as
very pointed badinage, at the comrade who tried to read. It would, she
admitted, certainly be a little difficult to study trigonometry in
such surroundings.

"You see, I wanted to go into the thing systematically," continued
Weston, who felt that he was safest when he kept on talking. "We have
decided that Verneille couldn't have made more than forty miles from
the lake, and, as he was heading south, that gives us at most a sweep
of about a hundred and twenty miles to search, though the whole of it
is practically a nest of mountains. As I wasn't able to read up the
subject quite as much as I should have liked, we have thought of
hiring a professional surveyor and raising money enough to spend the
whole summer over the thing, even if we have to let the men who help
us take a share in the mine."

"I wonder whether you would be very much offended if some of your
friends were to offer to bear part of the expense?" Ida asked quietly.

"I'm afraid I couldn't permit it." The man's face flushed. "They
probably would never get their money back. After all, it's only a
wild-cat scheme."

"That doesn't sound very convincing," said Ida. "Haven't you another
reason?"

She had expected to find the suggestion useless when she made it, for
she understood his attitude. He would not take her money, and that, of
course, was in one respect just as she would have had it; but, on the
other hand, there were so many difficulties, and probably hazards,
that she could save him.

"Well," he said quietly, "it's the only reason I can offer."

There was silence for almost half a minute, and Ida felt that it was
becoming singularly uncomfortable. So much could have been said by
both of them that their conversation up to this point had suggested to
her the crossing of a river on very thin ice. On the surface it was
smooth, but the stream ran strong below, and there was the possibility
that at any moment one of them might plunge through. Pride forbade her
making any deliberate attempt to break the ice, but she would not have
been very sorry had it suddenly given way. The man evidently was
holding himself in hand, and she felt that she must emulate his
reticence. She clung to the safe topic, in which she really was
interested, as he had done.

"Won't you go on?" she asked. "You were not successful in Vancouver,
and you tried to raise the money in Montreal. It's a little difficult,
isn't it?"

"Oh, yes," said Weston, laughing, "as I'm sit