p all plans for your journey, and you can trust me to be
kind to you. Still, there's one favor I'm going to ask. I want you to
let me tell my niece as much of what you have told me as I think
desirable. Remember, Geoffrey has been good to you."

For a moment Millicent's face grew hard, and her eyes defiant. She
smiled sadly as she answered: "It is his due, and can make no
difference now. Tell her what seems best."

Meanwhile, Geoffrey was busy in the canyon camp. With Black and Mattawa
Tom beside him, he stood holding as symbol, both of equality and
authority, a bright ax in his hand, while driller, laborer, and
machine-tender, wondering greatly, were passed in review before him.
Black had been boarded with a trust rancher some distance from the
camp. At last a certain rock driller passed in turn, and Tom from
Mattawa explained: "He's a friend of Walla Jake, and as I told you, the
last man we put on."

"That's the blame reptile who backed up Shackleby's story at the Blue
Bird mine," cried Black, excitedly. "If there's anyone up to mischief,
you can bet all you've got he's the man."

"Stop there, you!" Geoffrey's voice was sharp and stern. "Cut him
down if he feels for a revolver or tries to make a break of it, section
foreman. Come here, close in behind him, you two."

After a swift glance over his shoulder the man who was summoned
advanced, scowling darkly. He sullenly obeyed Geoffrey's second
command, "Stand there--now a few steps aside," leaving his footprints
clearly outlined in a patch of otherwise untrodden snow.

"Good!" observed Geoffrey. "Lay your template [Transcriber's note:
corrected from "templet"] on those marks, Tom." After the foreman had
produced a paper pattern which fitted them, Thurston added:

"We're going to make a prisoner of you, and jail you ourselves, until
we can get a formal warrant. What for? Well, you're going to be tried
for conspiracy among the other things. You see that pattern? It fits
the foot of a man who went out one night with a spy Shackleby sent over
to see how and when you would play the devil with our work in the
canyon. It even shows the stump of the filed-off creeper-spike on your
right boot. There's no use protesting--a friend of yours here will
help us to trace your career back to the finding of the Blue Bird mine.
Take him along and lock him into the galvanized store shed."

The prisoner was taken away, and Geoffrey turned to his foreman.

"He