Rossiter W. Raymond 



that theory (in the absence of new- 

 evidence disproving it) he was pre- 

 pared, to fight. 



But this final temper and attitude 

 had the indispensable safeguard of an 

 inexhaustible curiosity and candor in 

 previous inquiry. I have known, in 

 my time, many mining experts, and 

 their personal methods of studying 

 mining cases. But I never met King's 

 equal in insatiable desire to find out 

 beforehand anything that anybody 

 else knew or could know, whether it 

 were relevant and important to the 

 case in hand or not. I can remember 

 him as going into a mine at early 

 morning, taking his lunch with him ; 

 coming out late in the afternoon ; 

 bathing and dressing for dinner ; then, 

 aroused by some casual table-talk, 

 putting on his underground clothes 

 again, and spending the greater part 

 of the night in the mine, just to 

 " settle the point " — though the point 

 361 



