“It is that,” said she with a doubtful inner thought as to the propriety of offering cream.

“And as for you,” went on the doctor dissertatively, “I suppose ye’re getting to be somewhat of a miner yourself.  I mind me we did a bit of assay work for your people the other day—­the Crazy Horse, wasn’t it?  A good claim I should judge, from the sample, and so I wrote Davidson.”

“When was this?” asked the Easterner, puzzled.

“The last week.”

“I didn’t know he had had any assaying done.”

“O weel,” said the doctor comfortably, “it may not have occurred to him to report yet.  It was rich.”

“Mrs. McPherson, let’s talk about dresses,” called Mary across the table.  “Here we’ve come down for a holiday and they insist on talking mining.”

And so the subject was dropped, but Bennington could not get it out of his mind.  Why should Mizzou have had the Crazy Horse assayed without saying anything about it to him?  Why had he not reported the result?  How did it happen that the doctor’s assistants had found the ore rich when the company’s assayers East had proved it poor?  Why should Mizzou have it assayed at all, since he was no longer connected with the company?  But, above all, supposing he had done this with the intention of keeping it secret from Bennington, what possible benefit or advantage could the old man derive from such an action?

He puzzled over this.  It seemed to still the effervescence of his joy.  He realized suddenly that he had been very careless in a great many respects.  The work had all been trusted to Davidson, while he, often, had never even seen it.  He had been entirely occupied with the girl.  He experienced that sudden sinking feeling which always comes to a man whom neglected duty wakes from pleasure.

What was Davidson’s object?  Could it be that he hoped to “buy in” a rich claim at a low figure, and to that end had sent poor samples East?  The more he thought of this the more reasonable it seemed.  His resignation was for the purpose of putting him in the position of outside purchaser.

He resolved to carry through the affair diplomatically.  During the afternoon he ruminated on how this was to be done.  Mary could not understand his preoccupation.  It piqued her.  A slight strangeness sprang up between them which he was too distrait to notice.  Finally, as he tumbled into bed that night, an idea so brilliant came to him that he sat bolt upright in sheer delight at his own astuteness.

He would ask Dr. McPherson for a copy of the assays.  If his suspicions were correct, these assays would represent the richest samples.  He would send them at once to Bishop with a statement of the case, in that manner putting the capitalist on his guard.  There was something exquisitely humorous to him in the idea of thus turning to his own use the information which Davidson had accumulated for his fraudulent purposes.  He went to sleep chuckling over it.