I'd better tell you a little more about myself. My name is Jim Bell. I'm
worth a couple of million or thereabouts. You can verify that by
referring to the First National Bank of 'Frisco, or the East Coast Bank
of New York City. I've got interests in cattle, wool and mines, but the
very best mining proposition I ever struck I ran across out on the Nevada
alkali desert in a range of barren hills. We were prospecting there when
I was told about it. After untold hardships I found the spot and staked
it out. But there arose the difficulty of transportation. There was the
gold all right, but how was I to get it out?"

"I came East to see if I couldn't get some sort of automobile built that
would travel the desert, but when I saw that aeroplane of yours droop
down at that jerkwater junction, I realized I had found what I wanted.
Now, are you on?"

"You'll have to give us a little time to think, sir," rejoined Roy; "it's
a very flattering offer and I'd like to accept it, but I'll have to think
it over."

"Quite right, quite right," rejoined the other, "nothing like thinking it
over. If every one did that fewer accidents and mishaps would occur in
life. Take my own life, for instance. I've often thought I'd go back to
see the old folks, but in that case I thought it over too long, for when
I went to the old home the other day it was all gone. Not a stick or
stone remained. My parents were dead and my only brother was
no-one-knew-where."

Jim Bell's voice shook strangely. He blinked his eyes once or twice and
then resumed briskly: "You see, I left home in a mighty queer way. I was
out in a boat with my brother when it got overturned. He was drowned, I
guess, but anyway I found myself drifting about on the Sound. I managed
to seize hold of a bit of floating driftwood and in that way kept my head
above water till a ship came along and picked me up.

"She was a big vessel bound for China and her captain was a brute. On our
arrival in the Far East he bound me out as a sort of apprentice to a rich
Chinaman living in the interior. I was with him for ten years before I
escaped. I worked my way to the coast, got another ship and headed for
California.

"On the way across there was a mutiny and I saved the life of a wealthy
passenger, who turned out to be a mining man and who, when he died two
years later, left me most of his property. That gave me my start in life,
and now I'm a millionaire. But I'd give it all if I could get som