"You haven't told me definitely about your terrible crime."

"You have been equally noncommittal."

Drennen shrugged. "I am not greatly given to overtalkativeness," he
said shortly. "I have no desire to usurp woman's prerogative."

"But are quite willing to let me babble on?"

"I'm going to put in time for a couple of hours. You are less
maddening than the walls of my dugout."

She looked at him keenly, silent and thoughtful for a little. Then she
said abruptly:

"Have you told any one yet of your discovery?"

So that was it. His eyes grew hard again with the sneer in them.

"No," he informed her with a bluntness full of finality.

"You spoke of the hogs with their feet in the trough. You are going to
let no one in with you?"

"I am not in the habit of giving away what I want for myself."

"But you can't keep it secret always. You'll have to file your claim,
and you can't file on all of Canada. . . . I want to ask you something
about it."

"No doubt," with his old bitter smile. "For a fortune you'd repay me
with a smile, would you? You'd find easier game in the gilded youth on
Broadway."

Her lips grew a little cruel as she answered him.

"You may tell me as much or as little as you like. You may lie to me
and tell me that your gold is twenty miles westward of here while it
may be twice or half that distance eastward. Or you may leave that
part out altogether. But it would be another matter to answer the one
question I will ask." Her eyes were upon him, very alert, watchful for
a sign as she asked her question: "Were the nuggets free and piled up
somewhere where some man before you had placed them?"

If she sought to read his mind against his will she had come to the
wrong man. It was as though Drennen had not heard her.

"Are you married to either of the hang dogs with whom you are
travelling?" he asked.

"No," she answered indifferently.

"They're both in love with you, no doubt?"

"I fancy that neither is," she retorted equably. "Both want to marry
me, that's all."

Drennen gazed thoughtfully down into the valley, pursing his lips about
his pipe stem.

"I'll make a bargain with you," he said finally from the silence in
which the girl had stood watching him. "You have dinner with me; we'll
have the best the Settlement knows how to serve us, and I'll let you
try to pump me."

She looked at him curiously.

"You have the name of a trouble seeker, Mr. Drennen. Do you fancy