hen. Well,
we made camp and gave him supper--he couldn't eat very much--and he
told me what brought him there afterwards. It seemed to me he'd always
been weedy in the chest, but he'd been working waist-deep in an icy
creek, building a dam at a mine, until his lungs had given out. The
mining boss was a hard case and had no mercy on him, but the lad, who
seemed to have had a rough time in the Mountain Province, stayed with
it until he played out altogether."

Wyllard's face hardened a little as he mentioned the mining boss, and a
rather curious little sparkle crept into his eyes, but after a pause he
proceeded quietly:

"We did what we could for him. In fact, it rather broke up the
prospecting trip, but he was too far through," he added. "He hung on
for a week or two, and one of us brought a doctor out from the
settlements, but the day before we broke camp Jake and I buried him."

Hawtrey made a sign of comprehension. He was reasonably well
acquainted with his comrade's character, and fancied he knew who had
brought the doctor out. He also knew that Wyllard had been earning his
living as a railroad navvy or chopper then, and, in view of the cost of
provisions brought by pack-horse into the remoter bush, the reason why
he had abandoned his prospecting trip after spending a week or two
taking care of the sick lad was clear enough.

"You never learned his name?" he asked.

"I didn't," said Wyllard. "I went back to the mine, but several things
suggested that the name upon their pay-roll wasn't his real one. He
commenced a broken message the night he died, but the hemorrhage cut
him off in the middle of it. The wish that I should tell his people
somehow was in his eyes."

He broke off for a moment with a deprecatory gesture, which in
connection with the story was very expressive.

"I have never done it, but how could I? All I know is that he was a
delicately brought up young Englishman, and the only clue I have is a
watch with a London maker's name on it and a girl's photograph. I've a
very curious notion that I shall meet that girl some day."

Hawtrey, who made no comment, lay still for a minute or two after this,
but his face suggested that he was considering something.

"Harry," he said presently, "I shall not be fit for a journey for quite
a while yet, and if I went over to England I couldn't get the ploughing
done and the crop in; which, if I'm going to be married, is absolutely
necessary."

Ther