"Gold's an old story to you, Bill, but all the same I want you to meet a friend of mine who is just down from Alaska after his own little clean-up. Fred Moore's his name, and he's not such a bad guy to have for a friend. Packed me in out of the cold on his back, once, when I was up there a year or two ago. How many miles was it, Fred, that you carried me that time?" Fred had gotten to his feet and was shaking hands with Bill. "Not over forty," he parried indifferently. "So you're a bloated plutocrat, eh? Davis has been telling me all about you. Placer or quartz?" "Free milling gold in quartz," Bill told him, and then excused himself hastily, with two valid reasons. One was the appearance of Doris by the elevator, evidently looking for him; and the other was his growing distaste for the subject of his mine. It seemed to him that every man he met seized the first opportunity to quiz and question him about Parowan. Over and over again he had told the truth about finding the mine. Now he was cynically content to let the garbled newspaper stories and the gossip of men stand for the truth. Mr. Rayfield joined him without greeting or apology as Bill made his way to the elevator,--and his bride. Mr. Emmett saw the two and came up, so that the three arrived together before Doris. "Are you going to have time this evening to hold that business meeting, Bill?" Emmett asked casually. "Your train leaves about nine o'clock in the morning, doesn't it? We ought to get that straightened out before you go, or we'll have to pester you with papers to sign and a lot of detail work. What do you want done about the meeting?" Bill hesitated, glancing toward Doris. Rayfield came to the rescue, laying his hand familiarly on Bill's arm, perfectly aware of the fact that half the men in the lobby were at that moment registering a certain degree of envy. "Now, if you don't want to attend that meeting, Bill, just leave it to us. We can get everything done and you can sign the minutes in the morning. My, my, events are surely moving fast! There's a bunch of New York men here to-day--just got in this morning. They want to start a bank at Parowan just as soon as they can get a roof to put it under. And that man O'Hara, with the chain of hotels all up and down the coast, wants a good corner with two hundred feet frontage on Main Street. He's going to build a hotel. We'll have to take that up to-night at the meeting. The question is, do we present him with the ground for the sake of getting him down there, or do we make him pay, the same as other folks? He argues that the prestige of having an O'Hara House at Parowan is worth the site to put it on." He pursed his lips, which was his substitute for a smile.