and there loomed up before him, to his utter amazement, the
form of Andrew Malden.

The old man was evidently disconcerted and angry at being found, while
the boy was utterly dumfounded.

"Wait a minute, Job; I'll go home with you," said Malden, as he took
out the queerest charge Job had ever seen in a gun--a load of gold
dust, which he carefully rammed down the barrel, then, bidding Job
look out, fired into the rock.

"Why, what are you doing that for?" stammered the boy.

"Oh, salting the mine, just so it will keep," laughed Andrew Malden--a
strange, hoarse laugh. "But mind, Job, nobody needs to know I did it.
The mine will keep better if they don't."

As they passed out, Job noticed that the wall of the mine glittered in
a way he had never seen before. What did it all mean? He dared ask no
more questions of Andrew Malden. Almost in silence they climbed down
the old trail, edged across the bridge, and strode with a steady pace
up the long six miles over the Point to their home.

"What's 'salting a mine,' Tony?" asked Job of the black hostler one
day a week after.

"Doan' know, Marse Job, unless it's doctoring the critter so you can
make somebody believe it's worth a million, when it ain't worth a
rabbit's hind foot. Tony's up to better bizness than salting mines."

"Who owns the Cove Mine, Tony?"

"Why, Marse Malden, I 'spec," said the surprised negro.

That evening Job looked at his guardian with a queer feeling as they
sat down to supper, and that night he heard gun-shots in his dreams,
and awoke with a shiver and waited for something to happen. He was
conscious of impending trouble. Something was wrong.

* * * * *

It had been a hard winter in Grizzly county, and throughout the whole
country, for that matter; a hard winter, following a fatal summer
which closed with crops a failure on the plains, the stunted grain
fields uncut, and the whole country paralyzed. The cities were full of
men out of work. The demand for lumber had fallen off, and the Pine
Mountain Mill was idle over half the time. The pessimism that filled
the air had reached Andrew Malden, and he sat by the fire all winter
nursing it. If he could sell the Cove Mine--but what was there to
sell? And he gave it up as a futile project. Then there came news of a
rich strike of gold in Shasta county, and a little later in the far
south the deserts of the Mojave were found to glitter. A perfect
epidemic of mining