“Bridal party? Whose? Not Morning’s?”
“Haven’t you heard of it? Why, the papers have been full of it for days. He was married yesterday, in Boston, to the Baroness Von Eulaw.”
“Well,” said the stranger, “I only arrived this morning from Arizona. I am the superintendent of his mine there, and am here on business of importance. He will be mightily disappointed if I don’t see him. Suppose you send word to him that Bob Steel is here and wants to see him before he sails. I reckon he’ll give orders to admit me.”
The request of Steel was complied with, and directions given for his admittance. After exchanging greetings with Morning and being presented to the bride, Steel stated that he had business of importance to communicate. The whistle had sounded “all ashore,” and the guests were rapidly departing. Morning quietly instructed the captain not to have the lines cast off until he should have finished his interview with Steel, and then, summoning the latter to follow him into a private salon, said:—
“Well, Bob, what is it?”
“Mr. Morning,” replied Steel, “the news ain’t good, but it is so important I did not dare to trust to mail or wire, so I left the mine in charge of Mr. Fabian, and came on myself. We didn’t find no ore last month on the new level at two hundred feet, and I set three shifts to work at every station, and—I’m afraid to tell you the result.”
“Out with it, Bob. I was married yesterday, and you can’t tell me any news bad enough to hurt me much.”
“Well, Mr. Morning, there ain’t no ore in the mine below the one hundred and fifty feet level. The quartz has come to an end. We are at the bed rock, and the syenite is as solid and close-grained as the basalt wall where we did our first work, you and I, blasting with the Papago Indians.”
Morning whistled. “How much do we lack, Bob, of the $2,400,000,000 I donated to the United States?”
“About eight hundred millions, sir; but there is more than enough ore not stoped out in the upper levels to pay that twice over. We have seventeen hundred millions at least.”