rail of the rolling tub as it
wallowed in the sea.

He spent the first three days after his arrival at the mines in the
mountains, climbing them on foot and skirting their base on horseback,
and sleeping where night overtook him. Van Antwerp did not accompany
him on his tour of inspection through the mines, but delegated that
duty to an engineer named MacWilliams, and to Weimer, the United States
Consul at Valencia, who had served the company in many ways and who was
in its closest confidence.

For three days the men toiled heavily over fallen trunks and trees,
slippery with the moss of centuries, or slid backward on the rolling
stones in the waterways, or clung to their ponies' backs to dodge the
hanging creepers. At times for hours together they walked in single
file, bent nearly double, and seeing nothing before them but the
shining backs and shoulders of the negroes who hacked out the way for
them to go. And again they would come suddenly upon a precipice, and
drink in the soft cool breath of the ocean, and look down thousands of
feet upon the impenetrable green under which they had been crawling,
out to where it met the sparkling surface of the Caribbean Sea. It was
three days of unceasing activity while the sun shone, and of anxious
questionings around the camp-fire when the darkness fell, and when
there were no sounds on the mountain-side but that of falling water in
a distant ravine or the calls of the night-birds.

On the morning of the fourth day Clay and his attendants returned to
camp and rode to where the men had just begun to blast away the sloping
surface of the mountain.

As Clay passed between the zinc sheds and palm huts of the
soldier-workmen, they came running out to meet him, and one, who seemed
to be a leader, touched his bridle, and with his straw sombrero in his
hand begged for a word with el Senor the Director.

The news of Clay's return had reached the opening, and the throb of the
dummy-engines and the roar of the blasting ceased as the
assistant-engineers came down the valley to greet the new manager.
They found him seated on his horse gazing ahead of him, and listening
to the story of the soldier, whose fingers, as he spoke, trembled in
the air, with all the grace and passion of his Southern nature, while
back of him his companions stood humbly, in a silent chorus, with
eager, supplicating eyes. Clay answered the man's speech curtly, with
a few short words, in the Spanish patois i