Walking up the steep, winding trail that led to Nelson Flat cleared a
little his fogged brain. He began to remember what it was that he had
been fighting to forget. Marie's face floated sometimes before him, but
the vision was misty and remote, like distant woodland seen through
the gray film of a storm. The thought of her filled him with a vague
discomfort now when his emotions were dulled by the terrific strain
he had wilfully put upon brain and body. Resentment crept into the
foreground again. Marie had made him suffer. Marie was to blame for this
beastly fit of intoxication. He did not love Marie--he hated her. He
did not want to see her, he did not want to think of her. She had done
nothing for him but bring him trouble. Marie, forsooth! (Only, Bud put
it in a slightly different way.)

Halfway to the flat, he met Cash walking down the slope where the trail
seemed tunneled through deep green, so thick stood the young spruce.
Cash was swinging his arms in that free stride of the man who has
learned how to walk with the least effort. He did not halt when he
saw Bud plodding slowly up the trail, but came on steadily, his keen,
blue-gray eyes peering sharply from beneath his forward tilted hat brim.
He came up to within ten feet of Bud, and stopped.

"Well!" He stood eyeing Bud appraisingly, much as Bud had eyed Frank a
couple of hours before. "I was just starting out to see what had become
of you," he added, his voice carrying the full weight of reproach that
the words only hinted at.

"Well, get an eyeful, if that's what you come for. I'm here--and
lookin's cheap." Bud's anger flared at the disapproval he read in Cash's
eyes, his voice, the set of his lips.

But Cash did not take the challenge. "Did the report come?" he asked, as
though that was the only matter worth discussing.

Bud pulled the letter sullenly from his pocket and gave it to Cash. He
stood moodily waiting while Cash opened and read and returned it.

"Yeah. About what I thought--only it runs lighter in gold, with a higher
percentage of copper. It'll pay to go on and see what's at bed rock. If
the copper holds up to this all along, we'll be figuring on the gold to
pay for getting the copper. This is copper country, Bud. Looks like we'd
found us a copper mine." He turned and walked on beside Bud. "I dug in
to quite a rich streak of sand while you was gone," he volunteered after
a silence. "Coarse gold, as high as fifteen cents a pan. I figure we