The Automobile Wreck

Thirty minutes after the happening of the incidents just related, a remarkable scene took place in Jack Gardner's smoking-room. There were present only the men of Sally's impromptu week-end party.

If the friends whom Jack Gardner had made since his sojourn in the East could have seen him at that moment, they would not have recognized in the coldly stern, keen-eyed copper magnate, the happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care Jack, of their acquaintance. The almost tragic occurrences of the evening had brought the real Jack Gardner to the surface, and he was for the moment again the dauntless young miner who had fought his way upward to the position he now held, by sheer force of character; for it requires a whole man to lift himself from the pick and shovel, and the drill and fuse, to the millionaire mine-owner and the person of prominence in the world such as he had become. He stood beside the small table at one end of the room; Morton occupied the center of it, facing him. Grouped around them, in various attitudes, were the others of that strange gathering. Duncan leaned idly against the mantel, and smoked his cigar with deliberation, although his gray eyes were coldly fierce in their expression, and his half-smile of utter contempt for the man who occupied the center of the scene rendered his face less handsome and attractive than usual. Malcolm Melvin was alert and attentive, from the end of the room opposite Gardner, and the other gentlemen of the party occupied chairs conveniently at hand.