Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

They went at once to work to inspect the mine and its roof and every thing else connected with it or in any way affecting its practical working. Finally they made their reports quietly to the elder Latrobe, and that gentleman bade them mount their mules and return to the contractor's camp.

Then he asked the Doctor to bring the Ridsdale boys into conference with him. Seated on a log, he explained the situation thus:

"Your mother has a very valuable coal mine here, in a most favorable locality. It will need capital, of course, for its development, and that I am prepared to furnish, as the representative of myself, my sons, and my other financial associates. My proposal is this: that we capitalize the mine at $400,000; that is to say, that we organize a company with that amount of stock; that your mother shall put in the mine as $200,000, and receive stock to that amount; that I and my associates – I will take care of that – shall put in $200,000 in cash and take the remaining stock in payment for our contribution."

"I don't see," said Tom, "but that your proposal is a just and generous one. As I understand it, my mother is to put the mine into the company, as $200,000 capital, and you gentlemen are to put in $200,000 in money to be used as working capital, in operating the mine; my mother is to own one half the shares and you gentlemen the other half."

"That is quite correct," said the elder Latrobe.

"Then I am perfectly satisfied," answered Tom. "What do you say, Jack? What's your view, Harry?"

The two other boys had no objection to offer. Indeed the easy rolling of large figures as sweet morsels under the tongues of the financiers completely appalled them, and so the whole matter was left to Tom to settle.

That evening he went down the mountain with the elder Latrobe, leaving the Doctor and the boys to guard the mine. The next day Mr. Latrobe and Tom set off on mules for the town, fifteen miles distant, where Tom's mother lived. They arrived about noon, and Tom was eager to broach the business at once. But Mr. Latrobe objected.

"I don't want to talk to you about this business, Madam, without the presence of some legal adviser or man of business, whose advice will prevent you from making mistakes."

"Oh," answered the widow, "my Tom is here and he has a clear head."

"All the same I wish you would send for a lawyer," answered the gentleman.

"But I cannot afford it," said the lady.

"You can, Madam. Your coal property is rich enough to afford many lawyers. And besides, Tom here has money enough to his credit on our books to pay a lawyer's fee ten times over. You have no idea what a winter's work your boys have put in on the mountain. Sincerely, I do not wish to lay my proposals before you without the presence of some disinterested, professional person, who can wisely advise you as to their acceptance or rejection. I have asked Tom to come with me in order that he may tell you how rich a property you have in this coal deposit, and warn your professional adviser against concluding any arrangement with me and my associates which does not give you an adequate recompense for the property that we ask you to put into this venture."

So the lady sent for a wise old lawyer, who, after hearing Tom's statement, earnestly advised the widow to accept the terms offered. Then Mr. Latrobe said:

"Madam, I am going to employ this gentleman, as a trusted friend of yours, to draw up our articles of incorporation and complete the legal formalities necessary to our mining company's existence. Meantime Tom and I will go back to the mine and set men at work in its development."

"What name will you give to your company?" asked the old lawyer.

"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 assistant. 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 assistant he wants, and the appointment is open to you at a very fair salary."

"How can I ever thank you enough, Doctor?" said Tom, with tears in his voice. As for his eyes they could not be seen in the darkness.

"By not thanking me at all. Don't you understand, Tom, that my father, my brothers and myself have invested heavily in this mining venture? I have put into it every spare dollar I had in the world, and naturally I want it to 'go.' I believe that your practical common sense can mightily help in accomplishing that, and for that reason I have encouraged the chief engineer in his purpose to make you his overseer."

"Thank you, Doctor," said Tom. "But if you know me at all you know I'm honest. I made up my mind to stay here on any terms that I could make, because I want to study this thing that you call mine engineering. I wanted to see how it is done, so that some day I could do it myself. I don't intend to remain an engineer's overseer all my life. I intend to be the best engineer I can make out of the raw material in me. So my plan is to stay here, keep my eyes and my mind open, and learn all I can of practical engineering work, till the mine begins to pay. Then I intend to go away to some scientific school and take a regular course in engineering."

"That's admirable!" said the Doctor, with enthusiasm. "Now, I'll venture some suggestions. How much mathematics do you know?"

"Algebra, elementary and higher, and a little geometry."

"Good!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Now, I propose this plan: You shall live with me in the little house that I'm going to build, and serve as the chief engineer's executive at a fair salary from the company. I'll teach you all I know of general chemistry and geology of evenings, and I'll interest the chief engineer to teach you trigonometry, the calculus and surveying. In the meantime you'll be learning the practical part of engineering in your daily work, and when you go off to that scientific school its faculty will have little to do except to take your fees, record your name, and grant you your diploma."

Six years later Camp Venture mine was, in the phrase of the investors, "one of the richest paying enterprises" in that part of the country. Dr. Latrobe had become president of the company after the death of his father, and the enterprise owed much of its success, as every body agreed, to the skill, the energy, and the wonderful common sense of its chief engineer, Thomas Ridsdale, Esq., graduate of a noted school of mines.

Tom was only twenty-four years old then, but he had always been accounted "old for his age," and as he stood upon the bluff, contemplated the long line of cars loaded with the product of Camp Venture mine and planned new side tracks in order that cars enough might stand there to receive the other waiting cargoes of the concentrated sunshine of thousands of years ago, "Little Tom," grown now to six feet two inches in his stockings, was satisfied with his life and his work.