y laid their grasping hands on the
mine. He shrank, however, from going back to Montreal and waiting
there in suspense, and by the time he retraced his steps to his hotel
he had decided that this was out of the question. He wrote a few lines
to Wannop and started for the bush with the next day's train.

It was dark when he reached the camp, after an arduous journey, and
found Devine and Saunders sitting beside the fire. The latter, it
transpired, had engaged a clerk in Vancouver to take charge of his
store, and he smiled when Weston inquired whether he expected the man
to remain at the settlement any longer than his predecessor had done
when he heard that there was a new gold find in reach of him.

"I guess I've fixed that," he said. "I took some trouble to get one
who was very lame."

Neither of the pair, however, appeared cheerful, and Weston's face
grew hard when he heard what they had to say about the mine.

"As you'd see by the specimens, we were turning out high-grade milling
ore a little while ago," Devine observed.

"Well?"

The surveyor's gesture was expressive. "We're not in it now. Ore's
turned spotty, and it's running deeper. I think I remember your
telling me that Grenfell figured that the lode takes an inclination?"

"He certainly did."

"It's another proof that you could count on what he said. There's no
doubt about that inclination. We can't get out ore that will pay for
crushing with an open cut much longer."

"Then," said Weston, "we can follow it with an adit."

He looked at Saunders, who smiled in a rather grim fashion.

"Adits cost money to drive," observed the latter. "You have brought
some along?"

Weston said that this was not the case, and Saunders spread out his
hands.

"Well," he said, "I'm broke. Half the men on this location are owing
me quite a pile, and it's clear that I'll never get a dollar out of
them unless they strike it rich, or the Grenfell Consols go up with a
bang. That's how Jim from Okanagan fixed the thing. Now I've got
credit from a Vancouver wholesaler who takes a share in the store, and
that will keep us in pork and flour, but the giant-powder and
detonators in the shack yonder represent this syndicate's available
capital. I bought a big supply when I was in Vancouver, but there'll
be no more to be had when they run out."

"We'll go on until they do," said Weston, doggedly.

The next morning he laid his city clothes carefully aside, and
borrowed from his