“Quartz or placer?”
“I don't know. Explain.” *
He chuckled at her ignorance. “Quartz is goldbearing rock, and placer is gold-bearing gravel.”
“Then my mining property is placer, because it has lots of sand.”
“I knew it, I knew it,” he warned her solemnly, and he shook an admonitory finger at her. “Black sand, eh? Is the gold very fine?”
“I think it is.”
“Then you're stung good and deep—so don't delude yourself into thinking you have ten thousand dollars coming. I never knew a proposition for saving the fine gold in black sand that didn't turn out to be a fizzle. It's the hardest thing in the world to save. Now, listen: You tell me the name of the flim-flam artist that got you into this deal, and when I get back to the United States I'll investigate the company; if it's an out-and-out swindle, I'll take that promoter by the throat and choke your money out of him, the scoundrel! It is just these fly-by-night fellows that ruin the finest gambling game in the world and scare off investors in legitimate mining propositions.”
“Oh, you mustn't—really, Caliph. He's an old man, and I only did it to help him out.”
“There should be no sentiment in business, Miss Ruey.”
“Oh, well, let's be cheerful and hopeful, Caliph, and discuss a more important subject.” She was very serious now, for by her meddling she had, she realized, so arranged matters that at a time when John Stuart Webster's very life depended upon his immediate departure from Buenaventura, he was planning to stay and face the music, just to be obstinate. “You must reconsider your latest decision to remain in this country,” she insisted. “Your life may be the price of liberty of action, you know.”