illages, marked the sites of
copper-mines. Finally, as darkness began to shroud the uninteresting
landscape, the train entered the environs of a wide-spread and
populous community, where huge mine buildings reared themselves from
surrounding acres of the small but comfortable dwellings of
North-country miners. Everywhere shone electric lights, and everywhere
was a swarming population.

Peveril gazed from his car window in astonishment. "What place is
this?" he asked.

"Red Jacket," answered his companion. "That is, it is Red Jacket, Blue
Jacket, Yellow Jacket, Stone Pipe, Osceola, White Pine, and several
other mining villages bunched together and holding in all about
twenty-five thousand people."

"Whew! and I expected to find a place of not over one thousand
inhabitants."

"You don't know much about the copper country, that's a fact," said
Tom Trefethen, with the slight air of superiority that residents of a
place are so apt to assume towards strangers. "Why, a single company
here employs as many as three thousand men."

"I am willing to admit my ignorance," rejoined Peveril, "but I am also
very anxious to learn things, and hope in course of time to rank as a
first-class miner. Therefore, any information you can give me will be
gratefully received. To begin with, I wish you would tell me the name
of some hotel where my grip will serve as security for a few days'
board and lodging."

"A hotel, Mr. Peril! You can't be feeling so very poor if you are
thinking of going to a hotel. Or perhaps you don't know how expensive
our Red Jacket hotels are. You see, there is always such a rush of
business here that prices are way up. Why, they don't think anything
of charging two dollars a day; and they get it, too--don't give you
anything extra in the way of grub, either. I can do lots better than
that for you, though. There's a-plenty of boarding-houses here that'll
fix you up in great shape for five a week. You just wait here at the
station a few minutes while I go and look up one that I know of."

Without waiting for a reply Tom Trefethen hurried from the train,
which was just coming to a stop at the bustling Red Jacket station,
and disappeared in the crowd of spectators who had gathered to witness
its arrival. Peveril followed more slowly, and, depositing the
handsome dress-suit case that he had learned to call a "grip" in a
vacant corner of the platform, prepared to await the return of his
only acquaintance in all tha