"I judge, from what you say, that the mine gives encouragement," he ventured, eying his host curiously through a cloud of tobacco smoke.
"'Encouragement' is not the word. Before many years 'Hope Consolidated' will be listed on the exchanges of the world along with 'Amalgamated' and the other great producers. We have here, Mr. O'Neil, a tremendous mountain of ore, located at tide water, on one of the world's finest harbors. The climate is superb; we have coal near at hand for our own smelter. The mine only requires systematic development under competent hands."
"I was in Cortez when Lars Anderson made his first discovery here, and I had an option on all this property. I believe the price was twelve hundred dollars; at any rate, it was I who drove those tunnels you found when you bought him out."
Gordon's eyes wavered briefly, then he laughed.
"My dear sir, you have my sincere sympathy. Your poison, my meat—as it were, eh? You became discouraged too soon. Another hundred feet of work and you would have been justified in paying twelve hundred thousand dollars. This 'Eldorado' which the Copper Trust has bought has a greater surface showing than 'Hope,' I grant; but—it lies two hundred miles inland, and there is the all-important question of transportation to be solved. The ore will have to be hauled, or smelted on the ground, while we have the Kyak coal-fields at our door. The Heidlemanns are building a railroad to it which will parallel mine in places, but the very nature of their enterprise foredooms it to failure."
"Indeed? How so?"
"My route is the better. By a rigid economy of expenditure, by a careful supervision of detail, I can effect a tremendous saving over their initial cost. I hope to convince them of the fact, and thus induce them to withdraw from the field or take over my road at—a reasonable figure. Negotiations are under way."
At this talk of economy from Curtis Gordon O'Neil refrained from smiling with difficulty. He felt certain that the man's entire operations were as unsound as his statement that he could bring the Trust to terms. Yet Gordon seemed thoroughly in earnest. Either he expected to fool his present hearer, or else he had become hypnotized by the spell of his own magnificent twaddle—O'Neil could not tell which.
"Who laid out your right-of-way?" he asked with some interest.
"A very able young engineer, Dan Appleton. An excellent man, but—unreliable in certain things. I had to let him go, this very afternoon, in fact, for insubordination. But I discharged him more for the sake of discipline than anything else. He'll be anxious to return in a few days. Now tell me"—Gordon fixed his visitor with a bland stare which failed to mask his gnawing curiosity—"what brings you to King Phillip Sound? Are we to be rivals in the railroad field?"