I did my best to fulfil the last wishes of my parent--not because
of the inheritance, but because I loved and honored my father. For
six months I toiled in the mines and in the counting-rooms, for I
wished to know every minute detail of the business.
Then Perry interested me in his invention. He was an old fellow
who had devoted the better part of a long life to the perfection
of a mechanical subterranean prospector. As relaxation he studied
paleontology. I looked over his plans, listened to his arguments,
inspected his working model--and then, convinced, I advanced the
funds necessary to construct a full-sized, practical prospector.
I shall not go into the details of its construction--it lies out
there in the desert now--about two miles from here. Tomorrow you
may care to ride out and see it. Roughly, it is a steel cylinder
a hundred feet long, and jointed so that it may turn and twist
through solid rock if need be. At one end is a mighty revolving
drill operated by an engine which Perry said generated more power
to the cubic inch than any other engine did to the cubic foot. I
remember that he used to claim that that invention alone would
make us fabulously wealthy--we were going to make the whole thing
public after the successful issue of our first secret trial--but
Perry never returned from that trial trip, and I only after ten
years.
I recall as it were but yesterday the night of that momentous
occasion upon which we were to test the practicality of that
wondrous invention.
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