ps of paper.

"Here 's the answer," he said quietly, "the taxes are paid until 1922."

Robert Fairchild studied the receipts carefully--futilely. They told
him nothing. The lawyer stood looking down upon him; at last he laid a
hand on his shoulder.

"Boy," came quietly, "I know just about what you 're thinking. I 've
spent a few hours at the same kind of a job myself, and I 've called
old Henry Beamish more kinds of a fool than you can think of for not
coming right out flat-footed and making Thornton tell me the whole
story. But some way, when I 'd look into those eyes with the fire all
dead and ashen within them, and see the lines of an old man in his
young face, I--well, I guess I 'm too soft-hearted to make folks
suffer. I just couldn't do it!"

"So you can tell me nothing?"

"I 'm afraid that's true--in one way. In another I 'm a fund of
information. To-night you and I will go to Indianapolis and probate
the will--it's simple enough; I 've had it in my safe for ten years.
After that, you become the owner of the Blue Poppy mine, to do with as
you choose."

"But--"

The old lawyer chuckled.

"Don't ask my advice, Boy. I have n't any. Your father told me what
to do if you decided to try your luck--and silver 's at $1.29. It
means a lot of money for anybody who can produce pay ore--unless what
he said about the mine pinching out was true."

Again the thrill of a new thing went through Robert Fairchild's veins,
something he never had felt until twelve hours before; again the urge
for strange places, new scenes, the fire of the hunt after the hidden
wealth of silver-seamed hills. Somewhere it lay awaiting him; nor did
he even know in what form. Robert Fairchild's life had been a plodding
thing of books and accounts, of high desks which as yet had failed to
stoop his shoulders, of stuffy offices which had been thwarted so far
in their grip at his lung power; the long walk in the morning and the
tired trudge homeward at night to save petty carfare for a silent man's
pettier luxuries had looked after that. But the recoil had not exerted
itself against an office-cramped brain, a dusty ledger-filled life that
suddenly felt itself crying out for the free, open country, without
hardly knowing what the term meant. Old Beamish caught the light in
the eyes, the quick contraction of the hands, and smiled.

"You don't need to tell me, Son," he said slowly. "I can see the
symptoms. You 've got the fever--Y