train had taken on sometime in the night. Percival noted the car with
interest as he paced beside the track in the cool clear air before
breakfast. The curtains were drawn, and the only signs of life to be
observed were at the kitchen end, where the white-clad cook could be
seen astir. Grant, porter on the Bines car, told him the other car had
been taken on at Kaslo Junction, and that it belonged to Rulon Shepler,
the New York financier, who was aboard with a party of friends.

As Percival and Uncle Peter left their car for the shaft-house after
breakfast, the occupants of the other car were bestirring themselves.

From one of the open windows a low but impassioned voice was exhausting
the current idioms of damnation in sweeping dispraise of all land-areas
north and west of Fifty-ninth Street, New York.

Uncle Peter smiled grimly. Percival flushed, for the hidden protestant
had uttered what were his own sentiments a month before.

Reaching the shaft-house they chatted with Pangburn, the
superintendent, and then went to the store-room to don blouses and
overalls for a descent into the mine.

For an hour they stayed underground, traversing the various levels and
drifts, while Pangburn explained the later developments of the vein and
showed them where the new stoping had been begun.




CHAPTER VI.