had said; and then, too, when I realised what a
delicate way you had taken to let me know--because, of course, I never
read that magazine of Brown's--oh, Bob!" she concluded, quite out of
breath.

Severne hesitated for almost a minute. He saw his duty plainly; he was
serious-minded; he had no sense of humour. Then she looked up at him as
before, pointing her chin out in the most adorable fashion.

"Oh, Bob! Again! I really don't think you ought to!"

And Art; oh, where was it?

VI

THE PROSPECTOR

In the old mining days out West the law of the survival of the fittest
held good, and he who survived had to be very fit indeed. There were a
number of ways of not surviving. One of them was to die. And there were
a number of ways of being very fit; such as holding an accurate gun or
an even temper, being blessed with industry or a vital-tearing ambition,
knowing the game thoroughly or understanding the great American
expedient of bluff. In any case the man who survived must see his end
clearly through that end's means. Whether it were gold, poker, or life,
he must cling to his purpose with a bulldog tenacity that no amount of
distraction could loosen. Otherwise, as has been said, he died, or
begged, or robbed, or became a tramp, or committed the suicide of
horse-stealing, or just plain drifted back East broken--a shameful
thing.

Why Peter lived on was patent enough to anyone. He was harmless,
good-natured, and, in the estimation of hard-hewn men, just "queer"
enough to be a little pathetic. Anyone who had once caught a fair look
at his narrow, hatchet face with the surprised blue eyes and the
loose-falling, sparse light hair; or had enjoyed his sweet, rare smile
as he deprecatingly answered a remark before effacing himself; or had
chanced on the fortune of asking him for some trifling favour to meet
his eager and pleased rendering of it: none of these hypothetical
individuals, and that meant about everyone who came in contact with
Peter at all, could have imagined anybody, let alone themselves, harming
a hair of his head. But how he continued to be a prospector remained a
puzzle. The life is hard, full of privations, sown with difficulties,
clamant for technical knowledge, exacting of physical strength,
dependent on shrewdness and knowledge of the world. Peter had none of
these, not even in the smallest degree. There was also, of course, the
instinct. This Peter did possess. He could follow his leads of cru