me, who had only a trifle in the
thing, but I was the only soul in the world who knew what it meant to
Dudley. Stocks, carelessness, but chiefly bull-headed extravagance, had
run through every cent he had, and La Chance had saved him from having
to live on Marcia's charity,--if she had any. There was no fear, either,
of his being interfered with in the bonanza he had struck; for leaving
out my infinitesimal share, Dudley was sole owner,--and he had bought a
thousand acres mining concession from the Government for ten dollars an
acre, which is the law when a potential mining district in unsurveyed
territory is more than twenty miles by a wagon road from a railway. All
he had to do with would-be prospectors was to chuck them out. He had got
in ten stamps for his mill over the road I had built from Caraquet,
and--since Macartney arrived--was milling stuff whose net result made me
stare, after the miserable, two-dollar ore old Thompson had broken my
heart with.

"So you see, we're made," Dudley finished simply. "Macartney struck his
vein first go off, and we'll be able to work it all winter. You'd better
start in to-day and get some snowsheds built along the face of the
workings--they ought to have been started a week ago. Why in the
devil"--drink and drugs do not make a man easy to work with, and you
never knew when Dudley might turn on you with a face like a
fiend--"didn't you get back from Caraquet before? You'd nothing to keep
you away this last week!"

"I'd plenty," I returned drily. "And I may remind you that I didn't
propose to have to walk back!" It was the first time I had mentioned my
missing horse. I did not mention my stay in Skunk's Misery: it was a
side show of my own, to my mind, and unconnected with Dudley,--though I
ought to have known that nothing in life is ever a side show, even if
you can't see the door from the big tent.

"Oh, your horse," said Dudley more civilly. "I didn't think I'd
forgotten about it, but I suppose I must have. I was a good deal put out
getting Thompson off."

"What happened about him?" I had had no chance to ask before.

"Oh, I never could stand him," and I knew it was true. "Sitting all the
evening playing cards like a performing dog! And he wasn't fit for his
work, either. I told him so, and he said he'd go. He went out to
Caraquet nearly a month ago--I thought you knew. D'ye mean you didn't
see him going through?"

I shook my head. It was a wonder I had not, for I had spe