t was unsuccessful. I can't prove it, but the facts
look so. I have been afraid ever since I knew you were here that your
mother, as the rightful heir to the property, would play into his hands.
I feared he would offer to sell her share of this mine for her and, in
reality, buy it himself. He could then, according to law, force me to
sell my share or to buy his. If I refused to sell, he would ask a very
large sum for his, and in that way force me to his bargain. His working
the tunnel on the other side of the dyke this fall and winter is more to
scare me into believing he will get the gold anyway, and that I may as
well sell, than anything else. I have learned that they are having
a great deal of trouble in their tunnel. It's very shaly and keeps caving
from above. If he spent as much time and money caring for his sick wife
as he has on this mine, she might have gotten well."

Willis had been listening with breathless interest.

"Go on," he begged. "Tell me all about everything, from the very
beginning."

"Lad, it's a long, long story. I'll do that later. Let's not talk any
more about it now."

"O, I must know about it. Don't stop. Tad, you can't possibly know what
all this means to me." Tad rose and snapped the new lock in place on the
door, while Old Ben cursed under his breath.

"Of all the tarnal idiots," he was saying; "I never seed a man so sot in
his ways. Tad, ain't ye even goin' to peek inside?"

"No, Ben, not to-day. Perhaps some day," returned the old prospector,
"and perhaps never."

Willis jumped to his feet. "Not to-day, Tad? Not to-day? Do you mean you
aren't going into the mine. Well, I am, even if you aren't. I don't leave
this spot until I see the inside for myself. Give me the key. Ham and I
will go in alone."

"O, I wish you wouldn't. It's dangerous, and I am sure the story of the
gold is only a notion. Your father was out of his mind when he died, and
the gold he told about was just one of his dreams. I worked with him that
day, and I saw no special signs of gold."

"Yes, but that varmit, Williams, has seed signs," muttered Ben. "He went
in an' brought out samples; he knows, an' you only think you do."

Willis held out his hand for the key, and Ben urged him on. Tad looked
far away over the snowy hills, then up the quiet valley, so peaceful in
its white robes, and at last down to the little cabin below. There his
gaze rested.

"My, but it hardly seems fourteen years since I built that s