Curtis Gordon’s face was red and angry as he shook hands stiffly with his guest and voiced the formal hope that they would meet again.

“I’m glad to be gone,” Slater observed as the speed-boat rushed across the bay.  “I’m a family man, and—­I’ve got principles.  Gordon’s got neither.”

“It was outrageous for you to walk out so suddenly.  It embarrassed me.”

“Oh, he’d let me go without notice if he felt like it.  He fired Dan Appleton this afternoon just for telling the truth about the mine.  That’s what I’d have got if I’d stayed on much longer.  I was filling up with words and my skin was getting tight.  I’d have busted, sure, inside of a week.”

“Isn’t the mine any good?”

“It ain’t a mine at all.  It’s nothing but an excavation filled with damn fools and owned by idiots; still, I s’pose it serves Gordon’s purpose.”  After a pause he continued:  “They tell me that snakes eat their own young!  Gordon ought to call that mine the Anaconda, for it’ll swallow its own dividends and all the money those Eastern people can raise.”

“I’m sorry for Mrs. Gerard.”

Slater emitted a sound like the moist exhalation of a porpoise as it rises to the surface.

“What do you mean by that snort?” asked Murray.

“It’s funny how much some people are like animals.  Now the ostrich thinks that when his head is hid his whole running-gear is out of sight.  Gordon’s an ostrich.  As for you—­you remind me of a mud turtle.  A turtle don’t show nothing but his head, and when it’s necessary he can yank that under cover.  Gordon don’t seem to realize that he sticks up above the underbrush—­either that or else he don’t care who sees him.  He and that woman—­”

“Never mind her,” exclaimed O’Neil, quickly.  “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

Mr. Slater grunted once more, then chewed his gum silently, staring mournfully into the twilight.  After a moment he inquired: 

“Why don’t you show these people how to build a railroad, Murray?”

“No, thank you!  I know the country back of here.  It’s not feasible.”

“The Copper Trust is doing it.”

“All the more reason why I shouldn’t.  There are five projects under way now, and there won’t be more than enough traffic for one.”

Slater nodded.  “Every man who has two dollars, a clean shirt, and a friend at Washington has got a railroad scheme up his sleeve.”

“It will cost thirty million dollars to build across those three divides and into the copper country.  When the road is done it will be one of heavy grades, and—­”

“No wonder you didn’t get the contract from the Heidlemanns—­if your estimate was thirty million.”

“I didn’t put in a figure.”

Tom looked surprised.  “Why didn’t you?  You know them.”