nda and
thrust a heavy bag into the storekeeper's hand.

"Get a light," he said, "and look at them."

It was ten minutes later when they sat around a little table in the
back store, which smelt unpleasantly of salt pork and coffee. A big
kerosene lamp hung above their heads, and the storekeeper gazed with
almost incredulous eyes at the litter of broken stones in front of
him.

"Oh, yes," he said, "it's high-grade milling ore. You'll say nothing
to the boys, and get your record in to-morrow. Then what's your
program?"

"I'll go on to Vancouver and see about getting a well-known mining man
to go up and certify my statements," said Weston. "Then I'll try to
raise sufficient money to make a start with. I ought to get it there
or in Victoria."

"No," said the storekeeper, "you go on to Montreal. They've more money
yonder, and it's good policy to strike for the place you're likely to
get the most."

"One understands that it's difficult for the little man who has a
claim to sell to get much for it anywhere," said Weston, with a smile.

The storekeeper straightened himself resolutely in his chair.

"That's a cold fact, but in this case it has to be done. I got my
money hard." In proof of it he held up one hand from which three
fingers were missing. "That was the result of working sixteen hours
right off in a one-horse sawmill. We had one light above the bench,
and when I was too played out to see quite what I was doing I got my
hand drawn in. I made the rest of my pile--it's a mighty little
one--much the same way, and now I'm holding tight to what is mine. I
provided your outfit, for, crazy as it seemed, I believed Grenfell's
tale, and I figured that you were straight men; but I know what
generally happens when the little man goes around the city with a mine
to sell."

He brought his hand down upon the table with a bang.

"You're going right into Montreal--I'll find the money--and you'll
stand off just as long as it seems advisable for the biggest figure.
When this thing's floated, we're going to get our share."

Weston, who sat on a packing-case because there was only one chair,
glanced around the store. Its walls were of undressed pine logs, and
it was roofed with cedar shingles hand-split. There were a few dozen
bags of somebody's "Early Riser" flour standing upon what appeared to
be kegs of nails, and across the room odd cases of canned goods, lumps
of salt pork, and a few bags of sugar apparently had been fl