d promoted a company
of his own to develop it, his great rival in that region, Lord
Craig-Ellachie (formerly Sir David Alexander Granton), immediately
secured a similar option of an adjacent track, the larger part of
which had pretty much the same geological conditions as that covered
by Sir Charles's right of pre-emption.

We were not wholly disappointed, as it turned out, in the result.
A month or two later, while we were still at Seldon, we received
a long and encouraging letter from our prospectors on the spot,
who had been hunting over the ground in search of gold-reefs. They
reported that they had found a good auriferous vein in a corner of
the tract, approachable by adit-levels; but, unfortunately, only a
few yards of the lode lay within the limits of Sir Charles's area.
The remainder ran on at once into what was locally known as
Craig-Ellachie's section.

However, our prospectors had been canny, they said; though young
Mr. Granton was prospecting at the same time, in the self-same
ridge, not very far from them, his miners had failed to discover
the auriferous quartz; so our men had held their tongues about it,
wisely leaving it for Charles to govern himself accordingly.

"Can you dispute the boundary?" I asked.

"Impossible," Charles answered. "You see, the limit is a meridian
of longitude. There's no getting over that. Can't pretend to deny
it. No buying over the sun! No bribing the instruments! Besides,
we drew the line ourselves. We've only one way out of it, Sey.
Amalgamate! Amalgamate!"

Charles is a marvellous man! The very voice in which he murmured
that blessed word "Amalgamate!" was in itself a poem.

"Capital!" I answered. "Say nothing about it, and join forces with
Craig-Ellachie."

Charles closed one eye pensively.

That very same evening came a telegram in cipher from our chief
engineer on the territory of the option: "Young Granton has somehow
given us the slip and gone home. We suspect he knows all. But we
have not divulged the secret to anybody."

"Seymour," my brother-in-law said impressively, "there is no time to
be lost. I must write this evening to Sir David--I mean to My Lord.
Do you happen to know where he is stopping at present?"

"The Morning Post announced two or three days ago that he was at
Glen-Ellachie," I answered.

"Then I'll ask him to come over and thrash the matter out with me,"
my brother-in-law went on. "A very rich reef, they say. I must have
my finger in it!"