re may bring. And so--you must leave me now; and
it may be long before I see you. Go, and God bless you, taking my promise
with you."

She laid her little hand in mine, and I bent down until the flushed face
was level with my own. When I found myself in the open air again, I strode
through the scented shadows triumphantly. The Colonel's opposition counted
as nothing then. I was sanguine and young, and I knew, because she had
said it, that until I had worsted fortune Grace Carrington would wait for
me.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE OPENING OF THE LINE

During the weeks that followed I saw neither Grace nor Colonel
Carrington--though the latter fact did not cause me unnecessary grief, and
we heard much about his doings. From what the independent miners who
strolled into our camp at intervals told us, the Day Spring shaft had
proved a costly venture, and had so far failed to lay bare any traces of
payable milling ore. Still, the redoubtable Colonel continued with his
usual tenacity, and was now driving an adit into the range side to strike
the quartz reef at another level.

"There's a blamed sight more gold going into them diggings than they'll
ever get out, and the man who is running them will make a big hole in
somebody's bank account," said one informant meditatively. "However,
there's no use wasting time trying to give him advice. I strolled round
one morning promiscuous, and sat down in his office. 'See here, Colonel,
you're ploughing a bad patch,' I says, 'and having a knowledge of good
ones I might tell you something if I prowled through your workings.'"

"What did he say?" asked Harry, smiling at me. And the narrator
expectorated disgustedly as he answered:

"Just turned round and stared--kind of combine between a ramrod and an
icicle. 'Who the perdition are you?' he said--or he looked it, anyway. So,
seeing him above a friendly warning, I lit out, feeling sheep-faced; and
I've bluffed some hard men in my time. Since then I've been rooting
round, and I'm concluding there is good ore in that mountain, if he could
strike it."

"Do you know the sheep-faced feeling, Ralph?" asked Harry mischievously.
And probably my frown betrayed me, because I knew it well, though there
was some consolation in the thought that this reckless wanderer of the
ranges knew it also.

In any case, I had small leisure just then to trouble about the affairs of
Colonel Carrington. My duty to my partners and the men who worked for us
w