pped to the mills we
got almost no returns. We tried every process, but the gold seemed to
slip away from us. Finally I took a carload and went with it to see
what was the matter. I followed it till it came out on the
plates--that is where they catch the gold by the use of quicksilver
spread on copper plates--and it seemed all right. I scraped some of it
up and put it into a small vial to take home with me. When I got home
the company assembled to hear my report, and when I took out the
amalgam to show it to them it had turned to a queer yellow-green
liquid. I was astounded, but Dan and Biddy crossed themselves. 'It's
witch's gold,' Biddy said. 'Dan, have no more to do with it.' And
witch's gold it was. They gave up right there and went back to work in
the camp. Eldred cursed me for getting him into it, and so they left
me to fight it out alone. I was like a monomaniac--I never thought of
giving up. I begged a little money from my brother and bought in all
the stock of the 'Biddy Mining Company,' and went to work to solve the
mystery of the amalgam. I was a good pupil in chemistry at college,
and I put my whole life and brain into that mystery and I solved it. I
found a way to treat it so all the gold was saved. That made me rich.
I called the mine 'The Witch,' and it has made me what you see."

"It is like a fairy tale! What became of your faithful friends, Dan
and Biddy?"

"I made Dan my foreman of the mine, and I built an eating-house and
hotel for Biddy. They are with me yet. Eldred I bought out on the same
terms as the rest."

He had a sudden sensation of heat in his face as he passed the chasm
between the withdrawal of Dan and Biddy from the firm and his solution
of the amalgam. He did not care to dwell upon that, because Eldred had
sued him to recover his stock, claiming that it was bought in under
false pretenses. Neither did he care to enter into the stormy time
which followed the sudden leap of "The Witch" from a haunted hole in
the ground to a cave of diamonds. He hurried on to the end while she
listened in absorbed interest like a child to a wonder story.

She sighed in the world-old manner of women and said:

"And I--I have done nothing worth telling. I ruined my health by
careless living at school, and here I am, a cumberer of the earth."

Some men would have hastened to be complimentary, but Clement remained
silent. He was trying to understand her mood that he might meet it in
a helpful way.

"Bu