t has been rather--unusual," conceded the general with swelling
chest and gently waving dollar-and-a-half-apiece cigar.

"I do so ADMIRE a man who carves out his own fortune," Mrs. Presbury
went on--she had not obeyed her husband's injunction as to the
champagne. "It seems so wonderful to me that a man could with his own
hands just dig a fortune out of the ground."

"He couldn't, ma'am," said the general, with gracious tolerance. "It
wasn't till I stopped the fool digging and hunting around for gold that
I began to get ahead. I threw away the pick and shovel and opened a
hotel." (There were two or three sleeping-rooms of a kind in that
"hotel," but it was rather a saloon of the species known as "doggery.")
"Yes, it was in the hotel that I got my start. The fellows that make
the money in mining countries ain't the prospectors and diggers, ma'am."

"Really!" cried Mrs. Presbury breathlessly. "How interesting!"

"They're fools, they are," proceeded the general. "No, the money's made
by the fellows that grub-stake the fools--give 'em supplies and send
'em out to nose around in the mountains. Then them that find anything
have to give half to the fellow that did the grub-staking. And he
looks into the claim, and if there's anything in it, why, he buys the
fool out. In mines, like everywhere else, ma'am, it ain't work, it's
brains that makes the money. No miner ever made a mining fortune--not
one. It's the brainy, foxy fellows that stay back in the camps. I
used to send out fifty and a hundred men a year. Maybe only two or
three'd turn up anything worth while. No, ma'am, I never got a dollar
ahead on my digging. All the gold I ever dug went right off for
grub--or a good time."

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Mrs. Presbury. "I never heard of such a thing."

"But we're not here to talk about mines," said the general, his eyes
upon Mildred. "I've been looking into matters--to get down to
business--and I've asked you here to let you know that I'm willing to
go ahead."

Profound silence. Mildred suddenly drew in her breath with a sound so
sharp that the three others started and glanced hastily at her. But
she made no further sign. She sat still and cold and pale.

The general, perfectly at ease, broke the silence. "I think Miss Gower
and I would get on faster alone."

Presbury at once stood up; his wife hesitated, her eyes uneasily upon
her daughter. Presbury said: "Come on, Alice." She rose and preceded
him