nd all the world.

He built up a staff as rapidly as it could be put together and
correlated with the tasks before it. He had sent in advance for two or
three men he had worked with in America and for some of his most able
and dependable associates in West Australia, including Agnew, a mill
expert, and Newbery, a metallurgist, son of a famous geologist, both of
them devoted to "the Chief." That was Hoover's _sobriquet_ among his
early mining associates; just as it was later among the members of his
successive great war-time organizations. He has just naturally--not
artificially--always been "the Chief" among his co-workers and
associates.

His Caucasian staff of perhaps a dozen was greatly overshadowed in
number by his Chinese staff, composed chiefly of semitechnical
assistants, draftsmen, surveyors' assistants, interpreters, etc. A few
of the Chinese helpers had had foreign training; there was one from
Yale, for example, and another from Rose Polytechnic; the latter so
devoted to American baseball that he was greatly disappointed in the new
Director of Mines when he found he was not a baseball player. But he
thought better of him when he learned that he had at least managed his
college team. The staff had its headquarters in Tientsin, where were
also the principal laboratories for the mineralogists, assayers, and
chemists. Some of the men gave their time to the technical work, and
others were engaged in collecting and correlating everything that had
been published in the foreign languages about the geology and mines' of
China, while Chinese scholars hunted down and translated into English
all that had been printed in Chinese literature. But the Director and
most of his immediate experienced assistants were chiefly occupied with
the exploring expeditions into the interior and the examination of the
old mines and new prospects. Especially did some immediate attention
have to be given to the mines already being actually worked, for the
Minister let it be known that he expected the new Director to pay the
way of the Department as soon as possible from the increased proceeds of
the mines which were to arise from the magic touch of the foreign
experts.

These expeditions were elaborate affairs, contrasting strangely with
Hoover's earlier experiences in America and Australia. The Chinese
major-domo in charge insisted that the make-up and appearance of the
outfit should reflect the high estate of the Director of Mines, so t