"Give him the position of assayer in charge."
"Great Scott! and fire Benson, who's been there for five years?"
"It makes no difference how long he's been there. Darrell is a better
man every way,--quicker, more accurate, more scientific. You can put
Benson to sorting and weighing ores down at the ore-bins."
After a brief silence Mr. Britton continued, "You couldn't find a better
man for the place or a better position for the man. The work is
evidently right in the line of his profession, and therefore congenial;
and even though you should pay him no more salary than Benson, that,
with outside work in the way of assays for neighboring camps, will be
better than any business interest you would give him short of twelve or
eighteen months at least."
"I guess you're right, and I'll give him the place; but hang it all! I
did want to put him in Harry's place. You and I are getting along in
years, Jack, and it's time we had some young man getting broke to the
harness, so that after a while he could take the brunt of things and let
us old fellows slack up a bit."
"We could not expect that of Darrell," said Mr. Britton. "He is neither
kith nor kin of ours, and when once Nature's ties begin to assert
themselves in his mind, we may find our hold upon him very slight."
Both men sighed deeply, as though the thought had in some way touched an
unpleasant chord. After a pause, Mr. Britton inquired,-"You have no clue whatever as to Darrell's identity, have you?"
Mr. Underwood shook his head. "Queerest case I ever saw! There wasn't a
scrap of paper nor a pen-mark to show who he was. Parkinson, the mine
expert who was on the same train, said he didn't remember seeing him
until Harry introduced him; he said he supposed he was some friend of
Harry's. Since his sickness I've looked up the conductor on that train
and questioned him, but all he could remember was that he boarded the
train a little this side of Galena and that he had a ticket through from
St. Paul."
"You say this Parkinson was a mine expert; what was he doing out here?"
"He was one of three or four that were here at that time, looking up the
Ajax for eastern parties."
"In all probability," said Mr. Britton, musingly, "Darrell was here on
the same business."
"If that was his business, he said nothing about it to me, and I would
have thought he would, under the circumstances."
"I wonder whether we could ascertain from the owners of the Ajax what
experts were out here or expected out here at that time?"
Mr. Underwood smiled grimly. "Not from the former owners, for nobody
knows where they are, though there are some people quite anxious to
know; and not from the present owners, for they are too busy looking for
their predecessors in interest to think of anything else."