der who that is," speculated Bill, leaning forward and staring at
the dim trail. "Looks like a dwarf from here. Some old man of the
mountain coming up to drive us off!"

"Hello," hailed a shrill, quavering voice. "Be you the bosses?"

"We are," Dick shouted, in reply, "Come on up."

The visitor came halting up the slope, and they discerned that he was
lame and carrying a roll of blankets. He paused before them, panting,
and then dropped the roll from his back, and sat down on the edge of
the porch with his head turned to face them. He was white headed and
old, and seemed to have exhausted his surplus strength in his haste to
reach them before darkness.

"I'm Bells Park," he said. "Bells Park, the engineer. Maybe you've
heard of me? Eh? What? No? Well, I used to have the engines here at
the Cross eight or ten years ago, and I've come to take 'em again.
When do I go to work? They hates me around here. They drove me out
once. I said I'd come back. I'm here. I'm a union man, but I tell 'em
what I think of 'em, and it don't set well. When did you say I go to
work?"

"I'm afraid you don't go," Dick answered regretfully.

The Cross, so far as he could conjecture, would never again ring
with the sounds of throbbing engines. Already he was more than
half-convinced that he should write to Sloan and reject his kindly
offer of support. "We've been here but a week, but it doesn't look
promising to us."

"Well, then you're a pair of fools!" came the disrespectful and
irascible retort. "They told me down in Goldpan that some miners had
come to open the Cross up again. You're not miners. I've hoofed it all
the way up here for nothin'."

The partners looked at each other, and grinned at the old man's
tirade. He went on without noticing them, speaking of himself in the
third person:

"I can stay here to-night somewhere, can't I? Bells Park is askin' it.
Bells Park that used to be chief in the Con and Virginia, and once had
his own cabin here--cabin that was a home till his wife went away on
the long trip. She's asleep up there under the cross mark on the hill.
Bells Park as came back because he wanted to be near where she was put
away! She was the best woman that ever lived. I'm looking for my old
job back. I can sleep here, can't I?"

His querulous question was more of a challenge than a request, and
Dick hastened to assure him that he could unroll his blankets in a
bunk in the rambling old structure that loomed dim, silent