Excerpt: ... location for a shaft, and Matheson, the superintendent, had protested against it. Matheson's objections proved to be well founded. The mine was opened so near the stream that water broke through into it, as Matheson had predicted, and though a strong wall was built, the water still got in, and it was difficult to keep it pumped out sufficiently to work. Some of the men struck. It was known that Wickersham had nearly come to a rupture with the hard-headed Scotchman over it; but Wickersham won. Still, the coal did not come. It was asserted that the shafts had failed to reach coal. Wickersham laughed and kept on--kept on till coal did come. It was heralded abroad. The Clarion devoted columns to the success of the "Great Gun Mine" and Wickersham. Wickersham naturally showed his triumph. He celebrated it in a great banquet at the New Windsor, at which speeches were made which likened him to Napoleon and several other generals. Mr. Plume declared him "greater than Themistocles, for he could play the lute and make a small city a great one." Wickersham himself made a speech, in which he professed his joy that he had silenced the tongue of slander and wrested from detraction a victory not for himself, but for New Leeds. His enemies and the enemies of New Leeds were, he declared, the same. They would soon see his enemies suing for aid. He was applauded to the echo. All this and much more was in the Clarion next day, with some very pointed satire about "rival mines." Keith, meantime, was busy poring over plats and verifying lines. The old squire came to town a morning or two later. "I see Mr. Wickersham's struck coal at last," he said to Keith, after he had got his pipe lit. His face showed that he was brimming with information. "Yes--our coal." Keith showed him the plats. "He is over our line--I do not know just where, but in here somewhere." The old fellow put on his spectacles and looked long and carefully. "He says he owns it all; that he'll have us...