e of the men on hands and knees
casting aside small bowlders, others trimming a clearing in the
surrounding brush, and still others painfully building a low wall of
rock.

"The hard work of findin' out where The Lily is," said Bill softly,
"is because she covered her trail. Nobody knows where she went. The
stage driver saw her on the train, but the railway agent told him she
didn't buy no ticket. The conductor wrote me that he put her off at
the junction, and that she took the train toward Spokane. That's all!
It ends there as if she'd got on the train, and then it had never
stopped. We cain't even thank her."

Dick, absorbed in thoughts of Joan, heard but little of what he said,
and so agreed with a short: "No, that's right." And Bill subsided into
silence. A man came trudging up the path leading from the roadway
lower down, and in his hand held a bundle of letters.

"Got the mail," he said. "The stage may run every other day after
this, instead of twice a week, the postmaster over at the camp told
me. Not much to-night. Here it is."

He handed Dick a bundle of letters, and then, sighting the others on
the side of the peak above, started to join them, and take his share
in that labor of respect and affection. In the approaching twilight
Dick ran through the packet, selected one letter addressed to his
partner, and gave it to him, then tore open the first one at hand. It
was addressed in an unfamiliar and painful chirography, with the
postmark of Portland, Ore., stamped smudgily in its corner. He began
casually to read, then went white as the laborious lines flowed and
swam before his eyes:

Dear Mister Townsend, owner of the cross mine, I write you because
I am afraid I aint got your pardners name right and because Ive
got something on my mind that I cant keep any more. Im the girl
that got burned at the High Light. Your pardner saved my life and
you were awful kind to me. Everybody's been very kind to me too. I
spose you know 111 not be able to work in dance halls no more
because Im quite ugly now with them scars all over my face. But
that dont make no difference. Mrs. Meredith has been here to see
me and told me who it was saved my life. Mrs. Meredith dont want
nobody to know where shes gone. Shes not coming back any more.
Shes quit the business and is running a sort of millinery store
in----

Here a name had been painstakingly obliterated, as if by afterthought,
the very paper being