Gordon had been one of the first locaters in the Kyak coal-fields, and he had also purchased a copper prospect a few miles down the bay from Cortez, where he had started a town which he called Hope.  There were some who shook their heads and smiled knowingly when they spoke of that prospect, but no one denied that it was fast assuming the outward semblance of a mine under Gordon’s direction.  He had erected a fine substantial wharf, together with buildings, bunk-houses, cottages, and a spacious residence for himself; and daily the piles of debris beneath the tunnel entries to his workings grew.  He paid high wages, he spent money lavishly, and he had a magnificent and compelling way with him that dazzled and delighted the good people of Cortez.  When he began work on a railroad which was designed to reach far into the interior his action was taken as proof positive of his financial standing, and his critics were put down as pessimists who had some personal grudge against him.

It was up to the raw, new village of Hope, with its odor of fresh-cut fir and undried paint, that the freight-steamer with Natalie Gerard and “The Irish Prince” aboard, came gingerly one evening.

O’Neil surveyed the town with some curiosity as he approached, for Gordon’s sensational doings had interested him greatly.  He was accustomed to the rapid metamorphoses of a growing land; it was his business, in fact, to win the wilderness over to order, and therefore he was not astonished at the changes wrought here during his absence.  But he was agreeably surprised at the businesslike arrangement of the place, and the evidence that a strong and practised hand had guided its development.

Even before the ship had tied up he had identified the tall, impressive man on the dock as the genius and founder of Hope, and the dark-haired, well-formed woman beside him as Natalie’s mother.  It was not until they were close at hand that the daughter made her presence known; then, unable to restrain herself longer, she shrieked her greeting down over the rail.  Mrs. Gerard started, then stared upward as if at an apparition; she stretched out a groping hand to Gordon, who stood as if frozen in his tracks.  They seemed to be exchanging hurried words, and the man appeared to be reassuring his companion.  It looked very odd to O’Neil; but any suspicion that Natalie was unwelcome disappeared when she reached the dock.  Her mother’s dark eyes were bright with unshed tears of gladness, her face was transfigured, she showed the strong, repressed emotion of an undemonstrative nature as they embraced.  Natalie clung to her, laughing, crying, bombarding her with questions, begging forgiveness, and babbling of her adventures.  Their resemblance was striking, and in point of beauty there seemed little to choose between them.  They might have been nearly of an age, except that the mother lacked the girl’s restless vivacity.

O’Neil remained in the background, like an uncomfortable bridegroom, conscious meanwhile of the searching and hostile regard of Curtis Gordon.  But at last his protegee managed to gasp out in a more or less coherent manner the main facts of the shipwreck and her rescue, whereupon Gordon’s attitude abruptly altered.