Jordan was delighted.  “I told yo’ she war a game girl,” he said.  “Think of her traveling six thousand mile to jine ther man who hed run away from her at ther meetin’ house do’!  But I’m mighty glad she did, all the same.  It confirms my estermation of ther lady.”

Then he explained that he put on eight-hour shifts to run the tunnel, two English miners on each shift to handle the drills and gads, and Boers and Kaffirs to carry back the debris; that the rock was most favorable, and rapid progress was made, averaging a little over ten feet per day; that he offered bribes and bounties to the shift that should make most progress; and that he had tapped the ledge and cross-cut it in four months, “because,” he added naively, “we lost all reckonin’ o’ time, ’nd I’m afeerd we worked of er Sunday sometimes;” that the ore was quite up to the average, or a little better than what was on the dump; that so soon as the vein was struck he had started drifts up and down the ledge and an upraise, and had, when he left, probably 1,000 tons of ore on the dump, and that as the mine was further opened the daily output was steadily increasing.  He had, moreover, got the mill site graded, and the wall that the battery was to be set in front of, built, comfortable quarters put up, and the road through the canon made so that it would be good for heavy teams.

When he heard that Sedgwick had sent some heavy wagons, yokes, harness and chains he was glad, saying:  “I war afeerd you’d forget it,” and at once went about to select the stock and drivers for those wagons.

After they had waited eight days, the “Pallas” made the port.

Captain McGregor reported a prosperous voyage, and the next day the discharging of cargo into lighters began and was rushed with all speed.  As soon as the wagons were landed, the work of setting them up began, and the training of the teams was likewise inaugurated.

The first full loads were started for the mine in a week.  The heavy machinery was loaded on the imported wagons, native conveyances were secured for the other freight, and in fourteen days everything was in transit.

In the meantime another mail had arrived from England, bringing letters from Grace to Sedgwick.  One had news of special interest.  It told that the confidence of Mrs. Hazleton had been partly gained; that she had learned much of the lady’s life; how she was left an orphan at thirteen in New Jersey; how at seventeen when at school she had run away and married a wild youth; how they left at once for the West; how the wild boy settled down, and with a few hundred dollars which he had when they were married he had made a few thousand and was doing well when he suddenly sickened and died; how then his relatives came forward and made a contest for his property, setting up that she had never been married; that the showing was so fearful against her that the court in Iowa refused her any support from the estate, and