Where the land's too poor for
farming, you often find minerals, and ore that won't pay for transport
can be reduced on the spot, so long as you have natural resources that
can be turned into power. With an oil well in good flow, we'd soon
start some profitable industry and put up a city that would bring a
railroad in. Show our business men a good opening, and you'll get the
money. And there are men across the frontier who have a mighty keen
scent for oil."

"Have you done much prospecting?" Harding asked.

The man smiled.

"Whenever I can get money enough for an outfit I go off on the trail.
There's a fascination in the thing that gets hold of you--you can't
tell what you may strike, and the prizes are big. However, I'll admit
that after seven or eight years of it I'm poorer than when I started at
the game."

Blake made a sign of comprehension. He knew the sanguine nature of the
Westerner and his belief in the richness of his country; and he himself
had felt the call of the wilderness. There was, in truth, a
fascination in the silent waste that drew the adventurous into its
rugged fastnesses; that a number of them did not come back seldom
deterred the others.

"We want to get as far north as the timber limit, if we can," Harding
said. "I understand that there are no Hudson Bay factories near our
line, but we were told we might find some Stony Indians."

"There's one bunch of them," the prospector replied. "They ramble
about after fish and furs, but they've a kind of base-camp where a few
generally stop. They're a mean crowd, and often short of food, but if
they've been lucky you might get supplies. Now and then they put up a
lot of dried fish and kill some caribou."

He told Blake roughly where the Indian encampment lay; and after
talking for a while they went to sleep. The next morning the
prospectors took the horses and started for the south, while Blake's
party pushed on north with loads that severely tried their strength.
After a few days' laborious march they reached a stream and found a few
Indians who were willing to take them some distance down it. It was a
relief to get rid of the heavy packs and rest while the canoe glided
smoothly through the straggling forest, and the labor of hauling her
across the numerous portages was light compared with the toil of the
march.

Blake, however, had misgivings. They were making swift progress
northward; but it would be different when they came back.