"We investigated a lot of crooked corporations, yes." Mr. Rayfield admitted it calmly. "We helped the government send more than one bunch of crooked officers to the penitentiary--where they belong. But crooks always will take advantage of the best machinery invented, John. And those very investigations taught me the details of organizing and operating corporations. They proved to me that a man is a fool to potter along by himself with any mine--I don't care how rich it is! You can't work a mine as you would a farm. Why? Because your potential harvest is all there, in the ground, waiting for you to gather it. A farm yields its wealth season by season--on the installment plan, we'll say. Whereas the mineral in a mine _is there_; all of it. It was put there long before it was ever discovered. The faster and the cheaper you take it out, the greater your profit. That stands to reason. What man of intelligence would spend ten, twenty years, we'll say, taking out a million dollars, when an efficient corporation will get it for him in less than half that time?" He held up his cup for more coffee and smiled blandly at Doris, who was listening to him with flattering attention. "Miss Hunter, you see the point, don't you? I'll venture to say that you'd want your millions dug out by machinery, in the shortest time possible." Doris laughed and looked again at the gold ore beside her plate. "If I knew where there was a lot of that in the ground, and you could get a million dollars worth of it out in fifteen minutes," she said, "I'd--why, I'd probably stand around and abuse you because you weren't getting my million in ten minutes instead of fifteen!" She blushed a little as she met Mr. Rayfield's understanding smile. "That's just human nature, isn't it?" "That's human nature." Mr. Rayfield sugared his coffee with the satisfied air of a man who has gained his point with less difficulty than he had anticipated. Then appeared Luella, walking offendedly out from under Bill's bunk, where she had retreated from the presence of strangers. "Aw, cut it out!" Luella complained gruffly. "Let's eat! Git a move on, there!" "And here we are, trying to starve poor Luella!" Doris stooped to her, and the bird eyed her hand sidewise and decided to trust it for once. She stepped solemnly upon the slim, brown wrist and so was lifted to a perch on the foot of the bunk where she gravely accepted a slice of fried potato. The advantages of a corporation over an individual miner got no further attention from any one, for a parrot is very much like a baby in its unfailing ability to monopolize attention. Luella would not talk, save now and then a curt ejaculation that was hailed with laughter. She was a temperamental bird and her manners were inhospitable; for which Bill was vaguely thankful.