"This construction of McGowan's," he continued, "is especially to be condemned, as there is not the slightest doubt that the contractor has intentionally slighted his work--a neglect which, but for the thorough manner in which MacFarlane had constructed the lower culvert, might have resulted in the loss of many lives." McGowan snarled and sputtered, denouncing Garry and his "swallow-tails" in the bar rooms and at the board meetings, but the decision was unanimous, two of his friends concurring, fearing, as they explained afterward, that the "New York crowd" might claim even a larger sum in a suit for damages.
The meeting over, Morris and Jack dined with MacFarlane and again the distinguished architect won Ruth's heart by the charm of his personality, she telling Jack the next day that he was the only OLD MAN--fifty was old for Ruth--she had ever seen with whom she could have fallen in love, and that she was not sure after all but that Jack was too young for her, at which there was a great scrimmage and a blind-man's-buff chase around the table, up the front stairs and into the corner by the window, where she was finally caught, smothered in kisses and made to correct her arithmetic.
This ghost of damages having been laid--it was buried the week after Jack had called on his uncle--the Chief, the First Assistant, and Bangs, the head foreman, disappeared from Corklesville and reappeared at Morfordsburg.
The Chief came to select a site for the entrance of the shaft; the First Assistant came to compare certain maps and documents, which he had taken from the trunk he had brought with him from his Maryland home, with the archives resting in the queer old courthouse; while Foreman Bangs was to help with the level and target, should a survey be found necessary.
The faded-out old town clerk looked Jack all over when he asked to see the duplicate of a certain deed, remarking, as he led the way to the Hall of Records,--it was under a table in the back room,--"Reckon there's somethin' goin' on jedgin' from the way you New Yorkers is lookin' into ore lands up here.

There come a lawyer only last month from a man named Breen, huntin' up this same property." The comparisons over and found to be correct, "starting from a certain stone marked 'B' one hundred and eighty-seven feet East by South," etc., etc., the whole party, including a small boy to help carry the level and target and a reliable citizen who said he could find the property blindfold--and who finally collapsed with a "Goll darn!--if I know where I'm at!"-- the five jumped onto a mud-encrusted vehicle and started for the site.
Up hill and down hill, across one stream and then another; through the dense timber and into the open again.

Here their work began, Jack handling the level (his Chief had taught him), Bangs holding the target, MacFarlane taking a squint now and then so as to be sure,--and then the final result,--to wit:--First, that the Maryland Company's property, Arthur Breen & Co., agents, lay under a hill some two miles from Morfordsburg; that Jack's lay some miles to the south of Breen's.
Second, that outcroppings showed the Maryland Mining Company's ore dipped, as the Senior Breen had said, to the east, and third, that similar outcroppings showed Jack's dipped to the west.
And so the airy bubble filled with his own and Ruth's iridescent hopes,--a bubble which had floated before him as he tramped through the cool woods, and out upon the hillside, vanished into thin air.
For with Ruth's arms around him, her lips close to his, her boundless enthusiasm filling his soul, the boy's emotions had for the time overcome his judgment.

So much so that all the way up in the train he had been "supposing" and resupposing.

Even the reply of the town clerk had set his heart to thumping; his uncle had sent some one then! Then came the thought,--Yes, to boom one of his misleading prospectuses--and for a time the pounding had ceased: by no possible combination now, either honest or dishonest, could the two properties be considered one and the same mine.
Again his thoughts went back to Ruth.