f the outcrop. But that could wait, and he
hurried back to his find.

He toiled on in the same mad haste, until exhaustion and an intolerable
ache in his back compelled him to pause. He straightened up with even
a richer piece of gold-laden quartz. Stooping, the sweat from his
forehead had fallen to the ground. It now ran into his eyes, blinding
him. He wiped it from him with the back of his hand and returned to a
scrutiny of the gold.

It would run thirty thousand to the ton, fifty thousand, anything--he
knew that. And as he gazed upon the yellow lure, and panted for air,
and wiped the sweat away, his quick vision leaped and set to work. He
saw the spur-track that must run up from the valley and across the
upland pastures, and he ran the grades and built the bridge that would
span the canon, until it was real before his eyes. Across the canon
was the place for the mill, and there he erected it; and he erected,
also, the endless chain of buckets, suspended from a cable and operated
by gravity, that would carry the ore across the canon to the
quartz-crusher. Likewise, the whole mine grew before him and beneath
him-tunnels, shafts, and galleries, and hoisting plants. The blasts of
the miners were in his ears, and from across the canon he could hear
the roar of the stamps. The hand that held the lump of quartz was
trembling, and there was a tired, nervous palpitation apparently in the
pit of his stomach. It came to him abruptly that what he wanted was a
drink--whiskey, cocktails, anything, a drink. And even then, with this
new hot yearning for the alcohol upon him, he heard, faint and far,
drifting down the green abyss of the canon, Dede's voice, crying:--

"Here, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick! Here, chick, chick, chick!"

He was astounded at the lapse of time. She had left her sewing on the
porch and was feeding the chickens preparatory to getting supper. The
afternoon was gone. He could not conceive that he had been away that
long.

Again came the call: "Here, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick! Here,
chick, chick, chick!"

It was the way she always called--first five, and then three. He had
long since noticed it. And from these thoughts of her arose other
thoughts that caused a great fear slowly to grow in his face. For it
seemed to him that he had almost lost her. Not once had he thought of
her in those frenzied hours, and for that much, at least, had she truly
been lost to him.

He droppe