"PROVE IT!... PROVE IT!"
Sam Bleyer, superintendent of the big Verinder mines, had been up to see his chief at the hotel and was passing the private sitting-room of the Farquhar party when a voice hailed him. He bowed inclusively to Lady Farquhar, Miss Seldon, and Miss Dwight.
"You called me?"
"I did. Are you in a very great hurry?" Joyce flashed her most coquettish smile at him.
"You are never to be in a hurry when Miss Seldon wants you, Bleyer," announced Verinder, following the superintendent into the room.
Bleyer flushed. He was not "a lady's man," as he would have phrased it, but there was an arresting loveliness about Joyce that held the eye.
"You hear my orders, Miss Seldon," he said.
"Awfully good of you, Mr. Verinder," Joyce acknowledged with a swift slant smile toward the mine owner. "Just now I want Mr. Bleyer to be an information bureau."
"Anything I can do," murmured Bleyer.
He was a thin little man with a face as wrinkled as a contour map of South America. Thick glasses rested on a Roman nose in front of nearsighted eyes. Frequently he peered over these in an ineffective manner that suggested a lost puppy in search of a friend. But in spite of his appearance Bleyer was a force in Goldbanks. He knew his business and gave his whole energies to it.