now, and five hundred when we find the lode, if it's
worth working. Then a share that will depend on the cost of development
and the profit."

"Shucks!" said Drummond. "I want five hundred dollars before I start."

"Then you had better try somebody else," said Stormont, smiling. "It's
possible that all you can tell me isn't worth five dollars."

"I'll show you! Gimme a hundred now and 'nother drink."

"Take fifty, or I quit," said Stormont, who passed him the bottle.

Drummond drained his glass. "You're mean, but I gotter make a start.
Where's the bills?"

Stormont gave him some paper money, and then turned to the clerk. "See
about mailing the letters, Watson."

The clerk went out, knowing why he had been sent. His employer trusted
him where he was forced, but did not want him to hear what Drummond had
to say.

When Watson had gone Drummond knitted his brows, as if trying to
remember something. "The vein runs out on the face of a cliff, 'bout
forty paces from the first rampike pine; there's three or four rampikes,
but the fire hadn't gone far into the bush."

"Not much of a clue! There are patches of burned forest all over the
country," Stormont remarked.

"Don't interrupt!" said Drummond, with a frown. "It's pretty hard to
remember. Give me 'nother drink. I wanter get it right."

Stormont filled his glass and he resumed in an unsteady voice: "Cliff
rises from the creek in a little round hollow. There's a big rock near
the top of the divide opposite--"

"Go on. How does the creek run?"

"You're hustling me," Drummond grumbled. "I wanter think. It's
important. Knowing how the creek runs fixes where she is." He paused,
and a vague distrust of Stormont entered his bemused brain. He had got
the fifty dollars and saw, with drunken cunning, that it might be
prudent to keep something back. "She runs south."

"South?" exclaimed Stormont, who knew that the natural drainage of the
region is north-east to James Bay.

"Sure," said Drummond, with a sullen look. "Strange told the old man,
and the old man told me."

Stormont pondered. If the creek flowed south, it drained a subsidiary
basin and probably filled a lake from which a river ran north or east.
The clue was worth fifty dollars because it would simplify the search
for the lode.

"How does the creek lie from the factory?"

"'Bout south-west," said Drummond in a thick, drowsy voice. "There isn't
a factory at Longue Sault now. Company moved the post after