Of the gold which he produced he could ship to the mints openly about one bar in twenty-five. The other twenty-four bars he could keep at the mine until he could build a smelting furnace and manufacture pigs of copper, which should be hollow, and in which gold bars should be concealed, and thus shipped to financial centers, where they could be stored ready for any occasion.
Morning estimated that the production of $100,000,000 per month would require the activity of two hundred stamps, and that with the aid of improved machinery he could reach the ledge and commence the production of gold in about three months. He had now expended for labor, machinery, and supplies about $25,000, and as much more would be required to meet the labor expenses of the next sixty days, while the quartz mills he proposed erecting would require nearly $200,000 more. As the business methods of the railroad company prevented him from keeping his secret, and at the same time realizing any money by shipping ore, he determined to obtain the necessary funds by a sale of his mortgage securities, and, leaving Robert Steel in charge of the work, David Morning departed for Denver.
CHAPTER VII.
“Sick to the soul.”
On his return to Denver, Morning found no difficulty in speedily closing up his business and converting his mortgages into money. In about ten days he was ready to depart for San Francisco, where he intended purchasing the necessary machinery for five mills of forty stamps each. His sole remaining business in Denver was the execution and delivery to the purchaser of a conveyance of some city property which he had sold.
While breakfasting at the Windsor that morning, his appetite was not increased by reading from the Associated Press telegrams the following:—
“MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.
“Boston, February 13, 1893.
“There was celebrated this morning at the residence of the bride’s father, Professor John Thornton, in Roxbury, the nuptials of one of Boston’s greatest heiresses and acknowledged belles, the beautiful and accomplished Miss Ellen Thornton, to the Baron Von Eulaw. The happy couple will sail on the Servia to-morrow, and will proceed directly to Berlin. It is intimated that our fair countrywoman may be restored to us after a season by the appointment of the Baron Von Eulaw as envoy at Washington from the German Empire.”
Forgotten? Ah, no! there are experiences in life that may never be forgotten. Time rolls by, and against the door of the mausoleum where we buried our dead out of sight the years have piled events and emotions and distractions, and the passion which we once thought immortal becomes now an episode, and by and by a dream, and at last a vague and shadowy remembrance, and one day some new and mighty fact stalks forward, and sweeps away all obstructions, and the doors of the tomb are reopened, and the dead of our heart come forth, bringing to us sometimes the joys of life’s morning, and sometimes the bitterness of a new death.
David Morning walked from the hotel to his office without noticing many of the friendly greetings bestowed upon him, for his thoughts were busy with the past, and there was a dull, dead pain tugging at his heart strings.