dings of the Argonaut tunnel--a great, criss-crossing hole through
the hills that once connected with more than thirty mines and their
feverish activities--were denuded of their rust and lack of repair.
The steam from the air-compressing engine, furnishing the necessary
motive power for the drills that still worked in the hills, curled
upward in billowy, rainbow-like coloring. The scrub pines of the
almost barren mountains took on a fluffier, softer tone; the jutting
rocks melted away into their own shadows, it was a picture of peace and
of memories.

And it had been here that Thornton Fairchild, back in the nineties, had
dreamed his dreams and fought his fight. It had been here--somewhere
in one of the innumerable canons that led away from the little town on
every side--that Thornton Fairchild had followed the direction of
"float ore" to its resting place, to pursue the vagrant vein through
the hills, to find it at last, to gloat over it in his letters to
Beamish and then to--what?

A sudden cramping caught the son's heart, and it pounded with something
akin to fear. The old foreboding of his father's letter had come upon
him, the mysterious thread of that elusive, intangible Thing, great
enough to break the will and resistance of a strong man and turn him
into a weakling--silent, white-haired--sitting by a window, waiting for
death. What had it been? Why had it come upon his father? How could
it be fought? All so suddenly, Robert Fairchild had realized that he
was in the country of the invisible enemy, there to struggle against it
without the slightest knowledge of what it was or how it could be
combated. His forehead felt suddenly damp and cold. He brushed away
the beady perspiration with a gesture almost of anger, then with a look
of relief, turned in at a small white gate toward a big, rambling
building which proclaimed itself, by the sign on the door, to be Mother
Howard's Boarding House.

A moment of waiting, then he faced a gray-haired, kindly faced woman,
who stared at him with wide-open eyes as she stood, hands on hips,
before him.

"Don't you tell me I don't know you!" she burst forth at last.

"I 'm afraid you don't."

"Don't I?" Mother Howard cocked her head. "If you ain't a Fairchild, I
'll never feed another miner corned beef and cabbage as long as I live.
Ain't you now?" she persisted, "ain't you a Fairchild?"

The man laughed in spite of himself. "You guessed it."

"You 're Thornton