Part 37 (1/2)
”Why, the 'Camp Venture Mining Company,'” quickly responded Tom, ”and we'll call the mine itself the 'Camp Venture Mine.' It all came out of Camp Venture.”
CHAPTER XLIV
_Little Tom at the End of it All_
All arrangements having been agreed upon between Mrs. Ridsdale and Mr.
Latrobe, it was not necessary to wait for the formal organization of the company before beginning the work of developing Camp Venture mine. So Tom and Mr. Latrobe, as soon as the preliminary papers were drawn up and signed, mounted their mules and returned to the mine. Tom reached the camp that night and told the boys all about the arrangements that had been made. The next morning Mr. Latrobe came up the mountain, accompanied by a mining engineer, a company of workmen and a wagon load of tools, the latter guided by the same deaf and silent driver who had brought up Tom's load of supplies.
The men were set to work at once under direction of the engineer. They cleared away the forest in front of the mine and, in the course of a few days built a chute so nicely calculated as to its incline that it would carry coal gently but surely to the railroad below.
Meantime another company of workmen were busy constructing long sidetracks at the foot of the hill and connecting them with the main line of the railroad, while still another gang was employed in making a good wagon road down the hill.
The boys, seeing their work done, began to prepare for their home-going--all but Tom and the Doctor. Those two sat on a log just within the light of the camp fire one night and talked.
”I am going to stay here,” said the Doctor. ”This climate agrees with me as no other ever did, and besides, I shall be needed here. We shall have half a thousand miners at work here within three months, and their families will occupy quite a little town, built upon this ledge. A physician and surgeon will be needed, and I have secured the appointment. The company will pay me a salary for treating all injuries that the miners may receive, and as for the rest, of course the miners themselves will pay for my services in their families. Anyhow I'm going to build myself a comfortable little house up here and live here, where I can be strong and well and happy.”
”I'm going to stay too,” said Tom. ”I'm going in as a miner if I can't get anything better to do.”
”But you can get something much better,” said the Doctor, ”and I was just about to speak of that. I have already talked to the chief engineer about it. He introduced the subject himself. He is a person of very quick perceptions, as every engineer must be if he hopes for success, and he has discovered certain qualities in you which commend you to him very strongly. He has found out that, as you once put it, you 'look straight at things and use common sense.' Apart from a little technical mathematics, that is absolutely all there is of engineering, and he has taken a fancy to have you for an executive a.s.sistant. You see, in starting a mine so great as this, he will be obliged to plan many things which he will have no time to supervise in the execution. He wants you as an 'engineer's overseer,' he calls it. That is to say, when he plans a truss or a support, or anything else that is necessary and explains it to you, he wants to leave the matter in your hands, leaving you to direct the workmen and to see to it that his plans are intelligently carried out. After his talk with me concerning you, he was certain that you are precisely the kind of a.s.sistant he wants, and the appointment is open to you at a very fair salary.”