“You wonder, perhaps, why I have been so extravagant with my living-quarters,” said Gordon, as they walked into the library, “but it is not alone for myself.  You see I have people associated with me who are accustomed to every comfort and luxury and I built this house for them.  Mrs. Gerard has been kind enough to grace the establishment with her presence, and I expect others of my stock-holders to do likewise.  You see, I work in the light, Mr. O’Neil; I insist upon the broadest publicity in all my operations, and to that end I strive to bring my clients into contact with the undertaking itself.  For instance, I am bringing a party of my stockholders all the way from New York, at my own expense, just to show them how their interests are being administered.  I have chartered a special train and a ship for them, and of course they must be properly entertained while here.”

“Quite a scheme,” said O’Neil.

“I wanted to show them this marvelous country, God’s wonderland of opportunity.  They will return impressed by the solidity and permanence of their investment.”

Certainly the man knew how to play his game.  No more effective means of advertising, no more profitable stock-jobbing scheme could be devised than a free trip of that sort and a tour of Alaska under the watchful guidance of Curtis Gordon.  If any member of the party returned unimpressed it would not be the fault of the promoter; if any one of them did not voluntarily go out among his personal friends as a missionary it would be because Gordon’s magnetism had lost its power.  O’Neil felt a touch of unwilling admiration.

“I judge, from what you say, that the mine gives encouragement,” he ventured, eying his host curiously through a cloud of tobacco smoke.

“‘Encouragement’ is not the word.  Before many years ’Hope Consolidated’ will be listed on the exchanges of the world along with ‘Amalgamated’ and the other great producers.  We have here, Mr. O’Neil, a tremendous mountain of ore, located at tide water, on one of the world’s finest harbors.  The climate is superb; we have coal near at hand for our own smelter.  The mine only requires systematic development under competent hands.”

“I was in Cortez when Lars Anderson made his first discovery here, and I had an option on all this property.  I believe the price was twelve hundred dollars; at any rate, it was I who drove those tunnels you found when you bought him out.”

Gordon’s eyes wavered briefly, then he laughed.

“My dear sir, you have my sincere sympathy.  Your poison, my meat —­as it were, eh?  You became discouraged too soon.  Another hundred feet of work and you would have been justified in paying twelve hundred thousand dollars.  This ‘Eldorado’ which the Copper Trust has bought has a greater surface showing than ‘Hope,’ I grant; but—­it lies two hundred miles inland, and there is the all-important question of transportation to be solved.  The ore will have to be hauled, or smelted on the ground, while we have the Kyak coal-fields at our door.  The Heidlemanns are building a railroad to it which will parallel mine in places, but the very nature of their enterprise foredooms it to failure.”