ghing at the
recollection. "Upon my word, that lad won't fail for want of assurance.
We shall see what he has got to say." And he went out.

The Andersons had been small farmers on the Gore estate for some
generations. Fred Anderson, the second son of the present farmer, a
youth of energy and enterprise, had determined to seek his fortune
further afield. Mainly by the kind offices of the Gores, he had been
started in life as a mining engineer, and had, eighteen months before
his present reappearance, been sent with some others to examine and
report on a large mine lately discovered on British territory near the
Equator. The result of their investigations proved that it was actually
and most unexpectedly a gold mine, promising untold treasure, but at the
same time, from its geographical situation, almost valueless, since it
was so far from any lines of communication as to make the working of it
practically impossible. The young, however, are sanguine; undaunted by
difficulties, Fred Anderson, in spite of the discouragement and dropping
off of his companions, remained full of faith in the future of the mine,
and of something turning up which would make it possible to work it; in
fact, he had actually gone so far as to obtain for himself a grant of
the mining rights from the British Government. It was for this purpose
that, giving a brief outline of the situation, he had written to Sir
William some time before to ask him for the sum necessary to obtain the
concession. Sir William had advanced it to him. It was when, two years
before, the boy of nineteen was leaving home for the first time that he
had half jestingly asked Sir William whether, if he and his companions
found a gold mine and started a company to work it, he would be their
chairman, and Sir William, to whom it had seemed about as likely that
Fred Anderson would become Prime Minister as succeed in such an
undertaking, had given him his hand on the bargain.

"Well, my boy," said Sir William, and the very sound of his voice seemed
to Fred Anderson to put him back two years--the two years that appeared
to him to contain his life. "How is it you have hurried back to England
so quickly?"

"I will tell you all about it, Sir William," said the boy. "I thought it
best to come over and get everything into shape myself."

"You seem to be embarking on very adventurous schemes," said Sir
William, feeling as he looked at the boy's bright, open face, full of
alert intelli