of the white November
sunshine into Macartney's new tunnel, and the candlelight of his humming
stope. One glance around told me Dudley was right, and the man knew his
business; and it was the same over at the mill. It seemed to me
superintendent was a mild name for Macartney, and general manager would
have fitted better. But I said nothing, for Dudley considered he was
general manager himself. Another thing that pleased me about the new man
was that he seemed to be doing nothing, till you saw how his men jumped
for him, while Thompson had never been able to keep his hands off the
men's work. There was none of that in Macartney; and if he had struck me
as capable the night before he looked ten times more so now, as he
placidly ran four jobs at once.

He was a good-looking figure of a man, too, in his brown duck working
clothes, and I did not wonder Marcia Wilbraham had taken a fancy to him.
Dudley would probably be blazing if he caught her philandering with his
superintendent, but it was no business of mine. And anyhow, Macartney
had my blessing since it could not be he to whom Paulette Brown had
meant to speak the night before. That ought to have been none of my
business either, and to get it out of my head I turned to Dudley,
fussing round and talking about tailings. And one omission in all he and
Macartney had shown me hopped up in my head. "Where's your gold?" I
demanded.

"That's one thing we don't keep loose on the doorsteps," Macartney
returned drily, and I rather liked him for it, since he knew nothing of
my share in the mine.

But Dudley snapped at him: "Why can't you say it's in the house--in my
office? Stretton's going to take it into Caraquet; there's no sense in
making a mystery to him. Come on, Stretton, and have a look at it now!"
He stuck his fat little arm through mine, and we went back to the house
by the back door and Charliet's untidy kitchen. It was the shortest way,
and it was not till afterwards that I remembered it was not commanded by
the window in his office, like the front way. I was not keen on going;
later I had a sickly feeling that it was because I had a presentiment of
seeing something I did not want to see. Then all I thought was that I
had a hundred other things to do, and though I went unwillingly, I went.

"The gold's in my safe, in boxes," Dudley said on the way, "and that I'm
not going to undo. But I've a lump or two in my desk I can show you."

"Lying round loose?" I shrugged