"If you consider Blake sufficiently reliable, you can give him detailed instructions and send him up to take charge."
"How about Ashton's contract?"
"He'll be satisfied with the glory. Reports will continue to name him as Resident Engineer. If he won't listen to reason, I'll ask his father to drop him a line. The young fool has had his allowance cut twice already. He'd consider his pay as engineer a bare pittance."
"Heir to the Ashton millions, eh?" croaked Griffith.
"If I know George Ashton, he has a good safe will drawn, providing that his fortune is to be held in trust. That fool boy won't have any chance to squander more than his allowance,—and he won't keep me now from paying off this obligation to Blake."
"Perhaps not. I'm not so sure, though, that Tom will—One thing's certain. He won't go up to Michamac right away."
"He won't? Why not? It's just the time for him to get the run of things, now while there's no work going on."
"He'd catch on quick enough. It's not that. Fact is, he's got hold of something a lot bigger, and I know he'll not quit till he has either won out or it has downed him. Never knew of but one thing that ever downed him."
Mr. Leslie glared at the engineer, his face reddening with rage.
"Something bigger!" he repeated. "So the fellow has bragged about it!"