of wondrous beauty yet to be--but which still lacks
the finer strokes, the final touch requisite to bring it to perfection.
Strength of character was indicated there; an indomitable will that
would bend the most adverse conditions to serve its own masterful
purpose and make of obstacles the paving-stones to success; a mind
gifted with keen perceptive faculties, but which hitherto had dealt
mostly with externals and knew little of itself or of its own powers.
Young, with splendid health and superabundant vitality, there had been
little opportunity for introspection or for the play of the finer,
subtler faculties; and of the whole gamut of susceptibilities, ranging
from exquisite suffering to ecstatic joy, few had been even awakened.
His was a nature capable of producing the divinest harmonies or the
wildest discords, according to the hand that swept the strings as yet
untouched.

For more than an hour Darrell slept. He was awakened by the murmur of
voices near him, confused at first, but growing more distinct as he
gradually recalled his surroundings, until, catching the name of
"Parkinson," he was instantly on the alert.

"Yes," a pleasant voice was saying, "I understand the Ajax is for sale
if the owners can get their price, but they don't want less than a cold
million for it, and it's my opinion they'll find buyers rather scarce at
that figure when it comes to a show down."

"Well, I don't know; that depends," was the reply. "The price won't
stand in the way with my people, if the mine is all right. They can hand
over a million--or two, for that matter--as easily as a thousand, if the
property is what they want, but they've got to know what they're buying.
That's what I'm out here for."

Taking a quiet survey of the situation, Darrell found that the section
opposite his own--which, upon his return from the dining-car, had
contained only a motley collection of coats and grips--was now occupied
by a party of three, two of whom were engaged in animated conversation.
One of the speakers, who sat facing Darrell, was a young man of about
two-and-twenty, whose self-assurance and assumption of worldly wisdom,
combined with a boyish impetuosity, he found vastly amusing, while at
the same time his frank, ingenuous eyes and winning smile of genuine
friendliness, revealing a nature as unsuspecting and confiding as a
child's, appealed to him strangely and drew him irresistibly towards the
young stranger. The other speaker, wh