction scheme. That wouldn't have pleased me."
"I thought it injudicious."
"It was only because we must raise more money that I agreed to the issue of the new block of shares," Vane went on. "We ought to pay a fair dividend on the moderate sum in question."