oyed by the
Hudson's Bay Company," she resumed. "The factory was in the Territories,
three or four hundred miles north of your mine, and the agent sent him
out, with a dog-train and two Indians, to collect some furs. They had to
make a long journey, and were coming back, short of food, when they
camped one evening beside a frozen creek. The water had worn away the
face of a small cliff, and the frost had recently split off a large
slab. That left the strata cleanly exposed, and my father noticed that
near the foot of the rock there was a different-colored band. They were
making camp in the snow then, but he went back afterwards when the moon
rose and the Indians were asleep, and broke off a number of bits. The
stones were unusually heavy. Doesn't that mean something?"

"Silver has a high specific gravity; so has lead. Sometimes one finds
them combined."

"I have a piece here," said Agatha, taking out a small packet. "My
father gave it me when I was a child, and I brought it, thinking I
might, perhaps, show it to you."

Thirlwell, examining the specimen, missed something of her meaning, and
did not see that her decision to show him the ore was a compliment. He
looked honest, and strangers often trusted him. His friends had never
known him abuse their confidence.

"Yes," he said at length. "I think it's silver. Traces of lead, and
perhaps copper, too; you seldom find silver pure. But won't you go on
with the tale?"

"The party's food was getting short. That meant they would starve if
they did not reach the factory soon, and they set off again at dawn.
There was no time to prospect and deep snow covered the ground, but my
father made what he called a mental photograph of the spot. It was a
little hollow among the rocks, with a willow grove by the creek, and in
the middle there were two or three burned pines. If you drew a line
through them it pointed nearly north, and where it touched the cliff you
turned east about twenty yards."

"Aren't you rash to tell me this?" Thirlwell asked.

Agatha smiled. "On the whole, I think not; but nothing I could tell
would be of much use to you. My father, although he had been there,
could not find the spot again."

She paused a moment and then went on: "When they reached the factory he
showed the specimens to the agent, who said they were worthless and
laughed at him. But it was perhaps significant that he was not sent that
way again. One understands that the Hudson's Bay direct