“I received your letter, Uncle Arthur,” Jack began.

Breen raised his eyes, and a deep color suffused his face.  In his heart he had a sneaking admiration for the boy.  He liked his pluck.  Strange, too, he liked him the better for having left him and striking out for himself, and stranger still, he was a little ashamed for having brought about the revolt.

“Why, Jack!” He was on his feet now, his hand extended, something of his old-time cordiality in his manner.  “You got my letter, did you?  Well, I wanted to talk to you about that ore property.  You own it still, don’t you?” The habit of his life of going straight at the business in hand, precluded every other topic.  Then again he wanted a chance to look the boy over under fire,—­“size him up,” in his own vocabulary.  He might need his help later on.

“Oh, we don’t own a foot of it,—­don’t want to.  If Mr. MacFarlane decides to—­”

“I’m not talking about MacFarlane’s job; I’m talking about your own property,—­the Cumberland ore property,—­the one your father left you.  You haven’t sold it, have you?” This came in an anxious tone.

“No,” answered Jack simply, wondering what his father’s legacy had to do with his Chief’s proposed work.

“Have you paid the taxes?” Arthur’s eyes were now boring into his.

“Yes, every year; they were not much.  Why do you ask?”

“I’ll tell you that later on,” answered his uncle with a more satisfied air.  “You were up there with MacFarlane, weren’t you?—­ when he went to look over the ground of the Maryland Mining Company where he is to cut the horizontal shaft?” Jack nodded.  “So I heard.  Well, it may interest you to learn that some of our Mukton people own the property.  It was I who sent MacFarlane up, really, although he may not know it.”

“That was very kind of you, sir,” rejoined Jack, without a trace of either gratitude or surprise.

“Well, I’m glad you think so.  Some of our directors also own a block of that new road MacFarlane is finishing.  They wouldn’t hire anybody else after they had gone up to Corklesville and had seen how he did his work, so I had the secretary of the company write MacFarlane, and that’s how it came about.”

Jack nodded and waited; his uncle’s drift was not yet apparent.

“Well, what I wanted to see you about, Jack, is this:”  here he settled his fat back into the chair.  “All the ore in that section of the county,—­so our experts say, dips to the east.  They’ve located the vein and they think a horizontal shaft and gravity will get the stuff to tide water much cheaper than a vertical shaft and hoist.  Now if the ore should peter out—­and the devil himself can’t tell always about that—­we’ve got to get some ore somewhere round there to brace up and make good our prospectus, even if it does cost a little more, and that’s where your Cumberland property might come in,—­see?  One of our lawyers looked over a record of your deed in the