LITMIR.BIZ

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can you know where it is when you have to look for it?" the other man inquired.

      Grenfell glanced at him severely.

      "I'm not drunk—it's my knees," he pointed out. "Don't cast slurs on me. I was once Professor of—mineralogical chemist and famous assayer too. Biggest mining men in the country consulted me."

      The track-grader nodded as he glanced at Weston.

      "I guess he was," he said. "We had a man from back east on this section who had heard of him."

      Then he turned to Grenfell.

      "Go ahead and explain about the mine."

      "I'm not sure that that's quite straight," Weston objected. "If he does know anything of the kind——"

      "Oh," said his companion, "I'm not on. If he ever did know I guess he has forgotten it long ago. He has been forgetting right along whether he put salt in the hash or not, and each time he wasn't sure he did it again. That's one of the things that made the trouble."

      Grenfell stopped him with a gesture.

      "I'm going to talk. Don't interrupt. Mr. Weston was once or twice a good friend to me, and you have seen me through a few times lately. Now I know a quartz lead that's run through with wire gold quite rich enough to mill at a profit, but I can't go up and look for it in the bush myself. When I walk any distance my knees get shaky. Make you firm offer—even shares to come up with me."

      "Where is it?"

      Grenfell turned and glanced toward the dim line of snow that gleamed high up above the forests in the north.

      "There's a lake—the Lake of the Shadows—Verneille called it that," he said dreamily. "It lies in a hollow of the range with the black firs all round. There's a creek at one side, with a clear pool where it bends, and I came there one day very hot and hungry with the boots worn off me. I think"—and by his tense face he seemed to be trying earnestly to remember something—"we were quite a few days crossing that range, and our provisions were running put when we hit the valley."

      "Well?" prompted the track-grader when he stopped.

      "I crawled down to the pool to drink. There were pebbles in it and a ledge above. There were specks in the pebbles, and specks that showed plainer in the ledge. The stones were shot with the metal when I broke one or two of those I took out."

      He fumbled inside his pocket and produced a little bag from which he extracted a few broken bits of rock. Weston, to whom he passed them, could see that little threads of metal ran through them. "You're quite sure it's gold?" the other man inquired.

      "Am I sure!"

      Grenfell smiled compassionately.

      "I was Professor—but guess I've told you that already."

      "The lead?" inquired the other man.

      "Outcrop, a few yards of it. Then it dips on a slight inclination, and evidently runs back toward the range. An easy drive for an adit. Stayed there two days, Verneille and I. Quite sure about that gold."

      Weston's face grew intent.

      "You recorded it?"

      "We staked a claim, and started back; but Verneille couldn't find a deer, and when we first hit the valley provisions were running out. There was a mist in the ranges, and whichever way we headed we brought up on crags and precipices. Then we went up to look for another way across and got into the snow. I never knew how I got out—or where Verneille went, but when I struck a prospector's camp—he wasn't with me."

      The track-grader nodded. He had been born among the ranges, and knew that the prospectors who went out on the gold trail did not invariably come back. He had heard of famishing men staggering along astonishing distances half-asleep or too dazed to notice where they were going. He and Weston had done so themselves, for that matter.

      "You told the prospector about the lead?" Weston inquired.

      "If I did he never found the mine. I was scarcely sensible when I reached his camp, and I lay there very ill until he went on and left me with half a deer he'd shot. After that I nearly gave out again making the settlements."

      "Well," said the track-grader, "where's the lake?"

      Grenfell spread out his hands.

      "I don't know. I went up to look for it three or four times several years ago."

      He broke off abruptly, and there was silence for a minute or two. Strange as the thing appeared, it was not altogether an unusual story. All the way from California to the frozen north one now and then may hear of men who struck a rich quartz or silver lead in the wilderness, and, coming down to record it, signally failed to find it again. What is stranger still, there are mines that have been discovered several times by different men, none of whom was ever afterward able to retrace his steps. At any rate, if one accomplished it, he never came back to tell of his success, for the bones of many prospectors lie unburied in the wilderness. Indeed, when the wanderers who know it best gather for the time being in noisy construction camp or beside the snapping fire where the new wagon road cleaves the silent bush, they tell tales of lost quartz-reefs and silver leads as fantastic as those of the genii-guarded treasures of the East, and the men who have been out on the gold trail generally believe them.

      On the surface Grenfell's task seemed easy. He had to find a lonely lake cradled in a range; and there are, as the maps show, three great ranges running roughly north and south in the Pacific Province. Still, in practice, it is difficult to tell where one leaves off and the other begins, for that wild land has been aptly termed a sea of mountains. They seem piled on one another, peak on peak; and spur on spur, and among their hollows lie lonely lakes and frothing rivers almost without number, while valley and hill-slopes are usually shrouded in tremendous forest to the line where the dwindling pines meet the gleaming snow. Weston was, of course, aware of this, and he felt, somewhat naturally, that it complicated the question.

      Then Grenfell turned to him and his companion.

      "I've made you my offer—a third-share each," he said. "Are you coming?"

      The track-grader shook his head.

      "No," he replied, "I guess not. I'm making good wages here. So long as I can keep from riling Cassidy they're sure." Then he grinned at Weston. "It's your call."

      Weston sat silent for a full minute, but his heart was beating faster than usual, and he glanced up from the piles of gravel and blackened fir stumps by the track to the gleaming snow. A sudden distaste for the monotonous toil with the shovel came upon him, and he felt the call of the wilderness. Besides, he was young enough to be sanguine, although, for that matter, older men, worn by disappointments and toilsome journeys among the hills, have set out once more on the gold trail with an optimistic faith that has led them to their death. Ambition awoke in him, and he recognized now that the week or two spent in Kinnaird's camp had rendered it impossible for him to remain a track-grader. At length he turned to Grenfell.

      "Well," he said, "if you're still in the same mind to-morrow I'll come. Still, if you think better of it, you can cry off then."

      His sense of fairness demanded that; for he would not bind a man whose senses were, it seemed reasonable to suppose, not particularly clear. Grenfell evidently understood him, and drew himself up with an attempt at dignity.

      "My head's quite right when I'm sitting down; it's my knees," he said. "Want to put the thing through now—half-share each. We'll call it a bargain."

      The track-grader nodded to Weston.

      "I guess you needn't stand off," he said. "He knows what he's doing."

      They shook hands on it, and then proceeded to discuss ways and means. It was clear that they might be some time in the wilderness, and would need provisions, new boots, blankets, a rifle, and a tent; and all of these things are dear in that country. They recognized that it would be advisable also to take a horse or mule. Weston did not think that any of the bush ranchers would hire them one, as horses are not always brought back from such journeys. This would render

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