Again his thoughts went back to Ruth. He knew how keenly she would
be disappointed. She had made him promise to telegraph her at once
if his own and her father's inspection of the ore lands should
hold out any rose-colored prospects for the future. This he had
not now the heart to do. One thing, however, he must do, and at
once, and that was to write to Peter, or see him immediately on
his return. There was no use now of the old fellow talking the
matter over with the director; there was nothing to talk over,
except a bare hill three miles from anywhere, covering a possible
deposit of doubtful richness and which, whether good or bad, would
cost more to get to market than it was worth.
They were on the extreme edge of the forest when the final
decision was reached, MacFarlane leaning against a rock, the level
and tripod tilted against his arm, Jack sitting on a fallen tree,
the map spread out on his knees.
For some minutes Jack sat silent, his eyes roaming over the
landscape. Below him stretched an undulating mantle of velvet,
laid loosely over valley, ravine and hill, embroidered in tints of
corn-yellow, purplings of full-blossomed clover and the softer
greens of meadow and swamp.
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