s. The letters from
the young mining engineer to the girl of the geology department, still
at Stanford, came now in swift succession from Nevada, Wyoming, and
Idaho, and then very soon after from Arizona and New Mexico. Little
mines did not require much time for examination and reports signed
"Hoover" came into Janin's office with bewildering rapidity. Janin liked
these reports; they not only showed geological and mining knowledge, but
they showed a shrewd business sense. The reporter seemed never to lose
the perspective of cost and organization possibilities in relation to
the probable mineral richness of the prospects. And the reports said
everything they had to say in very few and very clear words.

Herbert Hoover was not only moving fast; he was learning fast, and he
was rising fast in Janin's estimation. He had a regular salary or
guarantee now with a certain percentage of all the fees collected by
Janin's office from the properties he examined. What he was earning now
I do not know, but we may be sure it was considerably more than the
forty-five dollars a month which he had begun with as typewriter boy, a
few months before.

The work was not entirely limited to the examination of prospects and
mines. In one case at least it included actual mine development and
management. Mr. Janin had in some way taken over, temporarily--for such
work was not much to his liking: he preferred to be an expert consultant
rather than a mine manager--a small mine of much value but much
complication near Carlisle, New Mexico. This he turned over to his
enterprising assistant to look after.

It was Hoover's first experience of the kind, and it was made a rather
hectic one by conditions not technically a regular part of mining. The
town, or "camp," was a wild one with drunken Mexicans having
shooting-bees every pay day and the local jail established at the bottom
of an abandoned shaft, not too deep, into which the prisoners were let
down by windlass and bucket. It was an operation fairly safe if the
sheriff and his assistants were not too exhilarated to manage the
windlass properly, or the malefactors, too drunk to hang on to the
bucket. Otherwise, more or less regrettable incidents happened. Also, it
led to a rather puzzling situation when the sheriff had to take care of
his first woman prisoner, a negro lady of generous dimensions and much
volubility.

But the mine was well managed and Hoover acquired more merit with his
employer.