you can send five dollars to the Vancouver
hospital."

"I trust we'll be friends" said Calvert. "Hope I didn't offend you. Meant
it in the best of faith. I'm coming round to see you, and whenever you
have leisure you must look upon my quarters yonder as your own."

I rode back wondering whether the work had suffered during my absence,
though I knew my partners would not complain, and when I reached camp
Harry said:

"I hardly thought we'd set up as packers, but in the meantime all is fish
that comes to our net. I'm getting quite a mercenary character. You had a
long journey--how much did you get?"

"Nothing," I answered, "except a gift of five dollars for the Vancouver
hospital. It was Miss Carrington."

Harry made no articulate comment at first, though his whistle, which from
any one else would have been impertinence, was eloquent, while some
moments elapsed before he spoke.

"Then it's Colonel Carrington who is running the Day Spring mine. I've
heard the free prospectors talking about the new Syndicate. They opine
there's nothing in it, and that somebody is going to be hard hit."

CHAPTER XV

UNDER THE SHADOW OF DEATH

In spite of the many new hands who flocked in with the spring, the line
progressed slowly. This was quite comprehensible, and when I traveled over
it afterward as a passenger I wondered how we had ever built it at all.
Portions were hewn out of the solid rock, of a hardness that was often too
much for our most carefully tempered drills; others were underpinned with
timber against the mountain side, or carried across deep ravines on open
trestles; while much of it had to be roofed in by massive sheds, so that
the snow-slides might not hurl it into the valley.

On several occasions we were almost checkmated in our efforts to supply
and clear a way for the builders. There was, of course, no lack of timber,
but the difficulty was to get it out of the forest and into position, for
we often spent days building skidways or hewing roads to bring the great
logs down, after which it cost us even a longer time rigging gear to lower
them over dangerous ledges to those who worked below. Still, we made
progress, and the free miners or forest ranchers who trudged behind their
weary pack-horses down the trail that crossed the track encouraged us in
their own fashion, which was at times slightly eccentric; while now and
then a party of citizens from the struggling town rode over to inspect the
new ro