'It depends on what you want,' I said. 'At the moment this is the life I want — just sailing. But once you've known the thrill of opening up a mine — well, it gets you. It isn't the money. It's the sheer excitement of handling the thing. I did it once, out in Canada, where I struck lucky in nickel. It's the sense of power, the fun of seeing problems coming at you from every direction and mastering them.'
He nodded. 'Yes, I can understand that,' he said slowly. Then he frowned. 'What puzzles me,' he went on, 'is how Farnell was able to produce samples of ore. I can understand that a good metal diviner can locate a seam. But to produce samples — I should have thought that would have required machinery.'
It was a good point. 'That puzzled me at first,' I said.
'I can only suggest that the ore itself had been uncovered by ice erosion. His samples may even have been found in the rubble at the foot of a glacier.'
'I see,' he said. 'But it still seems to me that you and Jorgensen are placing too much reliance on discoveries that arc quite unproved.'
'No,' I said. 'No, I don't think so. Farnell was in a class by himself. Before dispatching samples he would have taken into account the geological nature of the ground as well as his own divining results. He won't have slipped up on anything. Jorgensen knows that. If we combined, he and I could clean up a lot of money.'
He looked at me with a lift of his eyebrows. 'You don't mean to say you're going to accept his offer?'
'No,' I said, laughing. 'But the choice is not as clear cut as it would be in your case. I don't owe allegiance to anyone. I'm my own master.'
'What will you do, then?'
'Oh, I'll play the hand in my own way — if my cards are good enough.' I got up and went out on deck. I'd let my thoughts run away with me. I stood by the rail and looked out across the darkening sea towards Norway. Go west, young man. Well, I'd been west and found nickel. Now I was looking east and wondering whether this cold, snow-clad country might not be the land of opportunity. Farnell had had that urge. He'd let nothing stand in his way — he'd stolen and deserted and fought because of the call of the minerals there under the mountains. The same urge was in me — the same thrill of excitement. And I had something more than Farnell — I had the ability to organise and develop the mineral when I found it.