lipped his mind," Bruce answered drily. "You'll give me
your address and let me come to-morrow?"

"Will you mind coming early--at nine in the morning?"

"Mind! I'll be sitting on the steps at sunrise if you say so," Bruce
answered heartily.

How young she looked--how like the little girl of the picture when she
laughed! Bruce looked at his watch as he returned to his party to see
how many hours it would be before nine in the morning.

* * * * *

The shabbiness of the hotel where Helen lived surprised him. It was
worse than his own. She had looked so exceptionally well-dressed the
previous evening he had supposed that what she called ruin was
comparative affluence, for Bruce had not yet learned that clothes are
unsafe standards by which to judge the resources of city folks, just as
on the plains and in the mountains faded overalls and a ragged shirt are
equally untrustworthy guides to a man's financial rating. And the musty
odor that met him in the gloomy hallway--he felt how she must loathe it.
He had wondered at the early hour she'd set but when Helen came down she
quickly explained.

"I must leave here at half past and if you have not finished what you
have to say I thought you might walk with me to the office."

"The office?" It shocked him that she should have to go to an _office_,
that she had hours, that anybody should have a claim upon her time by
paying for it.

Quizzically:

"Did you think I was an heiress!"

"Last night you looked as though you might be." His tone told her of his
admiration.

"Relics of past greatness," Helen replied smiling. "A remodelled gown
that was my mother's. One good street suit at a time and a blouse or two
is the best I can do. I am merely a wonderful bluff in the evening."

Bruce felt that it was a sore spot although she was smiling, and he
could not help being glad, for it meant she needed him. If he had found
her in prosperous circumstances the success or failure of the placer
would have meant very little to her. He _must_ succeed, he told himself
exuberantly; his incentive now was to make her life happier and easier.

"If everything goes this summer as I hope--and expect--" he said slowly,
"you need not be a 'bluff' at any hour of the day."

Her eyes widened.

"What do you mean?"

Then Bruce described the ground that he and Slim had located. He told of
his confidence in it, of his efforts to raise the money to develop i