is now;
won't have it. Take your time, Al. Good luck and so long.

JOHN.'

'Turn it over!' cried Howard.

Helen obeyed, only then fully understanding. It was a cheque for
twelve thousand five hundred dollars, signed by Alan Howard and payable
to the order of John Carr. Again she looked at the brief note; it was
dated, and the date was eight days old. Her face flushed suddenly; the
colour deepened.

'He wrote that the day after I sent my telegram to him!' she cried
breathlessly.

'Telegram?'

'Yes.' She hesitated, then ran on swiftly: 'When Mr. Carr left I let
him think that maybe father and I would follow soon. I don't know that
I had been exactly what you men call square with Mr. Carr. I wanted to
be square with everyone. So I sent him a telegram, saying that we
appreciated his generosity but that we would stay here.'

Howard studied the date on the fluttering paper and his mind ran back.

'You sent that wire the day after I came back last time!'

'And if I did?' She met his look serenely.

'You did so because you cared----'

But Helen laughed at him, and again Danny, touched with a sudden spur,
shot ahead down the trail.

They clattered like runaway children into the crooked rocky street of
Sanchia's Town. Had their thoughts been less busied with themselves
and with a hint of a rosy future and with the bigness of the thing
which John Carr had done for them, they would have marked long ago that
here something was amiss. But it was only when they were fairly in the
heart of the settlement that they stopped abruptly to stare at each
other. Now there was no misunderstanding what had happened! Sanchia's
Town, that had been a busy, humming human hive no longer ago than
yesterday was this morning still, deserted, empty and dead. Those who
had rushed hitherward seeking gold were gone; be the explanation where
it might, shacks stood with doors flung wide; tents had been torn down,
outworn articles discarded, dumped helter-skelter into the road. The
atmosphere was like that of a circus grounds when the circus was moving
on, only a few things left for the last crew to come for.

'It feels like a graveyard,' whispered Helen. 'What has happened?'

'The old story, I suppose.' He turned sideways in the saddle, looking
about him for a sign of remaining life. 'It grew in the night; somehow
it has pinched out; the bottom has dropped out of it. Nate Kemble of
Quigley bought up two or three claims;