A good many leagues of range and forest had been traversed when they reached a tract where they had trouble in finding water. There was snow above them, but it either soaked down through the strata, or the drainage from it descended on the other side of the divide. It was also, though not quite summer yet, unusually hot weather, and the season had been exceptionally dry, and they had contented themselves for a week with the little muddy fluid they scraped up here and there from oozy pools that were lined with pine needles and rotting leaves, when they came to a big brulee.

It filled a deep valley that was hemmed in by almost precipitous crags, and though charred logs and branches lay here and there, most of the burned forest was still standing. As a matter of fact, a fire in this region very seldom brings the trees down. It merely strips them. As the men pushed wearily on, endless ranks of blackened trunks moved steadily back before them. There was not a branch left. The trees were tremendous, half-calcined columns, and, for it was evident that any wild wind seldom entered the deep hollow, they might have stood in that condition a year or more. The trouble in traversing a brulee is that one cannot tell when, from some cause or other, one of them may come down.

It was about noon, and they had with some difficulty dined on grindstone bread and canned stuff without a drink of any kind, when Weston, who was leading the horse, pulled it up suddenly. He was thirsty and short of temper, and in a mood that would have made it easier for him to smash through an obstacle instead of stopping, but he fancied that he saw a great blackened trunk close in front of him lean over a trifle. He was sure of it in another moment, and he urged the horse aside, for the towering column swayed and oscillated as though it strove to recover its equipoise, and then suddenly rushed earthward. He felt the wind it made strike cold upon his cheek, and then there was a deafening crash, and a cloud of fine black dust rose up. It whirled and eddied about him like the smoke of a great gun, and the powder that settled thick upon him clogged his eyelashes and filled his nostrils. The horse plunged viciously and came near dragging him off his feet.

After that there was for a few seconds a silence that seemed oppressive by contrast, until it was suddenly broken by another startling crash. It was repeated here and there, as though when each tree fell the concussion brought down another, and the brulee was filled with shocks of sound that rang in tremendous reverberations along the steep rocks. In the meanwhile the men stood fast with tense, blackened faces peering at the eddying dust out of half-blinded eyes, until the crashes grew less frequent and there was deep silence again.

Then Weston, who patted the trembling horse, sat down and pointed to the great, shapeless pile of half-burned wood and charcoal close in front of him.

"A near thing. I think I'll have a smoke," he said.

"A smoke!" gasped Grenfell. "With your mouth and tongue like an ash-pit! I'd much sooner have a sherry cobbler, as they used to make it with a big lump of ice swimming in it, at the—it's the club, I mean. That is," he added, with a sigh, "if I could get it."

"You can't," observed Devine, dryly. "I'd be content with water. But didn't you break off rather suddenly in one place?"

"You're young," said Grenfell, looking at him solemnly. "If you weren't, I should regard that observation as an impertinence. I said the club, which is sufficient. They used to make you really excellent sherry cobblers there."

"Well," said Devine, with his eyes twinkling, "I guess it is, and the name was half out when you stopped. I was naturally never inside the place in question, but I've been in Montreal. It's kind of curious, isn't it, to find a man who talks about such things leading a forlorn hope, as you call it?"

"No," said Grenfell, "it isn't curious at all. There are cases in which a fondness for sherry cobblers provides a sufficient explanation for greater incongruities."

It was apparently a relief to talk of something, for there was no doubt that all of them had felt the tension of the last few minutes; but Weston cut short the discussion.

"We must get water to-morrow, anyway," he said. "Had you any trouble about it, Grenfell, the time you struck the lake?"

Grenfell sat down on a fragment of the charred log and seemed to consider.

"No," he said slowly. "That is, we didn't quite run out of it, though once or twice for several days we came across only a small creek or two. There were signs that in some seasons it would be a dry country."

He broke off and looked up at the range, while the faces of the others grew intent as they watched him.

"In a way all that's familiar," he said; "but I've felt the same thing in other places, and I can't be sure."

"Anyway," remarked Weston, "if there was a lake up yonder, the creek would naturally flow through the valley. It must have an outlet, and we're going up-grade."

"The creek," said Grenfell, sharply, "went down the other side. The lake lies just over a low divide."

Weston started a little and put away his pipe.

"Boys," he said, "we'll get on again."

They went on, and the memory of that afternoon long remained with them. They were grimed with black dust and ashes, and the ranks of charred trunks cast only thin strips of shade, while a scorching sun poured down an almost intolerable heat into the deep valley. The ground was ankle-deep in dust and charcoal, and, as they floundered through it, feathery ash rose in clouds. Their clothing grew crusted with it, and it worked through and irritated their heated skin; while every now and then one of them was compelled to stop and splutter. Their throats, as Grenfell remarked, certainly felt very much like ash-heaps. None of them had drunk anything since supper the night before, and then only a very little water that tasted alkaline.

Still, except for the loose deposit that made walking difficult, the ground was comparatively clear, and they pushed on, making a detour only now and then around a fallen tree, or waiting for Grenfell, who lagged behind and limped, until the slanting rays beat pitilessly into their faces and their aching eyes were dazzled by the burning glow. Then Grenfell sat down rather frequently.

"We're going northwest," said Weston once, while they waited for him. "You said that was how you headed the day before you struck the lake."

"Yes," said Grenfell, with an air of trying to recall something. "It was summer, and at sunset the light was in our eyes. There was a very rugged strip on the range—not unlike that one yonder. Still, I can't be sure."

Nothing more was said. It was quite clear that Grenfell's memory was not to be trusted, and they were in no mood for talking. They went on a little more slowly, but Grenfell lagged again, and it was a vast relief to all of them when the glare that hurt their eyes died out suddenly as the red sun dipped behind a wall of rock. Half an hour later the heat of the brulee seemed to dissipate, and a wondrous invigorating coolness crept in with the dusk, when they made their camp and picketed the jaded horse. It did not seem worth while to light a fire, as they had no water to use for tea; and, after eating a little grindstone bread and salt pork cooked the previous day, they lay down rolled in their blankets.



CHAPTER XXII

GRENFELL GOES ON

Weston, tired as he was, did not sleep well that night. Although they had a pack-horse he had carried two blankets and a bag of flour, and when a man has marched from sunrise until dusk under a heavy burden, his shoulders, as a rule, ache distressfully. In addition to this discomfort, Grenfell's manner throughout that day's march had roused an unsettling sense of expectation in his comrades. The man had limped wearily and continually lagged behind, but he had, in spite of it, resolutely insisted on their pushing on as fast as possible. He had also looked about him with a certain suggestive curiosity every now and then, and though he had once or twice admitted that he could not positively identify anything he saw, his air of restrained eagerness had made its impression on Weston.

A half-moon had sailed up into the eastern sky when the latter wakened and raised himself drowsily on one elbow. All round him the great burned pines towered in black and shadowy columns against the silvery light, and a stillness that was almost oppressive brooded over the valley. No sound of running water came out of it, and there was not a breath of wind. It was cool, however, and Weston drew his dusty blanket higher about his shoulders as he glanced round the camp. Devine lay close by sleeping like a log; but Grenfell was huddled at the foot of a tree, and it became evident to his comrade that he, at least, was wide awake.

"Haven't you done enough to make you sleep?" Weston asked.

Grenfell laughed softly.

"I haven't closed my eyes. I can't keep them off the range in front of us."

Weston looked up and saw a huge black rampart cutting sharp and clear against the blueness of the night.

"Don't tell me that you recognize it," he said.

"Three nicks," replied Grenfell. "After the third one, a rounded peak. I can't tell whether I remember it from another time, but that description came to me as if I'd used it, and I think I must have done so. Anyway, you can see them yonder."

He broke off for a moment, and when he went on again his manner was deprecatory.

"Since sunrise I've been troubled with a haunting sense of the familiar, though when I found the lake with Verneille we marched through no brulee."

"That's years ago, and this brulee is probably not more than twelve months old—I mean as a brulee," said Weston, impatiently, for the strain of the long march was telling on him. "Anyway, you've been half-recognizing places ever since we started on this search, and I'd rather you didn't make half sure of anything else. In fact, I can't stand much more of it."

Grenfell, who showed no sign of resentment, laughed again.

"As I think I told you, I've been troubled with memories that seem half dreams. I'm not sure that's quite unusual in the case of a man who has consumed as much whisky as I have. Besides, it's a little difficult to distinguish between dreams and what we look upon as realities, since the latter exist only in the perception of our senses, which may be deceptive. They agree on that point, don't they, in places as dissimilar as India and Germany?"

"Are you sure you didn't dream about the lead?" Weston asked bluntly. "It's a point that has been troubling me for a considerable time."

"Then why did you come up with me to search for the lake?"

"I was once or twice told at home that I was a persistent imbecile. That may account for it."

"Well," said Grenfell, reflectively, "your action on one or two occasions seems to warrant the observation—I mean when you stood the boys off me after I'd spoiled their supper, and the other time when you decided on my account not to stay on at the copper-mine. Still, I want to say that while I seem to know I will not make another journey on the gold trail, I've had a subconscious feeling of certainty since sunrise yesterday that the lake lies just ahead of us. I know nothing definite that justifies it, but we'll probably find out to-morrow. There's just another thing. If I leave my bones up here my share falls to you."

He seemed disinclined for any further conversation, and Weston went to sleep again. When he awakened the moon had sunk behind the range, and a faint gray light was filtering down beneath the blackened pines. It showed the pack-horse standing close by, and Devine stretched out beneath his blanket, a shadowy, shapeless figure, but there was, as far as Weston could see, no sign of Grenfell anywhere. He called out sharply as soon as he was sure of this, and his voice rang hollowly up the valley, but there was no answer until Devine slowly shook clear of his blankets.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Grenfell's gone."

"Gone!" Devine was on his feet in a moment.

"It looks like it," said Weston, sharply. "Can you see him?"

Devine gazed into the shadows, but he saw nothing beyond the rows of dusky trunks.

"Where's he gone?"

"That," said Weston, "is naturally just what I don't know. It's up to us to find out."

Then he briefly related his conversation with Grenfell, and the two looked at each other. There was just light enough to show the anxiety in their faces.

"Well," said Devine, "it's quite clear to me that he's on the trail; and it's fortunate in one way that he's left a plain trail behind him. Whether the whole thing's a delusion on his part, or whether he did strike that lode, I don't know, but I didn't like the man's looks yesterday. He seemed badly played out, and it kind of struck me he was just holding on." He turned toward the pack-horse and pulled up the picket. "Anyway, we'll get upon his trail."

They both were men of action, and inside of five minutes they had lashed their packs together and started without breakfast. Weston led the horse, while Devine picked up Grenfell's trail. Weston was a little astonished at the ease with which his companion did this.

"It's quite simple," said the surveyor, when the other stopped a moment where the footprints seemed to break off, and questioned his decision. "He's heading straight on, and not walking like a man with much strength in him. I wish I knew just how far he is ahead of us." Then he added in explanation: "I went east for a while, but I was raised in this country, and this is 'way easier than trailing a deer."

They went on a little faster after that, for Devine had promptly picked up the trail again, and by the time the red sun had cleared the range it led them out of the brulee and into a waste of rock and gravel, where there were smaller firs and strips of tangled undergrowth. Here and there Devine stopped for a few minutes, but he found the trail again, though it led them through thickets, and now and then they floundered among half-rotten fallen trunks and branches. Fortunately, the horse was a Cayuse and used to that kind of work.

It rapidly grew hotter, until the perspiration streamed from them, and Weston, who had eaten very little the previous evening, became conscious of an unpleasant stitch in his side; but they pushed on without flagging, urged by a growing anxiety. At length the ground, which was a little clearer, rose sharply in front of them. Weston pulled up the pack-horse and looked significantly at Devine, who nodded.

"Yes," he assented, "he said a low divide. The lake lay just beyond it."

Then he cast about with his eyes fixed on the loose gravel over which they had scrambled, until he came to a spot where a wide patch of half-rotted needles lay beneath another belt of pines.

"He stopped here and sat down," he commented. "Seemed to have had some trouble in pulling out again. I don't like those footsteps. You and I don't walk like that."

"Get on," said Weston, sharply, and, turning, struck the horse.

The sun was overhead when they scrambled, gasping, over the crest of the divide and looked down into another long, winding hollow. Then they stopped again and looked hard at each other, for the hollow seemed filled with forest, and there was nowhere any shimmer of shining water.

"He can't be far ahead. Went through those vines in front of you," said Devine.

Then ensued an hour's wild scramble through undergrowth in shade, until they broke out, dripping with perspiration, from the gloom among the pines into a comparatively open space on the edge of a wide belt of willows. They left the horse tethered on the outskirts of the latter; and twenty minutes afterward Devine, who had scrambled up and down among the undergrowth, stopped suddenly.

"Come here," he cried with a suggestive hoarseness. "We're through with this trail."

He was standing waist-deep among the tangled brushwood, and it was a minute before Weston smashed through it to his side. Then he, too, stopped and started, for he saw a huddled object in tattered duck lying face downward at his comrade's feet. The latter made a little gesture when he met Weston's eyes.

"We'll make sure," he said quietly. "Still, you see how he's lying."

Weston dropped on his knees, and with some difficulty turned the prostrate figure over. Then he took off his battered hat and looked up at Devine with it in his hand. The latter nodded.

"Yes," he said, "he has pulled out once for all. Started two or three hours ago on a trail we can't pick up yet."

They drew back a little and sat down heavily on a ledge of stone, for the sight of the huddled figure in the tattered duck troubled them. It was a minute or two before either of them spoke.

"Heart trouble of some kind," said the surveyor. "If not, it isn't going to matter."

He looked around at his companion with a little wave of his hand which seemed to deprecate the mention of the subject.

"He can't tell us now where that lode is."

Weston said nothing for a minute. After all, there was so little that could be said. Then he stretched himself wearily.

"There is something to be done, but I don't feel quite equal to it yet, and I'm parched with thirst. Willows grow only where there's water."

"These," said Devine, "look kind of sickly. You can see quite a few of them have dried up; but it's a sure thing they had water to start them. Wish I knew how to strike it. It's most three days since I had what one could call a drink."

"Did you ever hear of water-finding?"

"Yes," answered Devine. "I've read a little about the old country. Kind of old English charlatanry, isn't it?"

"Well," said Weston, simply, "I could find water once upon a time. I know that, because I've done it."

"Don't you need a hazel fork? You can't get one here."

"I don't think the hazel matters. The power is in the man. I can cut a fork out of something."

Devine made a little gesture which seemed expressive of resignation.

"Well," he said, "whether we go on or go back we have to have a drink. That's a sure thing; and I feel, like you, that I want it before we set about the work that's awaiting us."

After that they both sat still again. They had to decide whether they would go back or go on, and both of them realized what the decision would be. Their guide had left them, and the last expectation of finding the lead had melted away. At first the sight of his dead comrade had driven all other thoughts from Weston's mind, but now he was compelled to admit that he had wasted time and money on a delusion. That perhaps was no great matter in itself, but it made it clear that all he could look for was to earn food and shelter as a packer, logging-hand, or wandering laborer. Impassable barriers divided Ida Stirling from a man of that kind, and he dare no longer dream of the possibility of tearing them down. At last, and the knowledge was very bitter, he was face to face with defeat. He forgot for the moment that Grenfell lay just beyond the tangled undergrowth. He gazed straight in front of him, with a hard hand clenched and a look in his wavering eyes that puzzled his companion. At length he raised himself wearily to his feet. After all, the needs of the body would not be denied, and, as Devine had said, before they set about the task that awaited them they must drink.

"Well," he said hoarsely, "I'm going to cut a fork."

He smashed back through the undergrowth toward the pines, unlashed the ax from the horse's back, and, though he was never afterward sure whether he cut it from a young fir or a bush of juniper, Devine came upon him some time later trimming a forked twig with a short stem where the two slender branches united. The surveyor glanced at it and smiled.

"Any water that ran into this hollow must have come from the range," he said. "We'll try close beneath it and give the thing a show."

They did as he suggested, and his expression was sardonically incredulous when Weston proceeded along the foot of the hillside, where the ground was a little clearer, with a branch of the fork clutched in each hand. The pointed stem was directed almost horizontally in front of him, and it remained in that position for about twenty minutes, when he lowered it with a gesture of discouragement.

"Felt nothing yet?" Devine inquired eagerly. "There's a kind of hollow yonder running into the thicket."

Weston made no answer, but he turned in among the willows, and for half an hour or so they stumbled and floundered among the clinging branches. Still there was no deflection of the fork, and when at length they stopped again, gasping and dripping with perspiration, Devine laughed rather grimly.

"Oh, give it a rest; I guess that's what it wants," he said. "I'll hang on for another half-hour, and then I'm going prospecting on my own account. We've got to strike water."

That, at least, was evident. They were parched with thirst and it was very hot. No breath of air seemed to enter that dense thicket, and a cloud of tormenting flies hung about them. Weston's head was throbbing with the heat, and his sight seemed dazed. Both of them were dusty, ragged, grim of face, and worn with travel, and the longing for even a few drops of muddy liquid was becoming almost insupportable.

It was only by a strenuous effort that Weston went on again. He felt scarcely capable of further exertion, but he could not overcome the horrible bodily craving that seemed to grow stronger with every pulsation of his fevered blood, and he plodded on into the thicket very wearily. At length Devine saw the twig bend downward for a moment in his hands,

"You did that?" he asked sharply.

"No," said Weston in a strained voice, "I certainly did not."

"Let me take hold," said Devine, and when Weston handed the fork to him he walked back a few paces and crossed the same spot again. The fork, however, pointed straight in front of him. He threw it down and said nothing, but Weston looked at him with a little grim smile.

"I've heard it said that anybody could do it, but that's not my experience," he observed.

Devine's gesture might have expressed anything.

"Oh, we were both crazy when we started with Grenfell," he said.

Weston moved forward with the fork, and, while Devine looked on, the stem once more inclined. It wavered, tilted downward a little farther, and then slowly swung back to rest again. Still, Weston held on, and when there was a further inclination it became clear that his companion was convinced.

"The thing's picking up the trail!" he exclaimed.

For a time they wandered up and down the thicket, Weston apparently directing his course by the spasmodic movements of the fork, which now and then would lie still altogether. At length it commenced to jerk sharply, and Devine looked at his companion in a curious manner.

"It's heading right back for Grenfell," he said in a hoarse whisper.

They went on until they almost reached the spot which they had left more than an hour ago. Then the fork suddenly pointed straight downward, and Weston stopped. His face was flushed, and his voice was sharp and strained.

"Go and bring the shovel!" he said.

Devine strode into the bush, and Weston struggled through the undergrowth to where Grenfell lay, scarcely a stone's throw away. Stripping off his jacket, he laid it over the dead man to keep off the flies. Then he went back and sat down with a dazed look in his eyes until the surveyor broke out from among the trees with the shovel.

"Sit still," said Devine, "I'll go down the first foot or two, anyway."

Weary as he was he plied the shovel savagely, flinging out the mould in showers, but he was knee-deep in the hole before there was a clink as the blade struck stones.

"Gravel. The water would work right through that," he said.

He toiled on until the hole was a yard in depth, but the gravel he flung out was dry, and at length he stopped and sat on the side of the excavation, gasping.

"Nothing yet," he said. "You're sure you struck it?"

"Yes," replied Weston, quietly, "I'm sure."

Once more Devine seized the shovel, but in a moment he flung it down suddenly, with a sharp, glad cry.

"It's sluicing out!"

Weston rose and strode to the edge of the hole. There was a little water in the bottom of it, and this spread rapidly until it crept up about his comrade's boots. In one place he could see a frothing, bubbling patch with an edge that was crystal clear. Then Devine stooped and, filling his wide hat, held it up to him dripping.

"We're through with one trouble, anyway," he announced exultantly.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE LODE

Weston, sitting down on the pile of gravel, took the hat from his comrade, and the trickle from the brim of it splashed refreshingly upon his hot and grimy face when he tilted it to drink. It was shapeless, greasy, and thick with dust, and few men who fare daintily in the cities would have considered it a tempting cup. That, however, did not occur to Weston, but another thought flashed into his mind as he glanced toward the undergrowth behind which the man who had led them there lay. He lowered the hat a moment and rose wearily.

"A few drops of this might have saved our partner," he said. "Now he has gone on; may the trail he has taken be a smooth and easy one."

Then he drank, standing, a deep, invigorating draught, which seemed to cool his fevered blood and put new life in him. He gasped for a moment or so, and drank again, and then, flinging wide the splashes upon hot earth and leaves, sat down heavily. As he fumbled for his pipe, Devine, who had drunk in the meanwhile, turned to him.

"No," he said reflectively, "I don't quite think you're right. It wasn't thirst that brought Grenfell to his end. He had more water than either of us—you saw to that—and, though it wouldn't have been pleasant, you and I could have held out another day."

"What was it then?" asked Weston.

"The strain of the journey on a played-out constitution, and, as I think I suggested, the effect of excitement on a diseased heart. The man was under a high tension the last day or two. It's a sure thing he had something on his mind. After all, I guess it was a delusion."

Weston said nothing, but lay still with his pipe in his hand. There was before him a task from which he shrank, but he was worn-out and could not nerve himself to undertake it yet, and in the meanwhile he thought of his dead comrade with a certain regretful tenderness. The man had had no claim on him, and there had been much that was dissimilar in their natures, but they had, after all, borne many hardships together, and that counted for a good deal. Still, in one way he could not be sorry that Grenfell had gone on, for life, as he had said, had very little to offer this outcast. It was clear that the same thing held true in his own case, and he remembered with a little wry smile that Grenfell had said his share was to go to him if they found the mine. They had not found it, and there was no prospect of their doing so, for his faith in the project had vanished now that Grenfell was dead. It remained for them only to go back to the settlements, defeated.

At length Devine broke in upon his reflections.

"I don't know whether you remember that we've had nothing since supper last night," he said. "Anyway, I don't feel equal to undertaking what's before us as I am. Seems to me the pack-horse would like a drink, too."

Weston felt a little guilty, for the events of the past hour had driven all thought of the beast out of his mind. Going back for it, he led it to the water, after which they made a simple meal. When it was over, Devine stood up resolutely.

"Now," he said, "there's a thing that must be done."

They set about it, and in another hour had laid to rest the man who had brought them there. Then Devine put down his shovel and turned to Weston.

"This thing has had its effect on me, and I guess you feel it too. He was your partner quite a while," he said. "We want to get a move on and work this depression out of us. Well, you can make camp—a little farther back—while I crawl along between the willows and the range. I want to see what's back of them. There's an idea in my mind."

Weston, who did not ask him what it was, fell in with the suggestion, and, when his comrade floundered away through the willows, proceeded to pitch the camp and build a fire ready for lighting among a few straggling firs a little back from the water. Then he went to sleep, and when the horse awakened him as it strove to pull out its picket to get another drink, he was a little astonished to see that the sun now hung low down above one range, and that Devine had not come back. He lay still, however, in the blissful content that only the worn-out know when, for a few hours, they can cease from toil. Presently he heard the willows rustle, and, though it cost him an effort, he stood up when Devine strode into camp. The latter glanced toward the hole they had dug to reach the water.

"You've let the horse break the sides down and stand in it," he said. "We'll clean it down to the gravel and pitch the soil out."

"Is it worth while?" Weston asked.

"Yes," said Devine, dryly, "as we'll probably be here a day or two, I guess it is. I'll tell you about it when we get supper."

Weston might have noticed that there was something curious in his manner, but he was very weary, and his mind was a little hazy then. He took the shovel, and toiled for some few minutes before a strip of stone he was endeavoring to wrench out broke beneath the blade. He flung the fragments out of the hole, and one of them caught Devine's eye.

"Pitch me up that big round stone," he said sharply.

Weston did as he was bidden, and his comrade, falling upon his knee, smashed the fragments into little lumps, and then, clutching some of them tight in one hand, stood up with a hoarse, exultant laugh.

"We've struck the lode!" he exclaimed.

Weston was beside him in a moment, and Devine poured the crushed fragments into his hand.

"Look!" he said.

Weston did so, and while his heart thumped painfully the blood crept to his face. The little lumps he gazed at were milky white, and through them ran what seemed to be very fine yellow threads.

"That is wire gold?"

"It is," said Devine. "A sure thing."

Then the surveyor swept off his battered hat and swung round toward the willows, a grotesque ragged figure with his hands spread out.

"You weren't crazy, partner. You brought us up out of the swamps and sloos of poverty, and planked us down right on to the lode," he said.

Weston said nothing. After all, he was English, and to some extent reticent, but he felt that his comrade's dramatic utterance was more or less warranted, for the irony and pathos of the situation was clear to him. Grenfell had found the mine at last, but the gold he had sought so persistently was not for him. Men great in the mining world had smiled compassionately at his story, others with money to invest had coldly turned their backs on him, and it had been given to a railroad hand and a surveyor, who had longed for an opportunity for splitting roofing shingles in return for enough to eat, to prove that, after all, the skill he had once been proud of had not deserted him. He had patiently borne defeat, and now the thrill of the long-deferred triumph had crushed him out of existence.

In a moment or two Devine spoke again in a different tone.

"Well, we'll get supper. You want to cool off and quiet down."

Weston felt that this was true, and it was a relief to start the fire and prepare the meal, for he had found the rush of emotion which had swept over him almost overwhelming. It was, however, not until the meal was ready that he was quite master of himself, and they ate it before they said anything further about the matter. Then Devine took out his pipe, and lying with his back against a fir, turned to his comrade as the soft dusk settled.

"Whether Grenfell knew where he was going when he started out last night, or was led by some blind impulse or subconscious memory, is more than I can tell, and, anyway, it's not a point that greatly matters now," he said. "The cold fact is that you struck the water on the creek where, as he told you, he once got a drink."

"But things don't fit in," objected Weston.

"Oh," said his companion, "you let me talk. You've been in this country a few years. I was raised in it. He said that a creek ran from the range, and, though there's mighty little water in it, I guess it does that now. There's rock, milling rock shot with gold, under it, and a small flow of water will filter a long way through gravel."

"But he described it as an ordinary open creek," persisted Weston.

"That's easy," said Devine. "It was, quite a while ago, and nature handles these mountains mighty roughly, as you ought to know. She sweeps them with cloudbursts that wash half a hillside into the valleys, and now and then with snowslides and tremendous falls of rock. One of them filled up that creek, and, as far as I can figure, it did rather more. It filled up the gully through which the creek flowed high up on the range, and, while a little water still creeps through, most of the melted snow goes down another creek. As I took the trouble to ascertain, it splits right through the lower slopes and comes out most a league away."

This seemed reasonable. Most of the streams among those ranges originate, as Weston knew, in the melting snow, but there was still a point his comrade had left unexplained.

"Then where's the lake?" he asked.

Devine laughed.

"You're sitting right beside it now."

Weston gazed at him in blank astonishment, and then a light broke in on him.

"The willows?" he said. "The water in that creek would no doubt spread underground, and this is evidently an unusually dry season. Still, Grenfell spoke of a mile or two of water. Where has it gone?"

"That," explained Devine, "seems the simplest thing of all. Anyway, I'll give you my theory. When I crawled along the edge of the willows this afternoon, I found the outlet of an old creek and a beaver-dam. Now we're assuming that the creek I've mentioned once ran into the lake just here, that is, before a snowslide filled up the ravine with debris and diverted the creek into the other gully, the mouth of which is—below—the beaver-dam."

"You have explained how the water got here, not how it got away," said Weston, impatiently.

"No," replied Devine. "I haven't explained either of them yet; but we'll get on a little. Once, and I don't think it was very long ago, there was a little water with a creek flowing out of it in this hollow. A colony of beavers came along and put up their dam across that creek, and that backed the water up a foot or two. If you'd skirted this hollow you'd have seen that it's tolerably level, and a foot rise would spread the water quite a way. I want to say that it was probably a swamp with only grass on it when the creek ran through it. Well, the beavers liked the place, and piled up their dam, while the water went farther and farther back across the swamp. Finally, the beavers either died off or something drove them out. It was probably after that that the dam broke down and the water ran off. Then the snowslide cut off the creek, and as the hollow dried out the willows spread across it."

Weston could find no fault with this train of reasoning, which made comparatively plain Grenfell's long and unsuccessful search.

"Yes," he admitted, "it's logical, and I think it's correct. I believe, from what Grenfell once said, that he crossed the range to the east of us, not far away, some years ago with another man, and he must have noticed this valley. Further, I now feel reasonably sure that he and I once stood on the shoulder of the big peak in the southwest and looked right up the hollow." He smiled rather grimly. "We naturally saw nothing. We were looking for a lake that had dried out."

He lay still for a minute or two, and then broached the subject that both had held in abeyance.

"Well," he said, "what's to be done?"

"Stay here two days," advised Devine. "Gather up a load of specimens and try to trace the vein. Then we'll put in our stakes, and start right off for the settlement, to record as many feet of frontage as the law will allow us. After that, you, as holding the larger share, will see what can be done about handing it over to a company, while I come back with provisions and get the assessment work put in. You're going to have mighty little trouble about raising the money when people see those specimens."

He broke off for a moment and glanced back toward the willows.

"In a way," he added, "it's rough on Grenfell."

"Ah," said Weston, quietly, "neither you nor I can be sure of that."

After that there was silence, and it seemed to both of them that the shadows crept in closer about their flickering fire, and that the little wind which sighed among the pine-tops had grown colder. The camp seemed strangely empty, and, glancing around from force of habit once or twice, they realized with a little start that there was now no third figure sitting beside the blaze. The man who had made that weary march with them had taken the unmarked trail.

It was two days later when they started south. Reaching a little desolate settlement in due time, without misadventure, they limped into it, ragged and dusty, leading the pack-horse, which was very lame. They stopped outside a little wooden store which had a kind of rude veranda in front of it, where the loungers sat on hot afternoons, and a man in a white shirt and store trousers came out and leaned on the railing. He had a hard face, and it grew a trifle more grim as he looked at them, for the light had not quite gone, although it was late in the evening.

"Where's Grenfell?" he asked.

"Dead," said Weston.

The man made a gesture of resignation. He had acquired his money with some difficulty, and there was no great trade in that neighborhood, while it not infrequently happened that his customers failed to pay him when the Government became economical and voted no money for the making of roads, which is the small bush rancher's chief source of support.

"Well," he said, "I'm sorry. You're broke?"

They certainly looked it, and for a moment Weston said nothing. He was aware that there was a spice of cruelty in this, but he was curious to see what the man would do. It became evident that he could, at least, face an unpleasant situation with equanimity.

"Anyway," he said, "you can come right in, and I'll get you some supper. You can put the horse in Musgrave's stable yonder."

Then, while Devine laughed softly, Weston strode up to the veranda and thrust a heavy bag into the storekeeper's hand.

"Get a light," he said, "and look at them."

It was ten minutes later when they sat around a little table in the back store, which smelt unpleasantly of salt pork and coffee. A big kerosene lamp hung above their heads, and the storekeeper gazed with almost incredulous eyes at the litter of broken stones in front of him.

"Oh, yes," he said, "it's high-grade milling ore. You'll say nothing to the boys, and get your record in to-morrow. Then what's your program?"

"I'll go on to Vancouver and see about getting a well-known mining man to go up and certify my statements," said Weston. "Then I'll try to raise sufficient money to make a start with. I ought to get it there or in Victoria."

"No," said the storekeeper, "you go on to Montreal. They've more money yonder, and it's good policy to strike for the place you're likely to get the most."

"One understands that it's difficult for the little man who has a claim to sell to get much for it anywhere," said Weston, with a smile.

The storekeeper straightened himself resolutely in his chair.

"That's a cold fact, but in this case it has to be done. I got my money hard." In proof of it he held up one hand from which three fingers were missing. "That was the result of working sixteen hours right off in a one-horse sawmill. We had one light above the bench, and when I was too played out to see quite what I was doing I got my hand drawn in. I made the rest of my pile—it's a mighty little one—much the same way, and now I'm holding tight to what is mine. I provided your outfit, for, crazy as it seemed, I believed Grenfell's tale, and I figured that you were straight men; but I know what generally happens when the little man goes around the city with a mine to sell."

He brought his hand down upon the table with a bang.

"You're going right into Montreal—I'll find the money—and you'll stand off just as long as it seems advisable for the biggest figure. When this thing's floated, we're going to get our share."

Weston, who sat on a packing-case because there was only one chair, glanced around the store. Its walls were of undressed pine logs, and it was roofed with cedar shingles hand-split. There were a few dozen bags of somebody's "Early Riser" flour standing upon what appeared to be kegs of nails, and across the room odd cases of canned goods, lumps of salt pork, and a few bags of sugar apparently had been flung together any way. Building and stock were of the crudest description, and there was certainly nothing about either that suggested any degree of prosperity. Then he glanced at his companions: the storekeeper, dressed in shirt and trousers of a kind that no fastidious man would think of wearing, and Devine, who had worn-out boots and was suggestively ragged and lean. They did not look the kind of men who were likely to pit themselves successfully against opulent financiers and stock-jobbers in Montreal, but something in their grim faces suggested that at least they meant to fight.

"Well," he said, "I'll start to-morrow, and do what I can. It's quite likely that before we put the thing through we'll have trouble."



CHAPTER XXIV

A QUALIFIED SUCCESS

Ida Stirling was sitting by an open window of a very artistically-furnished room, with an English newspaper lying on the little table beside her, and The Colonist, which is published in British Columbia, on her knee. She fancied from the writing on the wrapper that Arabella Kinnaird had sent her the former, and there was a paragraph in it which had interested her more than a little.

Trouble, it seemed, had broken out up a muddy African river, and a white officer lying sick of fever at the time had forthwith set off for the scene of it, with a handful of half-drilled black soldiery. They had vanished into the steamy bush, and for several weeks nothing had been heard of them; then, when those acquainted with the country had decided that the little detachment had probably been cut off to a man, half of them had unexpectedly appeared again. They now carried their leader in a hammock, as he had been wounded by several pieces of cast-iron fired out of a gaspipe gun; but they also brought back the dusky gentlemen who had been responsible for the abortive rising. Gregory Kinnaird had, it transpired, blundered into a couple of ambushes, but that, and the fact that he had marched straight through them, did not astonish Ida, who was more or less acquainted with his character. He was, the paper stated, recovering from his injuries, though it judiciously refrained from mentioning whether the authorities applauded or censured him.

It was not an uncommon story in connection with the country in question, but it sent a little thrill through the girl as she read it. The rising from the sick-bed and the blundering into the ambuscades were so characteristic of the man. He had recognized what was expected of him, and had immediately set about doing it, without any consideration for his safety, or, indeed, for that of his men. Gregory Kinnaird was not a man of marked ability, but he was, at least, one who could be relied on to attempt the carrying out of a duty he had undertaken, at any cost to himself, and this is, after all, a good deal to say in the favor of any man.

Ida had thought of him with a certain tenderness during the last half-hour. She liked these simple, downright men, and fancied that the absence of ostentation which usually characterized them was essentially English, though she had certainly met a few in that country who came under quite a different category. They were continually posing; men who could not afford to be natural lest they should give themselves away. Though she liked him, Gregory Kinnaird had, however, passed out of her life. There was a good deal he could have offered her, but, after all, she had almost as much already in Canada, and it had become suddenly clear to her, outside of a London ballroom one evening, that to like the man one would have to live with was by no means going far enough. She also admitted that she could have gone considerably further in the case of the man on whose account she had been somewhat anxiously turning over The Colonist, which she had done regularly during the last few weeks, without, she fancied, her father, who purchased a good many provincial papers, becoming aware of it.

There was, however, once more nothing whatever in it about the adventures of any prospectors, though the paper in question now and then detailed such things at length; and she laid it down with a little sigh of weariness, for two men, in one of whom she was interested, had gone up into the wilderness some time earlier, and nothing apparently had been heard of them since. Gregory Kinnaird had, it seemed, won credit as well as blame, serving the Empire under arms in steamy Africa; but it was, she felt, a sterner and longer fight the men who were up against it—and she liked the expressive phrase—made with savage nature in the west.

After all, the rush on a rebel stockade was soon over, while it seemed to her that the march through the black pine forest, half-fed, with provisions running out, the sleeping in dripping fern or slushy snow, and the staggering along the rangeside under a crushing load for days together, with galled feet and shoulders that bled beneath the pack-straps, was a much more difficult matter. Weston, her camp attendant, had done all these things, and, as very frequently happened, had so far gained nothing by them. She was glad that he had done them, for the pride of a colonizing people was strong in her, but, after all, that was not why she loved him. Indeed, it was rather hard to find a reason for the latter fact. The only thing that mattered was that she admitted it, and now she was wondering, with an almost torturing anxiety, whether there would be any news of him in the next issue of The Colonist.

Laying aside the paper, she looked out on the city, which stretched away before her, with its roofs and spires and towers clear in the evening light, toward the great gleaming river; but, fair as the prospect was, her thoughts sped back to the shadowy forests and towering ranges of the Pacific Slope. As they did so, her eyes grew curiously soft, for when she had last looked upon those snow-barred heights the camp-packer had been at her side. Then she turned with a sudden start and a swift rush of blood to her face as a maid announced, "Mr. Weston."

It was, however, a moment or two before the man came in, and she was then mistress of herself, and it was reassuring to know that if there was anything dramatic in his appearance at that particular time he was evidently unaware of it. In fact, he entered the room as though he had left it just on the previous day, and, taking her hand, merely held it for perhaps a second longer than was absolutely necessary. Then he sat down and inquired after her health and Stirling's, at which Ida, who could not help it, laughed. She did not like effusiveness, but this conventional formality seemed to her singularly out of place, until she remembered that she had once or twice already found the matter-of-fact quietness with which the man made his appearance and went away again almost disconcerting. If this had been the result of affectation it would have been provocative, but, as Ida was aware, it seldom occurred to the man that anybody else was greatly interested in his doings. She felt, however, that he might have made an exception of her.

"Where have you come from now?" she asked.

Weston named a hotel of repute in that city, and, though this was not the information Ida had desired, she favored him, unobserved, with a glance of careful scrutiny. He was attired for once like a prosperous man, in garments that became him, and, as she had noticed already, he possessed the knack of wearing anything just as it should be worn, which, as far as her observation went, was the particular characteristic of some Englishmen.

"Then you are not at Lemoine's this time?"

"No," said Weston, with a whimsical twinkle in his eyes. "You see, we have at last succeeded in finding the mine."

Ida started. She regretted this, but she was human, and she knew that the man loved her. It seemed only reasonable to expect that he would proceed to make that fact clear to her now that he had found the mine, but she was a little puzzled about his smile. It indicated rather too much self-possession for a man on the verge of a proposal, and she did not know that since he entered the house he had been endeavoring to impose a due restraint upon himself.

"Oh," she said hastily, "I'm very glad. You found the mine?"

"No," replied Weston, gravely, "Grenfell found it."

"Where is he? Have you brought him with you?"

"I haven't," said Weston, and she noticed the sudden dropping of his voice, "Grenfell's dead. He—went on—the night before we struck the lode up there in the bush."

"Before you struck the lode? But you said he found it."

"Yes," admitted Weston, quietly, "I think he did."

He told her the story in a few forceful words, and when he had finished, her eyes grew a trifle hazy. She had sympathy and intuition, and the thought of the worn-out man lying still forever beside the gold he so long had sought affected her curiously. Weston, who felt his heart throb painfully fast as he watched her, nodded.

"Yes," he said, "it was rather pitiful, and there was a certain ghastly irony in the situation; but, after all, as he once admitted, there was very little that gold could have given him."

Ida sat silent a moment or two. She was sorry for Grenfell, but he had, as his comrade said, gone on, and she was more concerned about the results of his discovery to those who were left behind.

"The lode," Weston added, "is all that he described it."

It cost Ida an effort to sit perfectly calm while she waited for his next observation. It was, as she recognized, only his stubborn British pride which had prevented him from declaring what he felt for her earlier, and now the obstacle that had counted for most with him had suddenly been removed. As it happened, however, he said absolutely nothing.

"Then you and Devine and that storekeeper are prosperous men?" she asked.

Weston laughed in a rather curious fashion, and when he spoke it was as if he felt that an explanation of his attitude were due from him.

"No," he said, "not yet. In fact, so far we're nothing more than three remarkably rash adventurers—little men of no account—who have set ourselves up against the big professional company jobbers. We have won the first round, but that was fought with nature. It's comparatively easy to face weariness and wet and frost when one is used to it, but to fence with the money handler is quite a different matter. To cry our wares in the market is a thing to which we're wholly new."

He had said all that was required to make the situation reasonably clear to a girl of her understanding. The battle was less than half won, and it seemed that he would not claim her unless he came out victor, which was, in some respects, as she would have it. Though she now and then chafed at it, she loved the man's pride, and what he could win by force she would not have him purchase with the money that she could give him. She fancied, however, that if she chose to exert her strength she could sweep away all the resolutions he had formed; and she made a little of her power felt as she turned and looked at him.

"You feel that you must fight this thing out with such weapons as you have?" she asked. "I suppose you wouldn't allow your friends to provide you with more efficient ones? I know I have suggested as much already, and you would not listen, but it would make success so much easier."

It was not remarkably explicit, but Weston, to some extent at least, understood what she had implied, and he gazed at her with a curious kindling in his eyes. She leaned forward in her chair, wonderfully alluring, with a suggestive softness in her face, and he felt his resolution deserting him. It was clear to the girl, who watched every change of his expression, that the issue of the moment was in her hands, and had he told her that the rest of the struggle he was engaged in would be fought out in the snow-bound ranges where men not infrequently died, she would have exerted all her strength. As it was, however, and because of her pride in him, she suddenly determined that she would let him win his spurs. Though it was beyond defining, there was a subtle change in her manner when she leaned back in her chair.

"I think," said Weston, "the first course you mentioned is the only one open to me."

The words did not cost him as great an effort as they would have a moment or two earlier. He felt that in the meanwhile something had snapped and the tension had suddenly slackened. This was a vast relief to him, and he had recovered a good deal of his composure when the girl spoke again.

"Still," she said, "you evidently have no great liking for the market-place."

"I'm afraid I haven't," admitted Weston, with a little laugh. "After all, when one has seen how some of these mining syndicates and mortgage companies get in their work, a certain prejudice against such things isn't quite unnatural."

"Ah," said Ida, who had now decided that the conversation must be kept within safe limits, "you don't, however, mind using the shovel."

Weston was quite ready to follow the lead she had given him.

"What are we to do when we come out here?" he asked, with an air of whimsical reflection. "Half of us have no professions, and we haven't a trade. They bring us up to take life easily, and then, when some accident pitches us out into the Colonies, it's rather a shock to discover that nobody seems to have any use for us. As a matter of fact, I don't blame your sawmill bosses, your railroad men and your ranchers, considering that it takes several years to learn how to chop a tree, and that to keep pace with an average construction gang is a liberal education."

Ida laughed. The further they got away from the crisis now the better she would be pleased.

"I fancy there's still a notion in the old country that the well-brought-up young Englishman excels at anything he cares to undertake, even if it's only manual labor," she said.

"Oh, yes," laughed Weston, "I've heard it. Let them keep such notions over yonder if it pleases them. One naturally likes to think we're as good as the rest, and perhaps we're warranted, but it seems to me that the man of equal muscle raised to swing the ax and shovel is going to beat the one who's new to it every time."

"But the pride of caste!" said Ida. "Doesn't that count? Doesn't success even at such things as track-laying or chopping trees depend on moral as well as physical strength?"

"I think with most of us courage is largely a matter of experience," said Weston. "We learn to know what can't hurt us and to avoid the things that can. As to the other kind, the man who hazards his life and limbs in half-propped wild-cat adits, or running logs down the rapids, is hardly likely to be less cool in a tight place than the one who has never been accustomed to anything of the kind."

He was evidently expatiating on this subject merely because he felt that it was safe ground, but Ida, who partly agreed with what he said, felt that, after all, there was probably something in the insular English notion that he was too proud to uphold. This man, at least, possessed a courage that made him willing to carry the fight into the market-place with wholly unaccustomed weapons, and a pride that impelled him to lay a stern restraint upon his passion. She fancied that there were men in Canada who would not have been deterred by her money had they wished to marry her, and, for that matter, one or two in England had delicately permitted the fact to become apparent. In the meanwhile she had decided that he should have his wish. It would perhaps be possible to offer support in some shape later on, if it became apparent that he was badly beaten.

"I suppose it is not a very easy matter to dispose of an undeveloped mine?" she inquired.

Weston smiled rather dryly.

"It can be done without much trouble if you're content to give the thing away, but it's rather different if you wish to sell it. In fact, until the last week I'd no idea how hard the latter was."

"Then you have been here a week?"

There was a hint of reproach in her tone, and Weston, who understood her to mean that she was a little astonished that he had not presented himself earlier, realized that here was an opportunity that he might have profited by had he only succeeded in selling the mine. As it was, he let it pass, for he felt that if once he let himself go he would probably say a good deal more than was advisable.

"Yes," he said, with a laugh. "Still, at the rate I'm progressing, several months will hardly see me through."

Ida had formed a reasonably accurate notion of what was in his mind, and she was half vexed with him and half pleased. He was, at least, consistent, and meant to persist in the attitude he had adopted; but it was significant that he evidently was afraid to venture an inch outside his defenses. After all, she decided that it was probably advisable that he should remain behind them in the meanwhile. It was, however, more or less of a relief to her when her father came in. He did not appear in the least astonished to see Weston, and shook hands with him as though it were the most natural thing to find him sitting there.

"Business in this city?" he asked.

"Yes," said Weston, "I've been endeavoring to sell a mine."

"Then you struck the lode?"

"I've been abusing Miss Stirling's good-nature with an account of how we did it."

Stirling made a little gesture that might have meant anything, but Ida was pleased with the fact that he expressed no astonishment. It seemed to her that he had expected Weston to succeed, and she knew that he was very seldom wrong in his estimate of any man's character. She made some excuse and left them together; and when the door closed behind her Stirling turned to Weston.

"If you'll come along to my room I'll give you a cigar," he said. "Then, if you feel like it, you can tell me about the thing."



CHAPTER XXV

STIRLING GIVES ADVICE

The contractor lay back in an easy-chair when he had lighted a cigar, and watched Weston, who glanced with evident interest around the room. Its furniture consisted of very little besides a roll-top desk and a couple of chairs, but the walls were hung with drawings of machines and large-scale maps, which had projected railroad routes traced across them. An Englishman, as a rule, endeavors, with a success which varies in accordance with his temperament, to leave his business behind him when he goes home, but across the Atlantic the man of affairs usually thinks and talks of nothing else. As one result of this he has very little time to discuss the concerns of other people, which is apt to become a habit of those who have very few of their own. Stirling was, however, for private reasons willing to make an exception of Weston in this respect, and when he noticed how the latter's eyes rested on two or three models of machines which stood on a shelf near him, he took down one of them.

"I bought up the patent rights of that thing," he said. "As you see, it's a power excavator, and, while it works all right in loose stuff and gravel, the two I have on the Mule Deer road have been giving me trouble."

Weston, who was deeply interested, laid the machine on his knee and spun it round once or twice.

"The elevator buckets are the weak point," he said. "They won't deliver stiff, wet spoil freely."

Stirling's nod was very expressive, in that it suggested that he had expected his companion to locate the cause of trouble.

"You've hit it," he said, and opening the desk took out a little model of an excavator bucket, beautifully made in burnished copper, and another one more rudely fashioned out of bent card. He handed Weston the former.

"That's a rather famous man's idea," he added, with a little dry smile. "I had to leave the thing to my secretary when I was west. I've tried it on the Mule Deer road, and I'm not quite satisfied. The other's one that I've been thinking over."

Weston looked at both the models, and then, taking up the card one, unfolded it, and, after paring part of it away with his knife, bent it into a slightly different shape.

"I think that should meet the purpose. I once worked under the engineer of a very similar machine for a month or two," he said.

Stirling picked up the model and examined it carefully before he replaced it in the roll-top desk, which he shut with a snap.

"Do you feel like taking a hundred dollars for the notion?" he asked.

"I'd rather make you a present of it," said Weston, quietly.

"Well," laughed Stirling, "I'll take it. My secretary paid the other man a good deal more than that for the copper one, and it won't do quite what is wanted. If that man had run an excavator in the mud and rain I guess he'd have made it different. He sits tight in a smart office, and tries to remember what they taught him twenty years ago in the erecting shop."

It seemed to Weston that there was a good deal to be said for this point of view, though it was a matter which did not concern him. His companion's manner was friendly, and to some extent familiar, but Weston had already had an uneasy feeling in his presence that he was being carefully weighed, or measured, by an astonishingly accurate standard. His only defense, he decided, was to be perfectly natural, and in this he was judicious, as the assumption of any knowledge or qualities he did not possess would in all probability have been promptly detected. He said nothing, which is a very excellent rule when one does not know what to say, and Stirling changed the subject when he spoke again.

"So you have found the mine and come here to sell it," he observed. "I guess you have had the usual experience?"

"I don't quite know what is usual," said Weston, with a smile. "Still, I've been round this city with a bag of what people admit are rather promising specimens of milling ore, and I certainly haven't succeeded in selling the mine yet."

"The trouble is that the specimens might have been obtained from anywhere," said Stirling, dryly.

"There's one concern anyway in whose case the objection does not apply. I got a telegram from my partner, the storekeeper, to the effect that the Hogarth Combine had sent up Van Staten from Vancouver to inspect the lode. I gather that one of the boys spotted him, though he meant to do it quietly. The fact that he didn't announce his name is rather suggestive. You can read the message."

He took it from his pocket and handed it to Stirling, who wrinkled his brows.

"Well," he observed, "what Van Staten says goes. Very few of the big concerns would hesitate to purchase when he was satisfied with the thing. That storekeeper seems quite a smart man. The Hogarth people have, no doubt, made you an offer since then?"

"Four thousand dollars, all rights, and they'll meet expenses while I put in the assessment work and do all that's necessary to get title from the Crown. They were kind enough to say that it was rather a hazardous venture, but they wanted another workable reef to round up their mineral properties. The reason seemed a little vague."

Stirling smiled rather grimly. "They want everything they can get their hands on in the shape of a mineral property, as long as it costs them 'most nothing. What did you tell them?"

"That they'd have to go up six times, anyway, before I considered the thing, and then I'd want half payment in ordinary stock. They asked if I meant to stick to that, and I said I did."

"Then," asserted Stirling, "you're going to have some trouble in keeping that mine. The Hogarth people have frozen out more than one little man who didn't want to part with his property. They're said to be quite smart at it, and there are various ways of getting hold of you."

He studied Weston's face and saw it harden, which, as a matter of fact, rather pleased him. The stubbornness which had sent this young man back up the range, aching in every limb, with one boot full of blood—and Stirling had heard that story—was now, it seemed, impelling him into a struggle with a group of remarkably clever and powerful mining financiers. The successful contractor appreciated ability, especially when it was of the practical order, but perhaps he was right in rating character higher.

"Yes," said Weston quietly, "I quite expect that will be the case."

"Have you had any other offer?"

"Wannop made me a conditional one. Pending investigation, he talks of floating a company here or in London. After the success of the Hazleton and Long Divide concern, he says they're disposed to regard British Columbian ventures favorably yonder. If it goes through, I'd have to take most of the vendor's payment in shares, which I'm quite ready to do. That's a rough sketch of the scheme, sir, but in the meanwhile it's only tentative."

Stirling perused the paper handed him with close attention; and before he answered he lighted another cigar.

"Wannop's straight, but he and his friends are little men," he said at length. "You'd have the Hogarth Combine right on to you in London. One or two of their subsidiary concerns are registered there. Now, I don't know whether they really want your mine, but supposing they do, and you won't sell out to them, I guess you have some idea of what their game would be?"

"I'm afraid I haven't, sir."

"Well," said Stirling, "you'll be fortunate if you get half your authorized capital applied for, and it would be quite an easy thing for the Hogarth people to send somebody on to the market to sell your stock down. That would freeze off any other investors from coming in, and scare those who had applied for stock into selling. You can't put up a crushing and reducing plant without a pile of money, and dams and flumes for water-power would cost 'most as much; but you'd have to have them, for you could never pack your ore out to a smelter through the kind of country you have described to me. Now, unless you could get money enough to start clear with, the concern is bound to cave in. Then somebody acting for the Combine would quietly buy it up."

He broke off for a moment and looked hard at Weston.

"Suppose those people let you feel their hand and then make you a rather higher offer? What are you going to do?"

"Disregard it," said Weston, quietly.

Stirling nodded in a manner which suggested that this was what he had expected.

"Well," he said, "I guess that's the course most likely to appeal to a man constituted as you seem to be. But the question is, are you tough enough to see it through? It's one that may cost you a good deal."

"I don't know," said Weston. "I can only find out by trying."

It appeared from his companion's manner that the answer pleased him.

"Now," he said, "are you open to take advice or help from me?"

Weston met his gaze, which was now unpleasantly steady.

"Advice, sir," he answered. "I'm afraid I couldn't take help."

"From me?" said Stirling, dryly, with an emphasis on the last word which brought the blood to Weston's cheek. "Well, you can come for the advice on any matter of detail when you feel like it. In a general way I can only throw out one suggestion now, and it's at variance with the views you seem to hold. Go over to the Hogarth people, and make the most reasonable terms you can with them."

"That's what you would do in my place?" Weston asked, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"I've been a blame fool once or twice in my time," Stirling admitted. "It's curious that it didn't cost me quite as much as most people expected. Still, what I've given you is excellent advice."

He waved his hand as though to indicate that he had closed the subject, but when Weston took his departure half an hour later the contractor looked remarkably thoughtful.

"If he weren't up against the Hogarth Combine he and Wannop might put that scheme through," he mused. "As it is, I guess one way or another I've got to help him out."

Then he rose and descended to the room where his daughter was.

"I've had an interesting talk with Mr. Weston," he said indifferently. "That's quite a smart young man, but I guess one could call him a little obstinate."

Ida smiled at this, though she suspected her father's observation was not quite as casual as it seemed.

"Yes," she said, "in some respects I think he is. But how has he made that clear to you?"

Stirling, sitting down opposite her, laughed.

"He's had an offer for his mine that most of the bush prospectors would have jumped at, and if he'd played his cards judiciously the people who made it would no doubt have doubled it. I suggested that course to him, but it wasn't any use. Mr. Weston is one of the men who can't make a compromise."

"Isn't that a reasonable attitude? He presumably wants his rights."

"The little man," observed Stirling, "has no rights that he isn't prepared to hold on to in a rather uneven fight. With Weston it's all or nothing, and just now I don't quite know which he'll get. He and his partners will have to stake everything they own on a very uncertain game."

"Hasn't everybody who goes into business speculations to do that now and then?"

"No," said Stirling, reflectively, "I don't think they have. Quite often the people who deal with them have to face part of the hazard. In a general way they've something to fall back on if they're men of position: the money they've settled on their wives, a name that would get them credit on the market, or friends who'd give them a lift if they came down with a bang. Now, that young man has nothing. If he fails, he won't have a dollar to get out of this city with, for the mine won't count. He can't even hold it unless he puts in his assessment work on it, and he couldn't do that without something to live on in the meanwhile. He hasn't a friend in Canada from whom he could borrow a dollar."

Ida said nothing, and Stirling added, as if in explanation:

"I might be willing to give him a lift if it were absolutely necessary, but it seems that he's quite determined not to take a favor from me. He didn't offer me any reason for adopting that attitude."

He looked at the girl rather curiously, and she noticed the significance of his last sentence. Stirling had not said that he was unacquainted with Weston's reason, but he seemed to be waiting for her to make a suggestion, and she found the situation embarrassing.

"Well," she said, "he probably has one that seems sufficient to him."

Stirling said nothing further on the subject, and presently went out and left her; but her expression changed when he had done so, and she sat very still, with one hand tightly closed, for she now realized what the cost of her lover's defeat might be. In his case it would not mean a grapple with temporary difficulties, or a curtailing of unnecessary luxuries, but disaster complete and irretrievable, perhaps for years. If he failed, he would vanish out of her life; and it was becoming rapidly clear that, however hard pressed he might be, there was, after all, no way in which she could help him. The unyielding pride or stubbornness which animated him at length appeared an almost hateful thing.

Ida did not sleep particularly well that night, and when she went down to breakfast rather late the next morning there was a letter beside her plate. She looked up at her father when she had opened it.

"Susan Frisingham is coming here from Toronto for a day or two before she goes back to New York," she said. "She suggests taking me back with her."

"Ah!" said Stirling, with a barely perceptible trace of dryness. "You don't want to go just now?"

Ida flashed another glance at him, and noticed the faint twinkle in his eyes. She felt almost disconcerted, for it suggested comprehension, and she certainly did not want to go. She could, it seemed, do nothing to help the man she loved, and, for that matter, she could scarcely encourage or sympathize with him openly, but she would not seek pleasure elsewhere while he fought out the unequal struggle alone.

"No," she said, "I should much rather stay here."

"As you like," said Stirling, who shortly afterward departed for the city.

Mrs. Frisingham was a rich widow and a distant connection of Stirling's. She arrived that day, and on the following day contrived to spend a few minutes alone with Stirling when he came home from business.

"I wanted to take Ida back with me, and I'm a little astonished that she won't hear of it," she said.

"In that case, I'm afraid the notion can't be carried out," said Stirling.

"Isn't it rather a pity?" suggested the lady.

Stirling seemed to consider this. The two were old friends, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Frisingham, who now and then spent a few weeks in Montreal, had made several determined attempts to regulate the contractor's domestic affairs. She described him to her friends as pig-headed, and added that if it had not been for his daughter she would have given up all idea of making him listen to reason. Stirling, on his part, said that she no doubt had excellent intentions, but so had a good many people who contrived to make a considerable amount of unnecessary trouble.

"I wonder why you want her at New York?" he asked.

He had, as his companion was aware, a somewhat Unpleasant habit of going straight to the point, but on this occasion she was disposed to meet him.

"Do you mind telling me what you mean to do with the girl?"

"No," said Stirling. "I want to keep her with me just as long as she's willing to stay; but I suppose I can stand it if she marries somebody by and by."

"That," said the lady, "is just the point. You would naturally prefer him to be an eligible person. Now, if you let me have her for a while I could promise that she would meet nobody who didn't answer that description."

Stirling laughed. He had suspected her intention all along, and surmised that her offer was prompted partly by good-nature and partly by a recognition of the fact that the presence of a young woman of considerable wealth, who was beautiful as well as otherwise gifted, would increase the popularity of the receptions over which she was fond of presiding.

"I'm not quite sure her views and yours would coincide," he said. "Anyway, she has been in New York before—and in England, for that matter."

Mrs. Frisingham adroitly shifted her point of attack, and it almost appeared, though Stirling could not tell how, that she had heard of the camp-packer.

"Don't you think there's a certain danger of her going through the wood and choosing the crooked stick after all?" she asked.

Stirling smiled. "I don't know that you could call New York or London a wood. A hothouse would be nearer it," he said with an air of reflection. "Still, to fall in with the simile, there are no doubt plenty of sticks in both places, just as there are right here in this city. In fact," and his eyes twinkled suspiciously, "I'm not quite sure that isn't an excellent name for them. Quite a few are nicely varnished, and in a general way they've hall-marked gold or silver tops. The hallmark, however, guarantees only the trimmings, and from one or two specimens that I've come across I've a suspicion that in some cases the timber's rotten. When you choose a stick you want a sound one—one that you can lean on when you face a hill, and I guess that's a thing my girl will have to do now and then."

His tone had grown a trifle graver as he went on, but his companion waited, feeling that he had a little more to say, and that he might offer her a hint of some kind, as, in fact, he presently did.

"The sound sticks don't grow in stove-warmed houses, but out in the wind and sun," he said.

That was sufficient for Mrs. Frisingham, who had rather more than a suspicion that Stirling already had in his mind somebody who had not been bred in the city. An unknown man who built new railroad bridges in the wilderness, or a bush rancher, it seemed most probable.

"Well," she said, "I might perhaps warn you that the right choice is a rather serious matter, and that, after all, it's wiser to consider the opinions—call them prejudices if you like—of your own order."

"When my daughter chooses," said the contractor, smiling, "she'll choose wisely, and I'm going to be satisfied. I've had the pleasure of reassuring another lady on that point already. As to the other matter, the opinions of people of the station to which I now belong don't count for much with me. For quite a long while they were dead against my getting here at all; but I did work that this country wanted done, and I'm where I am. You don't expect me to alter my views out of deference to them?"

He broke off for a moment, and nodded to her pleasantly as he went on again.

"We're old friends, Susan, and I guess you mean to be kind; but I've been warned before, and it didn't affect me much," he said. "If Ida wants to go back with you she may, but we'll leave it at that."

He turned away, and, strolling into his own room, he took out the card model of the excavator bucket which Weston had altered, and examined it critically.

"Yes," he said, "it will do its work. I guess that's characteristic of the man."



CHAPTER XXVI

THE JUMPERS

Saunders, the storekeeper, lay outside the little tent, with the pungent pine-wood smoke drifting past him and his feet toward the fire, while dusk crept up the range and a wonderful stillness settled down upon the lonely valley. His hands were badly blistered, and he was aching in every limb, while some of his knuckles had the flesh torn off them, for Devine had brought a heavy hammer down on them several times that day instead of on the drill. For all that, he lay beside the fire in the drowsy state of physical content which is not infrequently experienced by those who have just enjoyed an ample meal after a long day of strenuous labor in the open air. However, as Saunders had reasons for believing that the result of the latter would in due time prove to be eminently satisfactory, the sensation was in his case perhaps a little more pronounced than usual.

He was not more than healthfully weary, and there was an exhilarating quality in the sweet, cool air, which was heavy with the smell of the firs, while the wonderful green transparency generally to be seen after sunset among the mountains of that land still glimmered behind the peaks on one side of the valley. The rest of the hollow was wrapped in creeping shadow against which the nearest pines stood out in dusky ranks. Saunders raised himself on one elbow and gazed at them reflectively before he turned to Devine, who was sitting near him. They had been hard at work on the mineral claims of the Grenfell Consolidated for the last few days.

"This camping in the woods would be quite nice if one could prowl round with the rifle instead of pounding the drill," he said, and then paused to glance ruefully at one of his battered hands. "Anyway, I don't know that I shouldn't just as soon do that as to hold it."

"Sorry," said Devine. "Still, you've done some shooting. We brought up a box of cartridges and now we haven't one. What you want is a single-shot rifle, or a deer that will stand still."

Saunders turned and pointed to the dismembered carcass that hung from a fir branch close at hand.

"I got that one on the run, and there was a time when I'd have had one for every ca'tridge, instead of plugging Marlin bullets into trees. It was a sport I was meant for." He paused and sighed. "I've had to be a sawmill hand and a storekeeper."

Devine grinned at this.

"Well," he said, "you've raked more money out of pork and sugar than I have out of surveying. For that matter, you've got most of mine; and you're better off than I am, because the store's still running."

"Oh, yes," said his companion, with a sardonic smile, "it's being run by Jim from Okanagan, and he'll have the boys round in the back store evenings sampling cheese and eating crackers while they help him. They're kind of curious insects, and it's a blame pity I never remembered to put those Vancouver invoices where they wouldn't lay hands on them, for there'll sure be trouble when I get back again. You have got to strike people for full prices when they don't always meet their bills. Anyway, the man who spreads himself out on jobs that don't strictly belong to him is bound to find it cost him something."

It was significant that he spoke of going back; but both he and Devine admitted that possibility. The mine was theirs, and they certainly meant to keep it if they could, though they recognized that this might be difficult. As a matter of fact, a reef or lode mine is of almost as much immediate use to a poor man as a sewing-machine would be to a naked savage. He cannot get out the ore without sinking a shaft or driving an adit, which, in the general way, means the hiring of labor and the purchase of costly machines. Then, when that is done, he must put up a stamp-mill and reducing plant, or arrange for transport by pack-horse to somebody who has one, which is a very expensive matter in a mountainous land where roads have still to be cut. As the result of this, he must in the first place go round and beg the assistance of men with money to spare; and the latter, as a rule, insist on his handing over the mine before parting with any of their money. There are also means of putting pressure on the reluctant seller, and the usual code of morals does not seem to be considered as strictly applicable to a mining deal.

"Well," said Devine, at length, "we have still a good deal of drilling to do, and unless you're smarter with the hammer than I am we'll want new hands before we're through."

"We hold three claims, and that means quite a lot of assessment work for you and me to put in," Saunders said. "Besides, you'll have to go down and straighten up things with the Gold Commissioner."

Devine made a sign of concurrence. When he had staked off the claims with Weston he had been more concerned about tracing the lode than anything else, and it had not occurred to him that they might be contested, as it certainly should have done. As the result of this, he had neglected one or two usual precautions, and when he filed his record he had not been as exact as was advisable in supplying bearings that would fix the precise limits of the holdings.

"Yes," he said, "now that I've made a second survey, I'll take the back trail in a day or two. The stakes are planted just where they should be, but the description I gave the Commissioner wasn't quite as precise as I should have made it; and, as the thing stands, I'm not sure we'd have much to go upon if anybody pulled up our stakes and swung our claim a little off the lode. Anyway, I don't quite see why the Commissioner shouldn't pass my survey to count for assessment work."

The firelight fell on Saunders' face, and he looked thoughtful. Though the thing is by no means common, claims have been jumped in that country—that is, occupied by men who surreptitiously or forcibly oust the rightful owner on the ground that he has not done the work required by law, or has been inaccurate in his record.

"I guess you'd better go down to-morrow when the boys come up," he said. "It's a fact that Van Staten went over to Cedar to see the Gold Commissioner, and from what one of the boys told me he had quite a long talk with him. Van Staten's straight, but it would be part of his duty to examine our record and mention it to the people who sent him up to investigate." He paused and spread out his hands. "I wouldn't stake my last dollar on the honesty of any of them."

"The boys would start when they got the news you sent them," said Devine.

Saunders smiled ruefully. He felt reasonably certain that every man in the settlement would abandon his occupation when he heard the message they had sent by an Indian they met on the trail soon after they started. Saunders, it must be admitted, had not sent it until Devine insisted on his doing so, for, as he shrewdly said, there was not a great deal of the lode that could be economically worked available, and he wanted to make quite sure that the Grenfell properties were on the richest of it, while the boys would be better employed working on their ranches and buying things from him than worrying over profitless claims. He added that if the latter broke them he would in all probability never recover what they owed him.

"They'll be here, sure, bringing as much of my pork and flour as they can pack along," he said. "It's quite likely Jim won't have raised thirty dollars among the crowd of them."

"Well," said Devine, "if I'm to take the trail tomorrow I'm going right under my blanket now."

He rolled it round him and lay down on a pile of spruce twigs outside the tent. The dew was rather heavy, but he was young and strong, and it is a luxury to sleep in the open in that elixir-like mountain air. He went to sleep at once, and it was evidently early morning when Saunders awakened him, for the moon, which had not cleared the eastern peaks when he lay down, was now high in the heavens. He sprang to his feet, and stood a moment or two shivering a little as he looked about him. It was very cold, and the little open space where the tent stood was flooded with silvery light, though here and there the shadows of the firs fell athwart it black as ink and sharp as a fretwork cut in ebony. Then he saw Saunders close beside him, fumbling with the magazine of his repeating-rifle.

"Not a blame ca'tridge left! You'd better take the ax along," he said.

"The ax?" queried Devine, who was a little startled as well as puzzled.

Saunders pointed to the shadowy bush.

"Sure," he said. "It's jumpers!"

That was enough for Devine. He flashed a glance at his companion. Saunders possessed the huckster's heart, and took pleasure in selling indifferent pork and third-grade flour at the highest prices he could possibly extort. The clink of the dollar was music to him; but it was perfectly clear that he could hold his own, on occasion, with a very tenacious hand. The man was resolutely quiet and evidently quite ready to meet the jumpers with an empty rifle.

For the next few moments Devine stood listening with strained attention. At first he could hear nothing except a little breeze that sighed among the tops of the firs, but by and by he became sensible of a stealthy rustling somewhere in the shadows. Then a branch snapped with a sharp distinctness that set his heart beating a good deal faster than was comfortable. Making a sign to Saunders, he strode back to the tent and picked up the ax.

After that they set out together down the little trail that led past the willows to the lode, slipping as silently as possible through the shadows, though now and then a stone clinked beneath their feet, or a stick or twig snapped as they passed, with a sound that seemed startlingly loud. Nobody, however, seemed to hear them, and at last they sank down amidst a brake of tall fern near a little, neatly-squared stake which had been driven into the soil. The brake was in black shadow, but a broad patch of moonlight fell on the green carpet of wineberries a yard or two away. The rustling had ceased, and they could hear nothing for several anxious minutes; then it commenced again. A man floundering through that kind of bush makes considerable noise, even when it is daylight and he can see where he is going. Then one of the jumpers, who apparently had fallen into a clump of thorns, broke out into half-smothered expletives, and there was a soft laugh, evidently from a comrade.

"Looking for the stake," said Saunders with a rather grim chuckle. "They mean to put the work through before they come round to call on us. As far as I can figure, there can't be more than four of them."

That appeared to Devine quite enough, but he recognized the necessity for a determined opposition. He knew that he had framed his record before the Gold Commissioner, and that it would not be difficult for the men who pulled up that stake to swing his claim a little off the richest of the lead. This would give them an opportunity for staking off a good deal of the strip he meant to hold, and once they took possession it would be a case of proving them wrong; and when it came to testimony, they were two to one. He felt sincerely sorry that Saunders had not sent the boys word of his discovery a little earlier.

In the meanwhile the rustling had ceased once more, and Devine felt the silence react upon his nerves. What the strangers were doing he could not tell, but he fancied that they must be consulting together somewhere among the trees. He felt that it would be a vast relief if he could only see them; and he glanced around at Saunders. The latter crouched among the dewy fern, impassively still, a blurred, shadowy object, with the rifle across his knees.

Then the crackling of undergrowth commenced again, and Devine fancied that he could distinguish the movements of four men. He heard the fern rustle close behind him, and saw that his companion had raised himself a trifle. The latter appeared to be gazing into the bush, and looking around sharply the surveyor started as a figure materialized out of the gloom where the moonlight streamed down between the trees not far away. The man stood amidst the silvery radiance, and Devine was relieved to notice that he had nothing in his hand. Then he turned partly around, and his voice reached the pair who watched him.

"Have you struck it yet?" he asked.

An invisible man replied that he had not yet found whatever he was searching for; and in another moment a sharp snapping suggested that a third stranger was floundering through the bush. He came into sight close by the first and stopped.

"I can't strike that post," he said. "The bush down that way is black as pitch. Guess I'll have to look for a pine-knot and get a light."

"They'd hear you chopping," said the man who had appeared first. "The tent's just back there among the firs. We have got to have that post shifted before they know we are about."

There was no doubt as to who it was that he referred to, and Devine saw Saunders hitch himself forward a little.

"If I'd only three or four ca'tridges!" he said half aloud.

Devine sympathized with him. His comrade was a very indifferent shot, but it would have been a relief to feel that they had something besides the ax to fall back on as a last resort. Firearms, as he was aware, are seldom made use of in a dispute in British Columbia, but, for all that, men have now and then been rather badly injured during an altercation over a mineral claim. At close quarters a shovel or a big hammer is apt to prove an effective weapon.

Then, and neither was afterward quite sure how it happened, Saunders lost his balance and fell forward amidst the fern. He did not do it noiselessly, and one of the two jumpers sprang backward a pace.

"Somebody in that clump of fern," he said, and then apparently recovered a little from his alarm. "It's that blame fool Charley."

There was no longer any possibility of concealment, and Saunders suddenly stood up in the moonlight which had crept close up to the brake, a tall, gaunt figure with the rifle glinting at his hip.

"It's not," he said laconically. "It's going to be a funeral unless you light out of this."

The men did not stop to consider, but vanished on the instant, and Devine, breaking into a little laugh from sheer relief, fancied that they had jumped behind adjacent trees. Saunders, who stood gazing into the shadows, waved his hand.

"You'll stop right where you are, boys, if you're wise," he said. "There'll sure be trouble if you come out again."

The men did not come out, but there was a smashing of undergrowth as two more came running up. They were visible for a moment as they sprang out into the open space between the willows and the first of the firs, and then apparently they saw Saunders, for they plunged back among the trees. The storekeeper sank down behind the fern.