slowly, "but this feller Presby has 'em all lookin' as simple, and
plain, and understandable, as a cross-roads guide-post."

And The Lily, contrite, agreed.

CHAPTER IX

WHERE A GIRL ADVISES

"There's one thing about you, pardner, I don't quite sabe," drawled
Bill to his employer as they sat in front of their cabin one night,
after discussing the assays which Dick made his especial work. "You
ain't as talkative as you used to be. Somethin's on your mind. It's
more'n two weeks now since I had time to think about anything but the
green lead, and I'm beginnin' to notice. Where the devil do you go
every mornin' between nine and eleven?"

Dick turned toward him impulsively, and then made no reply, other than
to laugh softly. Then slowly he felt a wave of embarrassment.

"Not that it's any of my business, bein' as you're you and I'm me; but
we were pardners for some years before things changed and made you the
boss and me the hired hand. And it may be I'm undue curious. Who's
that girl you go up on the pipe line to meet every mornin'?"

His question was so abrupt that, for an instant, the younger man had a
hot, childish anger; but he controlled himself, and wondered why he
should have been annoyed by the frank interrogation.

"Miss Presby, the lumberman's daughter," he said crisply. "But what
interests me most is how you knew?"

The elder miner slapped his leg gleefully, as if pleased with a joke,
and said: "Well, I went up there five or six days ago, tryin' to find
you, because I'd lost the combination to the safe, and wanted to look
over them old drawings. I sneaked back, because I was a little jealous
to see you sittin' on the pipe talkin' right friendly to such a
good-looker. Three evenin's later while you were workin' on them mill
samples, I thought I'd like to see the whole of the line. I took a
walk. There's been a real good horse trail worked into the ground up
there, ain't there? And it's a new trail, too. Seems as if somebody
must have been riding up and down that way every day for just about
two weeks. And it's serious, too, because you don't say nothin' to a
man you was pardners with for more'n seven years. Hey, Dick! What
ails you, anyway?"

The younger man was on his feet with one of his fists drawn back, in
an attitude of extreme temper.

"Suppose after this you mind your own business?"

For a full half minute the elder man sat there in the dusk, and then
said slowly: "All right, boy--I m