journey to the crusher, and
thence downward to end their journeys over the thumping stamps, and
out, disintegrated, across the wet and shaking tables.

It seemed, as he stood waiting, that the dust of the pulverized
mountains had settled over everything in the office save the
granite-like figure that sat at the desk, rereading the letter which
had changed all his life. For the first time he thought that perhaps
he should not have so easily displayed that link with his past. It
seemed a useless sacrilege. If the mine-owner was not reading the
letter, he was pondering, unmoved, over a course of action, and took
his time.

Dick thought bitterly, in a flash, of all that it represented. The
quarrel with his father on that day he had returned from Columbia
University with a mining course proudly finished, when each, stubborn
by nature, had insisted that his plan was the better; of his
rebellious refusal to enter the brokerage office in Wall Street, and
declaration that he intended to go into the far West and follow his
profession, and of the stern old man's dismissal when he asserted,
with heat:

"You've always taken the road you wanted to go since your mother died.
I objected to your taking up mining engineering, but you went ahead in
spite of me. I tried to get you to take an interest in the business
that has been my life work, but you scorned it. You wouldn't be a
broker, or a banker. You had to be a mining engineer! All right,
you've had your way, so far. Now, you can keep on in the way you have
selected. I'll give you five thousand dollars, but you'll never get
another cent from me until you've learned what a fool you're making of
yourself, and return to do what I want you to do. It won't be long!
There's a vast difference between dawdling around a university
learning something that is going to be useless while your father pays
the bills, and turning that foolish education into dollars to stave
off an empty belly. You can go now."

In those days the house of Phillip Townsend had been a great name in
New York. Now this was all that was left of it. Dissolution, death,
and dust, and a half-interest in an abandoned mine! The harsh voice of
Bully Presby aroused him from his thoughts.

"All right," it said. "This seems sufficient, but if you've got the
sense and judgment Sloan seems to think you have, you'll come to the
conclusion that there's not much use in wasting any of his good, hard
dollars on the Croix d'Or. It