"I will engage that not a penny shall be unprofitably spent," said Andrew. "If the thing prove a failure, I will bear the expense."

No one spoke for a few moments, and then Robert looked up.

"I feel that we are ent.i.tled to ask for a few particulars," he said.

"There we must disagree," Andrew replied. "If I am right about the lode, you and the other shareholders will be told all you wish to know; if I am wrong, the loss will be mine."

They were puzzled by his resolute air. He was placing himself at a disadvantage by refusing an explanation, but this did not seem to trouble him. He had all along adopted a strangely masterful tone, without a hint of doubt or hesitation.

"I hardly think you are treating us fairly by keeping us in the dark,"

Robert protested.

Andrew smiled.

"Then I must ask your forbearance. I was given full authority as a director when I went to Canada, and I must try to use it as I think best for the shareholders' benefit. Moreover, it cannot be rescinded until the next general meeting of the Company. When that is held, I shall be ready to give an account of what I have done."

"Then it looks as if we had been brought here for nothing," Mrs.

Fenwood complained.

"Hardly so. You have learned that the mine cannot be profitably worked on the present system and that I am making changes which may improve the Company's prospects. You have had an opportunity for condemning my policy, which you have not done. I venture to believe you are reserving your judgment, which is all I can ask."

There was a pause for the next few moments. Andrew had changed his tone to one of grave appeal, and as he leaned back, waiting, with the light of the candles on his face, it struck one or two of them that he looked very much like his father, who had retrieved and added to the fortunes of the firm. Robert glanced at him in frank sympathy, which touched Andrew, for he had not expected it. Then Leonard broke the silence.

"Andrew is asking you to trust him with extensive powers; in fact, he demands something of the nature of a blank check, without explaining what use he means to make of it. I willingly admit that the position he holds by right is a strong one, and we have no direct means of restraining him; his interest in the firm gives him more authority than any of us individually holds. For all that, it must be remembered that he could not stand against the unanimous family vote, and I have no doubt he will agree that you are now called upon to act as a kind of informal jury. Whatever course you decide on the directors must adopt. Your position is accordingly a serious and important one.

Andrew is young and inexperienced; the affairs of a Company like the Rain Bluff demand careful and skilful handling."

"Leonard has stated the situation fairly. I have nothing to add,"

Andrew said quietly.

His relatives hesitated, looking irresolute, with the exception of Florence and Mrs. Fenwood, who regarded Andrew with distrustful severity. After a few moments Wannop addressed them.

"My suggestion is that we do nothing at present, but wait, as Andrew asks, until a meeting of the shareholders is held, when he must give a full account of his plans. Then we will see our course more clearly; but if he finds he can take us into his confidence sooner, so much the better."

Florence and Mrs. Fenwood dissented, but the others acquiesced, including Leonard, who knew how far it was prudent to go, and the party broke up. Andrew, however, remained in his place, and Leonard lingered to light a cigarette.

"I must congratulate you," he said. "You handled the thing better than one could have antic.i.p.ated. I suppose you are going back shortly, to look for the lode?"

"I am going back. I cannot tell you what I shall do until I arrive."

Leonard winced.

"You're not disposed to be confidential, but I won't complain of that." He added quietly: "Be careful, Andrew; it's easy to make trouble, and hard to put it right. You haven't accomplished much yet, and there are serious difficulties ahead."

"That's true," admitted Andrew with a direct glance. "I am, however, not making trouble. It's all round me and must be grappled with."

"Then I wish you luck," said Leonard, and went out.

Andrew lighted a cigar; he deeply distrusted Leonard, whose confederate, perhaps with his knowledge, had plotted to starve him to death; it was irksome that he should be forced to treat the man as an honored guest. Of late he had been subject to fits of savage anger as he remembered how his attempt to find the lode was thwarted. So far as it was possible, he must play out the game correctly in accordance with conventional rules. His relatives would insist on this; an outbreak would shock them and cost him their support. Nevertheless, it was hard to dissemble and treat Leonard courteously.

Flinging his cigar into the grate, Andrew rose with a frown. His brother-in-law was right: there was trouble ahead. He had not only Leonard but the unscrupulous Mappin to grapple with.

CHAPTER XXV

A DELICATE POINT

The afternoon was drawing to a close when Andrew, Olcott, and a friend of the latter's, carrying guns and spread out in line, entered a stretch of rough, boggy pasture near the river. Clumps of reeds and rushes grew along the open drains, water gleamed among the gra.s.s, and the bare trees on the high bank across the stream stood out sharp and black against a glow of saffron light. The men were wet to the knees, and a white setter, splashed with mire, trotted in front of them.

Murray, Olcott's friend, who was on Andrew's right, sprang across a broad drain and laughed when he alighted.

"Over my boots, but my feet can't get any wetter," he remarked. "I don't know that this is a judicious amus.e.m.e.nt after being invalided home from the tropics; but it looks a likely place for a mallard."

Allinson had met Murray for the first time that morning, and noticed that the man, a government official in a West African colony, looked at him rather intently when they were introduced. They had, however, spent a pleasant day, and Andrew was going to Olcott's to dinner.

"I'm afraid the plover will put up any ducks there are about," he said. "They're a nuisance and you're not allowed to shoot them here.

It will be bad to keep our line over this rough ground."

Four or five lapwings, screaming shrilly, wheeled in wide circles overhead, showing sharply black and white as the light struck them, and fading into indistinct gray patches as they turned in erratic flight. The men advanced cautiously, searching the ground with eager eyes, and keeping their positions as closely as possible. This was needful for the safety of the party in case a bird got up and crossed their line of march, when the right to first shot would be determined by the code of shooting etiquette.

Andrew was plodding through a belt of rush with a plover circling close above his head when the setter, after creeping slowly forward for a few paces, suddenly stopped. Then a small gray object sprang up from a drain and Andrew threw his gun to his shoulder. He dropped it the next moment, with a low call to Murray:

"Your bird!"

The snipe had swung a little to the right in its swift flight, swerving in sharp corkscrew twists, and Murray's gun twice flashed.

The bird, however, held on and faded against the dusky background of the river bank. Murray stopped and turned to Andrew with a laugh.

"I'm afraid I'm hardly up to snipe," he said. "It's a pity you were generous enough to give me the shot."

"It was yours by right."

"That," Murray disputed, "is an open point. If I had been in your place and could have hit the bird, I wouldn't have let it go. However, if the firing hasn't made them wild, you may get another chance."

The sun had sunk behind the tall bank and the pale yellow light that lingered was confusing when the setter flushed a second snipe, which went away at long range in front of Andrew. During a part of each quick gyration he could not see it, but when it was outlined for a second, black against the light, his gun flashed and the bird fell among the reeds. When the setter had found it Murray looked surprised.

"Considering the bad light and the distance, it was a remarkably clean shot," he said. "I expected to see that you had hit it with only a stray pellet or two."

"I used the left barrel," Andrew explained, smiling. "It's a half-choke; an old gun. That accounts for the charge hanging together."

"It doesn't account for your killing your bird at a long range with shot which wouldn't spread. But it's getting dark and we've had enough."

They turned back to the nearest road, and an hour or two after reaching home Andrew walked across to Olcott's. Ethel Hillyard was there, and when they went into dinner Murray, sitting next to her, glanced at Andrew near the other end of the table.

"I was out with Mr. Allinson to-day," he said. "As he's a neighbor of yours, I've no doubt you know him pretty well. He struck me as a particularly straight man."

"He is so," declared Ethel warmly. "I don't know a straighter. Still, I don't see how you came to that conclusion by watching his shooting."

"It doesn't seem very obvious," Murray responded with a smile.