e red, the white, vein matter. One by one the spider arms of the
tunnels felt out into the innermost crevices of the lode. Little by
little Peter's table of statistics filled; here a pocket, there a
streak, yon a clear ten feet of low-grade ore. The days, the months,
even the years slipped by. Summers came and went with a flurry of
thunder-showers that gathered about Harney, spread abroad in long bands
of blackness, broke in a deluge of rain and hail and passed out to
dissipate in the hot air of the prairies. Autumns, clear-eyed and
sweet-breathed, faded wanly in the smoke of their forest fires. Winters
sidled by with constant threat of arctic weather which somehow never
came; powdering the hills with their snow; making bitter cold the
shadows, and warm the silver-like sun. Another spring was at hand. Like
all the rest, it coquetted with the season as a young girl with her
lover; smiling with the brightness of a western sun; frowning with the
fierceness of a sudden snow-squall, strangely out of place in contrast
to the greenery of the mountain "parks"; creeping slowly up the gullies
from the prairie in staccato notes of bursting buds; at last lifting its
many voices in the old swelling song of delight over the birth of new
loves and new desires among its creatures.

Like all the rest, did I say? No, not quite. To Peter this particular
spring was a rare thing of beauty. Its gilding was a little brighter,
its colours a little fresher, its skies a little deeper, its songs rang
a little truer than ever the gilding or colours or skies or songs of any
spring he had ever known. For he was satisfied. Steadily the value of
the property had proved itself. One clear, cold day he collected all his
drills and picks and sledges and brought them back to camp, where he
stacked them behind the door. It was his way of signing Q.E.D. to the
proof.

The doubtful spot on the _Jim Crow_ was not a blow-out, but a "horse."
He had penetrated below it. The mines were rich beyond his dreams. Yet
he sat there at his noon meal as cheerful, as unexcited, as content as
ever. When one has waited so long, impatience sleeps soundly, arouses
with the sluggishness of unbelief itself. Outside he saw the sun, for
the first time in weeks, and heard the pines singing their endless song.
Inside, his fire sparkled and crackled; his kettle purred like a
fireside cat. Peter was tired; tired, but content. The dream was very
near to him.

When he had finished hi