imitless
billions of miles of space at night, everything, everything. It is the
arch-fiend's work, for there is no God. Here's to the mad, red,
dancing devil, to whom we go!"

Jim's glass crashed to the floor. He seized the bottle of whiskey and
served that in the same way.

"Stop it, you mad fool!" he cried in horror. And Peter slowly put his
whiskey down untasted.

Then the dark, horror-stricken eyes looked into the smiling blue ones,
and in a flash to Jim's troubled mind came inspiration. There was a
long, long pause, during which eye met eye unflinchingly. Then Jim
reached out a hand.

"Thanks, Peter," he said.

Peter shook his grizzled head as he gripped the outstretched hand.

"I'm glad," he said with a quaint smile, "real glad you came
along--and stopped me drinking that toast. Going?"

Jim nodded. He, too, was smiling now, as he moved to the door.

"Well, I suppose you must," Peter went on. "I've got work, too." He
pointed at his pile of dirt on the table. "You see, there's gold in
all that muck, and--I've got to find it."

CHAPTER VI

EVE AND WILL

Elia was staring at his sister with wide, expectant eyes. Suspense
was evidently his dominant feeling at the moment. A suspense which
gave him a sickly feeling in the pit of the stomach. It was the
apprehension of a prisoner awaiting a verdict; the nauseating
sensation of one who sees death facing him, with the chances a
thousand to one against him. A half-plaited rawhide rope was lying in
his lap; the hobby of making these his sister had persuaded him to
turn to profitable account. He was expert in their manufacture,
and found a ready market for his wares on the neighboring ranches.

Eve was staring out of the window considering, her pretty face
seriously cast, her eyes far away. Will Henderson, his boyishly
handsome face moodily set, was standing beside the work-table that
occupied the centre of the living-room, the fingers of one hand
restlessly groping among the litter of dress stuffs lying upon it. He
was awaiting her answer to a question of his, awaiting it in suspense,
like Elia, but with different feelings.

Nor did the girl seem inclined to hurry. To her mind a lot depended on
her answer. Her acquiescence meant the giving up of all the little
features that had crept into her struggling years of independence.
There was her brother. She must think for his welfare. There was her
business, worked up so laboriously. There was the possibl