"Would you know yourself, Jack, what the property was worth,--that is, do you feel yourself competent to pa.s.s upon its value?" asked Peter, lifting his gla.s.s to his lips. He was getting back to his normal condition now.

"Yes, to a certain extent, and if I fail, Mr. MacFarlane will help me out. He was superintendent of the Rockford Mines for five years. He received his early training there,--but there is no use talking about it, Uncle Peter. I only told you to let you see how the same old thing is going on day after day at Uncle Arthur's. If it isn't Mukton, it's Ginsing, or Black Royal, or some other gas bag."

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing,--not in all the hour I talked with him. He did the talking; I did the listening."

"I hope you were courteous to him, my boy?"

"I was,--particularly so."

"He wants your property, does he?" ruminated Peter, rolling a crumb of bread between his thumb and forefinger. "I wonder what's up? He has made some bad breaks lately and there were ugly rumors about the house for a time. He has withdrawn his account from the Exeter and so I've lost sight of all of his transactions." Here a new idea seemed to strike him: "Did he seem very anxious about getting hold of the land?"

A queer smile played about Jack's lips:

"He seemed NOT to be, but he was"

"You're sure?"

"Very sure; and so would you be if you knew him as well as I do. I have heard him talk that way to dozens of men and then brag how he'd 'covered his tracks,' as he used to call it."

"Then, Jack," exclaimed Peter in a decided tone, "there is something in it. What it is you will find out before many weeks, but something. I will wager you he has not only had your t.i.tle searched but has had test holes driven all over your land. These fellows stop at nothing. Let him alone for a while and keep him guessing. When he writes to you again to come and see him, answer that you are too busy, and if he adds a word about the ore beds tell him you have withdrawn them from the market.

In the meantime I will have a talk with one of our directors who has an interest, so he told me, in a new steel company up in the c.u.mberland Mountains, somewhere near your property, I believe. He may know something of what's going on, if anything is going on."

Jack's eyes blazed. Something going on! Suppose that after all he and Ruth would not have to wait. Peter read his thoughts and laid his hand on Jack's wrist:

"Keep your toes on the earth, my boy:--no balloon ascensions and no bubbles,--none of your own blowing. They are bad things to have burst in your hands--four hands now, remember, with Ruth's. If there's any money in your c.u.mberland ore bank, it will come to light without your help.

Keep still and say nothing, and don't you sign your name to a piece of paper as big as a postage stamp until you let me see it."

Here Peter looked at his watch and rose from the table.

"Time's up, my boy. I never allow myself but an hour at luncheon, and I am due at the bank in ten minutes. Thank you, Auguste,--and Auguste!

please tell Botti the spaghetti was delicious. Come, Jack."

It was when he held Ruth in his arms that same afternoon--behind the door, really,--she couldn't wait until they reached the room,--that Jack whispered in her astonished and delighted ears the good news of the expected check from Garry's committee.

"And daddy won't lose anything; and he can take the new work!" she cried joyously. "And we can all go up to the mountains together! Oh, Jack!--let me run and tell daddy!"

"No, my darling,--not a word, Garry had no business to tell me what he did; and it might leak out and get him into trouble:--No, don't say a word. It is only a few days off. We shall all know next week."

He had led her to the sofa, their favorite seat.

"And now I am going to tell you something that would be a million times better than Garry's check if it were only true,--but it isn't."

"Tell me, Jack,--quick!" Her lips were close to his.

"Uncle Arthur wants to buy my ore lands."

"Buy your--And we are going to be--married right away! Oh, you darling Jack!"

"Wait,--wait, my precious, until I tell you!" She did not wait, and he did not want her to. Only when he could loosen her arms from his neck did he find her ear again, then he poured into it the rest of the story.

"But, oh, Jack!--wouldn't it be lovely if it were true,--and just think of all the things we could do."

"Yes,--but it Isn't true."

"But just suppose it WAS, Jack! You would have a horse of your own and we'd build the dearest little home and--"

"But it never can be true, blessed,--not out of the c.u.mberland property--" protested Jack.

"But, Jack! Can't we SUPPOSE? Why, supposing is the best fun in the world. I used to suppose all sorts of things when I was a little girl.

Some of them came true, and some of them didn't, but I had just as much fun as if they HAD all come true."

"Did you ever suppose ME?" asked Jack. He knew she never had,--he wasn't worth it;--but what difference did it make what they talked about!

"Yes,--a thousand times. I always knew, my blessed, that there was somebody like you in the world somewhere,--and when the girls would break out and say ugly things of men,--all men,--I just knew they were not true of everybody. I knew that you would come--and that I should always look for you until I found you! And now tell me! Did you suppose about me, too, you darling Jack?"

"No,--never. There couldn't be any supposing;--there isn't any now. It's just you I love, Ruth,--you,--and I love the 'YOU' in you--That's the best part of you."

And so they talked on, she close in his arms, their cheeks together; building castles of rose marble and ivory, laying out gardens with vistas ending in summer sunsets; dreaming dreams that lovers only dream.

CHAPTER XXIV

The check "struck" MacFarlane just as the chairman had said it would, wiping out his losses by the flood with something ahead for his next undertaking.

That the verdict was a just one was apparent from the reports of both McGowan's and the Railroad Company's experts. These showed that the McGowan mortar held but little cement, and that not of the best; that the backing of the masonry was composed of loose rubble instead of split stone, and that the collapse of his structure was not caused by the downpour, but by the caving in of culverts and spillways, which were built of materials in direct violation of the provisions of the contract. Even then there might have been some doubt as to the outcome but for Holker Morris's testimony. He not only sent in his report, but appeared himself, he told the Council, so as to answer any questions Mr.

McGowan or his friends might ask. He had done this, as he said openly at the meeting, to aid his personal friend, Mr. MacFarlane, and also that he might raise his voice against the slipshod work that was being done by men who either did not know their business or purposely evaded their responsibilities. "This construction of McGowan's," he continued, "is especially to be condemned, as there is not the slightest doubt that the contractor has intentionally slighted his work--a neglect which, but for the thorough manner in which MacFarlane had constructed the lower culvert, might have resulted in the loss of many lives."

McGowan snarled and sputtered, denouncing Garry and his "swallow-tails"

in the bar rooms and at the board meetings, but the decision was unanimous, two of his friends concurring, fearing, as they explained afterward, that the "New York crowd" might claim even a larger sum in a suit for damages.

The meeting over, Morris and Jack dined with MacFarlane and again the distinguished architect won Ruth's heart by the charm of his personality, she telling Jack the next day that he was the only OLD MAN--fifty was old for Ruth--she had ever seen with whom she could have fallen in love, and that she was not sure after all but that Jack was too young for her, at which there was a great scrimmage and a blind-man's-buff chase around the table, up the front stairs and into the corner by the window, where she was finally caught, smothered in kisses and made to correct her arithmetic.

This ghost of damages having been laid--it was buried the week after Jack had called on his uncle--the Chief, the First a.s.sistant, and Bangs, the head foreman, disappeared from Corklesville and reappeared at Morfordsburg.

The Chief came to select a site for the entrance of the shaft; the First a.s.sistant came to compare certain maps and doc.u.ments, which he had taken from the trunk he had brought with him from his Maryland home, with the archives resting in the queer old courthouse; while Foreman Bangs was to help with the level and target, should a survey be found necessary.

The faded-out old town clerk looked Jack all over when he asked to see the duplicate of a certain deed, remarking, as he led the way to the Hall of Records,--it was under a table in the back room,--"Reckon there's somethin' goin' on jedgin' from the way you New Yorkers is lookin' into ore lands up here. There come a lawyer only last month from a man named Breen, huntin' up this same property."

The comparisons over and found to be correct, "starting from a certain stone marked 'B' one hundred and eighty-seven feet East by South," etc., etc., the whole party, including a small boy to help carry the level and target and a reliable citizen who said he could find the property blindfold--and who finally collapsed with a "Goll darn!--if I know where I'm at!"--the five jumped onto a mud-encrusted vehicle and started for the site.

Up hill and down hill, across one stream and then another; through the dense timber and into the open again. Here their work began, Jack handling the level (his Chief had taught him), Bangs holding the target, MacFarlane taking a squint now and then so as to be sure,--and then the final result,--to wit:--First, that the Maryland Company's property, Arthur Breen & Co., agents, lay under a hill some two miles from Morfordsburg; that Jack's lay some miles to the south of Breen's.

Second, that outcroppings showed the Maryland Mining Company's ore dipped, as the Senior Breen had said, to the east, and third, that similar outcroppings showed Jack's dipped to the west.

And so the airy bubble filled with his own and Ruth's iridescent hopes,--a bubble which had floated before him as he tramped through the cool woods, and out upon the hillside, vanished into thin air.