rge you--without a mortgage."

Again Hawtrey showed a certain embarrassment. "No," he replied, "I'm
afraid it can't be done. I had a kind of claim upon my people, though it
must be admitted that I've worked it off, but I can't quite bring myself
to borrow money from my friends."

Wyllard who saw that he meant it, made a gesture of resignation. "Then
you must let the girl make the most of it, but keep out of the hands of
the mortgage man. By the way, I haven't told you that I've decided to
make a trip to the Old Country. We had a bonanza crop last season, and
Martial could run the range for a month or two. After all, my father was
born yonder, and I can't help feeling now and then that I should have
made an effort to trace up that young Englishman's relatives, and tell
them what became of him."

"The one you struck in British Columbia? You have mentioned him, but, so
far as I remember, you never gave me any particulars about the thing."

Wyllard seemed to hesitate, which was not a habit of his.

"There is," he said, "not much to tell. I struck the lad sitting down,
played out, upon a trail that led over a big divide. It was clear that
he couldn't get any further, and there wasn't a settlement within a good
many leagues of the spot. We were up in the ranges prospecting then.
Well, we made camp and gave him supper--he couldn't eat very much--and
afterwards he told me what brought him there. It seemed to me he had
always been weedy in the chest, but he had been working waist-deep in an
icy creek, building a dam at a mine, until his lungs had given out. The
mining boss was a hard case and had no mercy on him, but the lad, who
had had a rough time in the Mountain Province, stayed with it until he
played out altogether."

Wyllard's face hardened as he mentioned the mining boss, and a curious
little sparkle crept into his eyes, but after a pause he proceeded
quietly:

"We did what we could for the boy. In fact, it rather broke up the
prospecting trip, but he was too far gone. He hung for a week or two,
and one of us brought a doctor out from the settlements, but the day
before we broke camp Jake and I buried him."

Hawtrey made a sign of comprehension. He was reasonably well acquainted
with his comrade's character, and fancied he knew who had brought the
doctor out. He knew also that Wyllard had been earning his living as a
railroad navvy or chopper then, and, in view of the cost of provisions
brought by pack-horse int