Power, of course, was accumulating wealth with every turn of the rolls in the reduction mills. The name of the mine became a standing joke in Colorado. "What price the El Preço outfit?" men would say, and spoke with bated breath of the millions it would bring in the open market. Not only were there almost unlimited supplies of rich ore in sight, but the very granite containing the main vein itself yielded handsomely under low-grade treatment. It seemed impossible that the undertaking should go wrong at any stage. If water was tapped, it went to irrigate new lands which MacGonigal had added to the ranch. If a new shaft was sunk, sufficient pay-ore was taken out of the excavation to meet the cost; whereas, in ninety-nine mines among a hundred, the charge would have fallen on capital. For three months Power lay fallow at Dolores. His bodily vigor was unimpaired; but his mind demanded the restorative tonic of peace. A Chicago bookstore sent him the hundred most important books which had been published during his absence from civilization, and, with their aid, he supplemented Marguerite's lessons, and soon brought himself abreast of contemporary thought. Beyond establishing a maternity hospital in Bison, and renewing the grant to Dr. Stearn's poor, he did not embark in philanthropic schemes to any great extent. Still, he found pressing need of a secretary, and secured an excellent assistant in a Harvard undergraduate, a young man whose brilliant career in the university was brought to a dramatic close by an automobile accident which crippled him for life. He was one of the first victims of the new force. Power had never seen a motor-car until he reached New York. The industry had sprung into being when he was immured in the Andes. Even yet it was in the experimental stage, and his secretary, Wilmot Richard Howard, was testing an improved steering-gear when he was smashed up by a hostile lumber wagon. The post Power offered him was a veritable godsend, and he, in his way, became infinitely useful to his employer. A curious sympathy soon existed between them. The limitations of Howard's maimed body caused him to understand something of the cramped outlook before Power's maimed soul. Moreover, within a month, his wide reading and thorough acquaintance with the world's current topics filled gaps in Power's knowledge which books alone could not repair. When Power quitted Bison in the spring of the year none who did not know his history would ever have suspected that he had dwelt so long apart from his fellow-men.