CHAPTER XII.
MEN AND A MINE It was early in July that Mr.Gwynne met his family with a proposition which had been elaborated by Ernest Switzer to form a company for the working of Nora's mine.

With characteristic energy and thoroughness Switzer had studied the proposition from every point of view, and the results of his study he had set down in a document which Mr.Gwynne laid before his wife and children for consideration.

It appeared that the mine itself had been investigated by expert friends of Switzer's from the Lethbridge and Crows' Nest mines.

The reports of these experts were favourable to a degree unusual with practical mining men, both as to the quality and quantity of coal and as to the cost of operation.

The quality was assured by the fact that the ranchers in the neighbourhood for years had been using the coal in their own homes.