d precluded that. She had strong
common sense. When for lack of experience this failed her, she had
intuition. She moved among men fearlessly, because in the field of their
movements, sex was not thought of,--only things to be done. The two men
with whom, in her present relations, her lot was so intimately cast,
stood respectively on an entirely different footing. In their childhood
days, she and Ralph Winston had been playmates. Later, they had been
parted only to be thrown into closer relations by a strange turn of
Fortune's wheel. She had welcomed Ralph with the unreserve of the days
of their childhood. She was, perhaps, on this very account, unconscious
that his memories were the more faithful of the two.

Elijah had come into her life, full-fledged, with no childish memories
to blur the outlines of the image. However strong Winston was in the
eyes of others, there were yet in her eyes the clinging shreds of the
memory of other days. She was attracted by Elijah's enthusiasm, the
strength of his ideas, of his purpose to succeed. With a woman's
intuition she saw the barren stretch of his unsympathetic surroundings,
and, with no idea of injustice, the sight prompted her to give in full
that which had hitherto been denied him. Her sympathy was aroused, her
enthusiasm kindled by his work; but it was apparently impersonal. She
was surrounded by an atmosphere of womanliness as delicate as an
electric field, which warned off and repelled any disturbing element.
Yet her atmosphere was polar; it would respond to the proper element.
The element was existent, but as yet unrecognized.

Elijah again turned to Helen.

"How are things going?"

"Ralph is short of powder and cement at the dam. I sent up a pack-train
this morning. It will leave two tons of powder at No. 1 tunnel. The
magazine is getting low, but San Francisco is sending a carload. It will
be here tomorrow. That will keep Ralph supplied for a month. Seymour
writes from New York that Las Cruces is snapped at one-twenty; that he
is going to run it up to one-thirty. Everything is coming our way on the
run."

"We've got a pretty heavy balance to our credit." Elijah spoke
meditatively. "Pretty heavy to carry in the local banks."

"That's just what I was going to speak of. I'd let San Francisco carry
the bulk of our deposits. It's solid. The local banks may be called any
time. You can leave just enough here to keep them good-natured."

"All right. We'll deposit our n