It was not until the third day of the week that Adair came ambling into
Copah, riding a cart mule from Frisbie's camp. To his sister and his
aunt the young man told everything; to his uncle nothing. Between gasps
in the speculative frenzy Mr. Colbrith found time to complain bitterly
to his nephew of Ford's defection.

"It was dastardly!" he shrilled. "We had some words; I don't deny that
we had some words. But he was most unreasonable. He should have gone
about his business and let me have time to consider. Here are thousands
of people pouring into this place, everything at famine prices, no
supplies for our miners, no railroad to bring them. What's this I hear
about an accident at Horse Creek? Why isn't Ford on the ground attending
to his railroad building and straightening things out? Have I got to
forfeit the money-making chance of a lifetime and go and drag that track
into Copah with my own hands?"

Adair seemed suddenly to have lost his tongue, which was certainly glib
enough ordinarily. All he would say was that the engineering department
was still at work, he believed; that the track was approaching Copah,
slowly, perhaps, but pretty surely.

"But without a head!" snapped the irate president. "Ford is a traitor to
the company. Tell him so from me, sir, if you know where he is
skulking."

Adair did tell Ford, circumstantially, when he rode the cart mule out of
town the next morning and met the young engineer at the head of a
tremendously augmented track force, rushing the rails around the
swelling hills on the approach to the mining-camp-city.

"Oh, he's still up in the air," laughed the director, when he had
repeated the president's wrathful outburst. "Frantic because the road
isn't finished; frantic because he can't get in on all the ground-floors
in all the mining deals; frantic some more because he has to live in a
shack hotel while he has a private car and a good cook, as he thinks,
only a few miles away. Which reminds me: the '01' has a pretty good
cook, and the incomparible Johnson,--don't let them escape. Have you
sent the Nadia back to Denver for repairs?"

"Yes; Frisbie went over in it this morning."

"Frisbie?"

"Yes, I had to let him go. Word came from Leckhard as soon as we got the
wire reestablished, which was late last night. North was taken suddenly
ill the day after the explosion. He resigned at once by wire to the
executive committee in New York, and two days later he took a steamer
fro