Harrison's jaw set with a resolution quieter, perhaps, but every bit as determined as Mason's.
"Jim," he said, "that talk don't go. I've stuck to you and the mine for two years now, fair and square, and it looks like I'd got a right to some say about what we're going to do. Now, I've been figuring it out pretty careful, and this is just about the way we're fixed. Supposin', just for argument, we strike the lode to-morrow, why, even at that we can't ever develop that mine alone. It stands to reason we've got to have an awful pile of money back of us. Give us all the men we want, and all the machinery, and God knows what else, and then it's goin' to take two years and more to make her a dividend payer. No, sir, we've got to have money, Jim, and the only way to get it's to hitch up with some one like this cuss that's out here now. We can look out for our end all the time. You hold out for a big lot of stock, and getting yourself appointed superintendent, and me assistant, and that way we'll be doing right by the mine, and we'll get plenty rich, too. So that's sense, Jim, and nothing but sense, and you've got to talk to this man to-night, or, by God, Jim, I'll get out to-morrow, as sure as we're sitting here, and leave you to go it alone."
Mason, completely taken aback, fairly gasped. Suddenly he had realized, perhaps for the first time, his utter dependence on the younger man. "You--you wouldn't really do that, Jack," he faltered tremulously.
Harrison, more from the old man's manner than from the words themselves, felt that the victory was won. He nodded decisively.
"That's just what I'd do," he answered firmly. "I don't mean to go against you any way at all, Jim, but I know what's common sense, and you'll see it yourself some day, too. I'm not bluffing. I'd hate to do it, but I mean every word just the way I say."
The old man sighed, as if half the joy had suddenly gone out of his life. Then he nodded with resignation.
"All right, Jack," he said, with a trace of bitterness in his tone, "I can't say but what you've used me straight as a string all the way through. Mining's a young man's work, I guess. Maybe you'd act a mite foolish over the old claim yourself, Jack, if you'd wintered and summered with her the way I have. Never mind, though. Have it your own way."