ea. But Fairchild failed to
notice either that or the fact that ancient, age-whitened water wheels
had begun to appear here and there, where gulch miners, seekers after
gold in the silt of the creek's bed, had abandoned them years before;
that now and then upon the hills showed the gaunt scars of mine
openings,--reminders of dreams of a day long past; or even the more
important fact that in the distance, softened by the mellowing rays of
a dying sun, a small town gradually was coming into view. A mile more,
then the truck stopped with a jerk.

"Where you bound for, pardner?"

Fairchild turned absently, then grinned in embarrassment.

"Ohadi."

"That's it, straight ahead. I turn off here. Stranger?"

"Yep."

"Miner?"

Fairchild shrugged his shoulders and nodded noncommittally. The truck
driver toyed with his wheel.

"Just thought I 'd ask. Plenty of work around here for single and
double jackers. Things are beginning to look up a bit--at least in
silver. Gold mines ain't doing much yet--but there 's a good deal
happening with the white stuff."

"Thanks. Do you know a good place to stop?"

"Yeh. Mother Howard's Boarding House. Everybody goes there, sooner or
later. You 'll see it on the left-hand side of the street before you
get to the main block. Good old girl; knows how to treat anybody in
the mining game from operators on down. She was here when mining was
mining!"

Which was enough recommendation for Mother Howard. Fairchild lifted
his bag from the rear of the vehicle, waved a farewell to the driver
and started into the village. And then--for once--the vision of the
girl departed, momentarily, to give place to other thoughts, other
pictures, of a day long gone.

The sun was slanting low, throwing deep shadows from the hills into the
little valley with its chattering, milk-white stream, softening the
scars of the mountains with their great refuse dumps; reminders of
hopes of twenty years before and as bare of vegetation as in the days
when the pick and gad and drill of the prospector tore the rock loose
from its hiding place under the surface of the ground. Nature, in the
mountainous country, resents any outrage against her dignity; the scars
never heal; the mine dumps of a score of years ago remain the same,
without a single shrub or weed or blade of grass growing in the big
heaps of rocky refuse to shield them.

But now it was all softened and aglow with sunset. The deep red
buil