her, but the folks I knew seemed to have a wrong idea of values.
Spent their best efforts grubbing for money and trying to take the lead
in smart society. They made me tired with their hustling about things
that didn't matter; I wanted the woods and the quiet the river hardly
breaks."

"You went back?"

"I did," said Scott. "Felt I had to go. It was winter and the cold was
fierce, but we made four hundred miles with the hand-sledge across the
snow, and when I came out with some fingers frozen I was nine pounds
heavier. Used to sit in my office afterwards and dream about the
glittering lakes and the stiff white pines; saw them crowding round the
lonely camps, when I ought to have been studying the market reports.
Well, I couldn't concentrate on buying and selling things. Betting on
the market and getting after other people's money seemed a pretty mean
business." He paused and added with a twinkle: "That's how I felt then,
and I don't know that I've changed my opinions much."

"All the same, you're anxious to make your mining pay."

"It isn't logical, but I was born a white man and had got civilized. You
can't altogether get rid of what you're taught when young, and it's
harder when the notions you inherit are backed by your training. Well, I
saw there was a danger of my turning out a hobo if I went back North
without a job. I must get some work, and when Brinsmead came with a
proposition about the Clermont vein I took down my shingle and located
here with him."

"But what about your relations? Did they object?"

"Not much. On the whole, I reckon they were satisfied to see me go. They
had long decided I was a crank, and since I was bound to do something
foolish, I'd better do it where I wouldn't disgrace them. That's about
all. We're here, and I don't know that I'd go back if the road was open.
Would you?"

Thirlwell pondered. It was a hard life he led, working, for the most
part, in the dark underground, for when money was scarce and wages high
he could not be satisfied to superintend. Scott, indeed, worked like a
paid hand, and they had fought a long, and it seemed a losing, battle
against forces whose strength science cannot yet properly measure. The
fish-oil lamps sometimes went out in poisonous air while they examined
an unsafe working face; props broke under a load they ought to have
borne; and now and then the roof came down. Rock pillars crushed,
massive stones fell out where one least expected, and there