He saw the splendid panorama of Puget Sound open to his view, and the train, at last, after those weary hours of jolting, rattled into the long sheds that at that time disgraced the young giant city of the North-west. It was the first time he had even entered its shadows, and as he turned its corner he looked curiously at the stump of a tree that had been hollowed into an ample office, and was assailed by the strident cries of cabmen. "The Butler House," he said, relinquishing his bag into the hands of the first driver who reached him, and settled back into the cushions with a sense of bewilderment, as if something long forgotten had been recalled. He knew what it was as he drove along in all that clamor of sound which issues from a great and hurrying city. It was New York, and he was in the young New York of the North-west, with great skeleton structures uprearing and the turmoil of building. Only here was a difference, for side by side on the streets walked men clad in the latest fashion, and men bound to or coming from the arctic fields of gold-bound Alaska. Electric cars tearing along at a reckless speed, freight wagons heavily laden, newsboys screaming the call of extras, and emerging from behind log wagons, and everything betokening that clash of the old and the intensely new. At the Butler House the man behind the desk twirled the register toward him, and assigned him a room. "Sloan?" he replied to Dick's inquiry. "Oh, yes. He's the old chap from New York who said he was expecting someone, and to send him right up. I suppose you're the man. Here, boy, show Mr. Townsend to five-fifty. Right that way, sir." And before his words were finished he had turned to a new arrival. The clamor of the streets, busy as is no other city in the world busy when the season is on, was still in his ears, striking a familiar note in his memory, and the modernity of the elevator, the brass-buttoned boy, and the hotel itself brought back the last time he had seen Mr. Sloan, and the day he had parted from his father in that office on Wall Street. He found the Wall Street veteran grayer, much older, and more kindly, when he was ushered into the room to receive his greeting. He subsided into a chair, but his father's old-time friend protested. "Stand up!" he commanded, "and turn around, young fellow, so I can see whether you have filled out. Humph! You'll do, I guess, physically. I don't think I should want to have any trouble with you. You look as if you could hold your own most anywhere. I'm glad. Now, sit down, and tell me all about the mine." He listened while Dick went into details of the work, sparing none of the misfortunes and disappointments, and telling of the new method employed. He was interrupted now and then by a shrewd question, an exclamation, or a word of assent, and, after he had finished the account, said: "Well, that is all there is to report. What do you think?" "Who is Thomas W. Presby?" Sloan's question was abrupt.