is pocket he
visits the mouth of the shaft, intending to descend. As he approaches
it, a skip containing several men comes to the surface. When they
emerge into daylight they are yelling in delirious excitement. One of
them leaps out and runs towards him, shouting incoherently. It is Mike
Connell.

What had gone wrong? Has there been some terrible accident
underground?

"We've struck it, Mister Peril! We've struck the vein, and it's the
richest ever knowed!" yells the Irishman. "Here's a specimen. Did ever
you see the like? It's gold--nothing less! Hooray for us! Hooray for
the Princess! and hooray for Nell Trefethen, that'll be Mrs. Michael
Connell this day week, plaze God!"

A few minutes later every cottage in the settlement holds specimens of
the wonderful rock glistening with glowing metal. Every man is
cheering himself hoarse. The great steam-whistle is shrieking out the
glorious news, and Richard Peveril, with heavy pockets, is riding like
mad in the direction of Red Jacket. The Copper Princess--a royal name
for a royal mine--has at last entered as a power the ranks of the
world's wealth-yielding properties.

CHAPTER XXX

PEVERIL ACQUIRES AN UNSHARED INTEREST

An autumn evening two years later finds Richard Peveril seated in the
smoking-room of the University, the most thoroughly home-like and
comfortable of all New York clubs. He has dined alone, and now, with a
tiny cup of black coffee on the stand beside him, is reflectively
smoking his after-dinner cigar.

This is his first visit to the East since he left it, more than two
years before, almost penniless and wellnigh friendless, on a search
for a mine that he was assured would prove worthless when found. Today
that same mine is yielding an enormous revenue, of which he receives
one-quarter, or a sum vastly in excess of his simple needs, for he is
still a bachelor, acting as manager of the Copper Princess, and still
makes his home in the little mining settlement on the shore of the
great Western lake.

A fortune twice as large as his own, and derived from the same source,
lies idle in the vaults of a trust company awaiting a claimant who
cannot be found. Her name is Mary Darrell, and though from the very
first Peveril has guarded her interests more jealously than his own,
and though he has made every effort to discover her, her fortune still
awaits its owner.

He has not only been disappointed at the non-success of his efforts in
this dire