standing of his friend, Bill
Brudenell was unable even to guess at the thoughts passing behind the
icy reserve which seemed to have settled upon him.

But his questions found an answer much sooner than he expected. The
silence was broken by a short, hard laugh of something like
self-contempt.

"You an' me, Bill. We're going up there with an outfit that knows all
about scrapping, and something about gold. We're going up there, and
d'you know why? Oh, not to rob a widow and orphan." He laughed again
in the same fashion. "Not a soul's got to know, or be wise to our
play," he went on. "The strike they've worked won't be touched by us.
We'll make our own. But for once gold isn't all we need. There's
something else. I tell you I can't rest till we find it. There's a
gal, Bill, on the Snake River, with eyes made to smile most all the
time. They did--till Allan Mowbray got done up. Well, I got a notion
they'll smile again some day, but it won't be till I've located just
how her father came by his end, after years of working with the Bell
River neches. I want to see those eyes smile, Bill. I want to see 'em
smile bad. Maybe you think me some fool man. I allow I'm wiser than
you guess. Maybe, even, I'm wiser than you, who've never yearned to
see a gal's eyes smiling into yours in all your forty-three years.
That's why we're going to butt in on that strike, and you're coming
right along with me if I have to yank you there by your mighty badly
fledged scalp."

Bill had turned over on his side. His shrewd eyes were smiling.

"Sounds like fever," he said, in his pleasant way. "I'll need to take
the patient's temperature. Say, John, you won't have to haul on my
scalp for any play like that. I'm in it--right up to my neck. That
I've lived to see the day John Kars talks of marrying makes me feel
I've not lived----"

"He's not talking of marriage," came the swift retort with flushed
cheeks.

"No. But he's thinking it. Which, in a man like John Kars, comes
pretty near meaning the same thing. Did you ask her, boy?"

Just for a moment resentment lit the other's eyes. It was on his
tongue to make a sharp retort. But, under the deep, new emotion
stirring him, an emotion that made him rather crave for a sympathy
which, in all his strong life, he had never felt the necessity before,
the desire melted away. In place of it he yielded to a rush of
enthusiasm which surprised himself almost as much as it did his