can't trust any one. Don't you
think so?"

The man nodded. They had many conversations like that, and she had grown
not to notice his lack of speech nearly so much as at first. He was so
good a listener, and she had become so used to his face gradually gaining
again expressive power, that she divined his wishes more readily than the
others.

"But trusting don't cut any figure in what I came to speak to you about,"
she continued. "No 'trust and hope on, brethren,' about this, I guess,"
and she held the grains of yellow metal before his eyes. "There it is--the
gold! Dan found it in the little hollow where the spring is. Is that where
you found it?"

He shook his head, but looked pleased at the show they had found.

"Was it bigger bundles of it than this you struck?"

He nodded assent.

"Bigger than this! Well, it must have been rich. These lumps are enough in
size if they only turn out enough in number. Oh, how I wish you had put
the very spot on that plan of the ground and the rivers! Still, I suppose
you were right to be cautious. And if I hadn't been on a lone trail
through this country last spring, and got lost, and happened to notice the
two little streams running into the river so close to each other, we might
have had a year's journey along the Kootenai before we could have found
the particular little stream and followed the right one to its source. I
think we are close on the trail now, Joe."

He shook his head energetically when she called him Joe.

"Well, I forget," she said. "You see, I've been thinking for months about
finding Joe Hammond; and now that I've found you, I can't get used to
thinking you are Jim Harris. What's the use of your changing your name,
anyway? You did it so you could trail him, your partner, better. But what
was the use, with him well and strong, and with devils back of him, and
you alone and barely able to crawl? Your head was wrong, Joe--Jim, I mean.
If you hadn't been looney, you'd just have settled down and worked your
claim, got rich, and then looked for your man."

He shook his head impatiently, and looked at her with as much of a frown
as his locked muscles would allow, and a very queer, hard smile about his
eyes and mouth.

"Ah!" and 'Tana shivered a little; "don't look like that, Joe. You
wouldn't get any Sunday-school prizes for a meek and lowly spirit if the
manager saw you fix your face in that fashion. I guess I know how you
felt. If you had just so much strength