others had long since
entered the land of Nod. He lighted a last cigarette, crouching over the
scant warmth as he smoked it.

Brevoort, not yet fully inured to the chill of these great heights,
shivered in his sleep despite his generous covering. Douglass took a
well-furred bearskin from his own bed and laid it gently over the
thin-blooded sleeper. Then he pulled off his high-heeled boots and
joined the silent majority. The gray mare was flicking her tail in the
east when he opened his eyes again.

For five blissful days there was much of hunting, fishing and exploring
of the charming neighborhood by the Carters and Brevoorts. Douglass and
McVey expended their time and energies mostly on the development of the
claims. But the covering of slide-rock was very thick and the vein
persistently eluded them. Probe and strip where they would nothing but
country-rock rewarded their efforts. Carter and Brevoort were inclined
to a kindly expressed skepticism as to the existence of the lode, and
even Red's optimistic faith in Douglass's good judgment was waning. The
women alone, for some occult reason, gave him cheering encouragement,
Grace in particular expressing her conviction of his ultimate success.

But up to the day preceding their intended departure nothing had
materialized to vindicate his expenditure of time and money. On the
morning of that day he had gone up alone to the shallow tunnel which he
was driving into the hillside near the top of the ridge, intending to
blast down a wide shelf of rock in the face of the adit in order to
"square up" his work and leave everything in ship-shape for the next
season's new operations.

He was using dynamite, the rock being very hard; and as this explosive
exerts its force most powerfully against the object of most resistance,
with an especial tendency to blow downward, he had merely placed a
couple of the cartridge sticks with detonaters and fuses attached on the
top of the shelf, covering them slightly with loose sand, depending on
the well-defined cleavage of the rock to accomplish his purpose. As it
happened to be the last of both powder and fuse supply on the claim, he
did not trim off the fuse as short as usual; it was about four times the
ordinary length, but as fuse is the least expensive item in such work he
was unusually extravagant in this single instance.

It is singular upon what strange things the pivot of fate and fortune
turns. Had he been ordinarily economical