When completed there was to all appearance a pig of black copper or copper matte worth commercially $18 or $20. In truth there was a gold bar worth $40,000, which a few minutes’ work with a cold chisel would release.
The gold bars intended for open shipment were cast one-half the size of those intended for imprisonment in the copper pigs. Of these small bars Morning had eight prepared each day, making the ostensible yield of the mill and mine $160,000 per day, or about $4,000,000 per month. Of the large bars he had eighty prepared each day, which were shipped as copper pigs. Their real value was about $4,000,000 per diem, or $100,000,000 per month. These were allowed to accumulate in the warehouse at Rillito Station until Morning should procure suitable places for their deposit in Eastern cities.
On the 1st of August, 1893, everything had been running smoothly for several weeks, and gold shipments amounting to millions had been made. Morning concluded that the running of the mill and mine no longer required his personal attention, while his projects demanded his presence at the great financial centers. Robert Steel was in full possession of the plans of his friend and employer, who, leaving everything in his charge, bade good-by to all and departed for Tucson to take the train for the East.
CHAPTER IX.
“And then hid the key in a bundle of letters.”
From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.
Berlin, March 18, 1893.
My Dear Mother: Really I hardly feel equal to a detailed description of our trip over the ocean. Why is it that I remember only the painful things about our journey? Surely there were pleasant people, cultivated men and graceful women, such as one always meets in these days of free interchange between different nations. But I have observed that some temperaments catch first and make most visible the shadows upon the landscape. Much as I love the hues and tints of the changeful waters, I seem to remember only the rolling ship, and between me and the thought of the blue skies and the splendid sunsets which I would have carried away as a treasured memory, comes some trifling but harassing recollection. So narrow and individual is the composing-stone upon which our impressions are made up.
I assume, dear mother, that you remember our serious conversation that last night before my marriage, as, sitting upon my couch and looking into my sleepy eyes, you half chided me for that which you called—for want of a better term—indifference.
Pardon me, ’tis a word with a sex. A woman may love, she may hate, she may dissemble, but, pose as she will, there is no profile in her passion. I do not deny I am going to school to my own heart. I am honestly endeavoring to follow your advice. I am learning to love. Let me say in the beginning it is a mistake to believe that men love deeply. If ever they do, the object of their passion is themselves. Is this a sound foundation to build domestic faith upon? However, as I have said, I shall try very earnestly to do my part.
The baron told me this morning that as Americans were a nation of plebeians, I would naturally suffer many disabilities even as the Baroness Von Eulaw, to which I replied rather hotly that honor and courage required no purple swaddlings to hide their proportions, and that we Americans sprang full created from the brain of regenerate thought, whereupon his manly fist gathered muscle for a moment, then as speedily relaxed, and he only slammed the door of his dressing-room between us. Believe me, my dear mother, I was very sorry for the scene, and I have no excuse to offer save the gaping wound to my patriotism, which I find much more sensitive over here than at home.