its ores were low grade, and the
wagon-road and pack-trail freightage made them practically profitless to
the miners.

The single exception was the "Little Alicia," and it was the coincidence
of the name, rather than the eloquence of its impoverished owner, that
first attracted Ford. From first to last he did not know the exact
location of the mine. It was somewhere in the hills back of Copah, and
Grigsby, the prospector who had discovered and opened it, had an office
in the camp.

It was in Grigsby's town office that Ford saw the ore specimens and the
certified assays, and listened not too credulously to Grigsby's
enthusiastic description of the Little Alicia. To be a half-owner in
this mine of mines was to be rich beyond the dreams of avarice--when the
railroad should come: if one might take Grigsby's word for it.

It is a curious fever, that which seizes upon the new-comer in an
unexploited mining field. Ford was far from being money-mad; but there
were times when he could not help contrasting a railroad salary with
Miss Adair's millions. True, he had once said to her, in the fulness of
confident belief, that the money of the woman he loved would make no
difference--to her or to him. But the point of view, wise or foolish, is
not always the same. There were moments when the Adair millions loomed
large, and the salary of an assistant to the president--who was in fact
little more than a glorified chief of construction--shrank in
proportion. He was free of obligation and foot-loose. His twenty
thousand dollars invested in P. S-W. stock at twenty-nine and a half had
grown with the rising market to sixty-odd. What did it matter to any one
if he chose to put ten thousand of the sixty-odd on a turn of the
Little Alicia card?

While it was gambling, pure and simple, he did not bet with his eyes
shut. Inquiry at the Bank of Copah established Grigsby's reputation for
truth-telling. The specimens and the assay certificates were beyond
doubt genuine. More than this, Grigsby had made a number of ore
shipments by freighters' wagon and jack train over the range, and the
returns had enabled him to keep a small force of men at work in the
mine.

Ford made his bet through the bank. The cashier was willing to take a
P. S-W. official's note of hand, to be canceled when Ford could deposit
to the bank's credit in Denver, and to give Grigsby an open account for
his immediate needs. Grigsby accepted joyfully, and the thing was done.