Part 2 - Chapter 1

The Man

It was the fourth of February in the year 1875. It had been a
severe winter, and the snow lay deep in the gorges of the
Gilmerton Mountains. The steam ploughs had, however, kept the
railroad open, and the evening train which connects the long line
of coal-mining and iron-working settlements was slowly groaning
its way up the steep gradients which lead from Stagville on the
plain to Vermissa, the central township which lies at the head of
Vermissa Valley. From this point the track sweeps downward to
Bartons Crossing, Helmdale, and the purely agricultural county of
Merton. It was a single track railroad; but at every siding--and
they were numerous--long lines of trucks piled with coal and iron
ore told of the hidden wealth which had brought a rude population
and a bustling life to this most desolate corner of the United
States of America.

For desolate it was! Little could the first pioneer who had
traversed it have ever imagined that the fairest prairies and the
most lush water pastures were valueless compared to this gloomy
land of black crag and tangled forest. Above the dark and often
scarcely penetrable woods upon their flanks, the high, bare
crowns of the mountains, white snow, and jagged rock towered upon
each flank, leaving a long, winding, tortuous valley in the
centre. Up this the little train was slowly crawling.

The oil lamps had just been lit in the leading passenger car, a
long, bare carriage in which some twenty or thirty people were
seated. The greater number of these were workmen returning from
their day's toil in the lower part of the valley. At least a
dozen, by their grimed faces and the safety lanterns which they
carried, proclaimed themselves miners. These sat smoking in a
group and conversed in low voices, glancing occasionally at two
men on the opposite side of the car, whose uniforms and badges
showed them to be policemen.

Several women of the labouring class and one or two travellers
who might have been small local storekeepers made up the rest of
the company, with the exception of one young man in a corner by
himself. It is with this man that we are concerned. Take a good
look at him; for he is worth it.

He is a fresh-complexioned, middle-sized young man, not far, one
would guess, from his thirtieth year. He has large, shrewd,
humorous gray eyes which twinkle inquiringly from time to time as
he looks round through his spectacles at the people about him.
It is easy to see that he is of a sociable and possibly simple
disposition, anxious to be friendly to all men. Anyone could
pick him at once as gregarious in his habits and communicative in
his nature, with a quick wit and a ready smile. And yet the man
who studied him more