e factor would start the investigation. But nothin' come of it till
you come along, although they was several of them foxes trapped--as long
as three years back. But I kept on yellin' night an' mornin'. Sometime,
I know'd someone would hear. An' that's all there is to it, except that
my clothes an' shoes was all wore out--but I didn't mind so much because
it was warm as summer all the time, an' no mosquitoes in the cave."

"And now you can rest up for a few days, and well take you to Fort
Norman," smiled Connie, when the man relapsed into silence, "and you can
go out in the summer with the brigade."

"Go out?" asked the man, vaguely. "Go out where?"

"Why!" exclaimed the boy, "go out--wherever you want to go."

The man lapsed into a long silence as he sat with his grey beard resting
upon his breast and gazed into the fire. "No," he said, at length, "I'll
go to Fort Norman, an' get some drills an' powder, an' shoot me a new
tunnel. I'll take a stove so I can have a fire, an' cook. I like the
cave. It's all the home I got, an' someone's got to look after them
foxes."

"But the gold?" asked the boy. "How about bringing in a stamp mill and
turn your hill into a regular outfit?"

James Dean shook his head. "No, it would spoil the cave an' besides
where would me and the foxes go? That hill is the only home we've
got--an' I'm gettin' old. I'm eighty if I'm a day. When I'm dead you can
have the hill--but you'll look after them foxes, won't you, boy?"

A week later Connie and 'Merican Joe and James Dean pulled up before the
Hudson's Bay Post at Fort Norman, and, as the boy entered the door,
McTavish greeted him in surprise. "You're just the one I want!" he
cried. "I was just about to send an Indian runner to your cabin with
this letter. It come from the Yukon by special messenger."

Connie tore the document open, and as he read, his eyes hardened. It was
from Waseche Bill, and it had not been intrusted to "Roaring Mike
O'Reilly" to transcribe. It ran thus:

MR. C. MORGAN,

Cannady.

Son, yo better come back yere. Theys an outfit thats tryin to horn
in on us on Ten Bow. They stack up big back in the states--name's
Guggenhammer, or somethin' like it, an they say we kin take our
choist to either fight or sell out. If we fight they say they'll
clean us out. I ain't goin' to do one thing or nother till I hear
from you. Come a runnin' an' les here you talk.

Your pard,
W. BILL.

"What