Old Mizzou tried, by adroit questioning, to find out just why de Laney
had been sent West. There was, in reality, not enough to keep one man
busy, and surely Old Mizzou considered himself quite competent to
attend to that. Finally, he concluded that it must be to watch
him--Old Mizzou. Acting on that supposition, he tried a new tack.

For two delicious hours he showed up, to his own satisfaction,
Bennington's ignorance of mining. That was an easy enough task.
Bennington did not even know what country-rock was. All he succeeded in
eliciting confirmed him in the impression that de Laney was sent to spy
on him. But why de Laney? Old Mizzou wagged his gray beard. And why spy
on him? What could the company want to know? He gave it up. One thing
alone was clear: this young man's understanding of his duties was very
simple. Bennington imagined he was expected to see certain assessment
work done (whatever that was), and was to find out what he could about
the value of the property.

As a matter of sedulously concealed truth, he was really expected to do
nothing at all. The place had been made for him through Mr. de Laney's
influence, because he wanted to go West.

"Now, my boy," Bishop, the mining capitalist, had said, when
Bennington had visited him in his New York office, "do you know
anything about mining?"

"No, sir," Bennington replied.

"Well, that doesn't matter much. We don't expect to do anything in the
way of development. The case, briefly, is this: We've bought this