an engineer or a business
man." He paused and looked hard at Thirlwell. "I'd like you to stay and
see me through, but wouldn't blame you if you quit."

"My reputation is not worth much and can be risked. Besides, I imagine
we'll get down to the deep vein before the funds run out."

"I hope so! You're not a quitter, and we'll hold on while we can, but I
think we'll talk about something else. Well, I've examined the specimen
of ore you brought back. It looks like high-grade stuff and certainly
carries enough metal to pay for smelting."

"What do you think about Strange's tale?"

Scott knitted his brows. "I did think the man a drunken crank and the
lode an illusion that had grown on him by degrees until he really
believed in the ore. When you get the tanking habit such things happen.
One specimen certainly doesn't prove very much; but since Strange gave
it to his daughter a long time before we knew him, I'm willing to revise
my judgment."

"Miss Strange is persuaded that he did find the lode. She tells me he
led a very industrious and sober life at home."

"It's rather curious you met the girl," Scott observed.

"I don't think so. When we found her address among the truck Strange had
left with the foreman, it was the proper thing for me to tell her he was
drowned. This led to another letter or two, and when I said I was going
to Montreal she asked me to meet her."

"Is she like Strange?"

"Not at all," Thirlwell declared. "In fact, although her letters ought
to have prepared me, I got something of a surprise. She was not the kind
of girl I had expected to meet. I understand she teaches at a Toronto
school."

"She must have some talent to get a post there," Scott remarked when he
had asked the name of the school. Then he paused and vaguely indicated
the North. "Well, it's a romantic story! Nobody knows yet what there is
in the rocks up yonder, but we have heard of other prospectors striking
pay-dirt and making nothing of their discovery. Rumors about mysterious
lodes are common in a mineral belt, and while they're often
imaginative, my notion is that now and then there's some fact behind the
fiction. Fur-traders in Alaska heard such tales long before the Klondyke
strike."

He stopped, for there were steps outside, and Thirlwell, leaning
forward, saw a man come up the trail. The fellow had a dark, sullen face
and wore an old gray shirt and ragged overalls. He walked with a slight
limp, in consequence of gettin