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.