By return of post Lafond was frantically called upon to explain. He did so. Billy had been wasteful and extravagant. It was not Billy's fault perhaps, but he was evidently not the man for the place. Lafond had had but a vague idea of how things were going, but lately he had been at more pains to gain an accurate knowledge of affairs. He had found things as above stated. He did not write at all as a friend of the Company, but because he believed he could perhaps make something by taking the property himself. Instinctively the half-breed knew that an insistence on his own selfishness was the surest way of impressing these Easterners with his sincerity. For that reason he demanded his expenses when he was asked to go East for consultation. The Chicago men were badly frightened. Lafond repeated clearly at greater length what he had told them in his letters. It had been a case of a man unused to the handling of money. He insisted that in actual value there existed not one quarter of the sum Knapp had expended; and he further claimed that affairs were in such shape West that as much more would have to be invested before the mine could be put on a paying basis. "Then," said he, "you have your cost of production and your camp expenses always. From your profits above them you have to make up what Knapp has spent and what you will have to spend. That takes your close attention and many years. For that I think you will not wish to go ahead; and for that I come to make you an offer that will make it for you not an entire loss. I do not ask that you believe me. Investigate." "Would you be willing to wait here while we investigate?" asked Murphy. "Always, for my expenses," replied Lafond calmly. The Easterners consulted. "Very well," said Stevens. "Call it that." Lafond in the little room at his hotel looked at himself closely in the glass. "A fool for luck! a fool for luck!" he cried at the imaged reflection, repeating his old formula. Stevens was gone just ten days. Of course he said nothing of Lafond's presence in Chicago. He had merely dropped in to look over the property, as was natural. Most of the men wondered why he had not done so before. He was cordial to Billy, looked over what had been done, asked many questions, listened attentively to all Billy had to say and departed in the most friendly spirit. When he arrived in Chicago, he went directly to his office in the Monadnock Building, where he had already assembled his associates by telegraph. Stevens was brief, business-like and coldly impartial. In a man of his sort that indicated that he was very angry and chagrined. "I have the following figures to submit," said he, taking up a paper. "They are accurate, as I consulted with an expert as to the items of future expense before leading Rapid.