ly disposed towards him. If his mines really
developed into bonanza she would interpose no obstacle in his way. But
in her wide experience she had known all too many just as promising
prospects as his turn out miserable failures; when he had
incontrovertibly established the value of his claims it would be time
enough to consider his proposed alliance with her family.

All this she said to him with frank candor in a letter answering his
request for her sanction to his engagement to Grace.

"I will give you two years," she concluded, "in which to demonstrate
your ability to give her all the comforts to which she is accustomed. In
the interim I shall take her abroad, and if at the expiration of that
time you have 'made good,' and both of you are still of the same mind, I
will give you my blessing with all my heart.

"But it must be distinctly understood that until then I recognize no
manner of bond between you; she must be free to change her mind if she
so chooses. I have no objection to a friendly exchange of correspondence
between you during our absence, relying upon your honor to use no undue
coercion. Please regard these stipulations as imperative and final."

He sent her a rather constrained acceptance and so it was arranged.
Directly after the holidays Mrs. Carter and Grace sailed for Europe.

One balmy day in the following spring he was over at Tin Cup awaiting
the coming of the stage. Two days before he had been advised by letter
of the coming of the Brevoorts for a season's outing on their
lately-acquired ranch. He had rather expected a letter from Grace by the
same mail and was proportionately elated. Everything had gone well with
him in the new year. He had secured the services of an experienced and
altogether dependable miner, an old friend of his assaying days, to
develop his mining claims, and the reports were eminently satisfying.
With every foot of depth attained on the vein the ore grew better, and
the property was yielding enough values to pay for its extensive
exploitation. The ore chute, paying from grass roots down, was getting
wider and richer; two promising "blind leads" had been struck in
addition, and the opinion of all the visiting experts was that Douglass
had struck it exceedingly rich. Should the improvement continue, his
term of probation would be over before snow flew again. He did not need
many more tons of that honeycombed quartz to satisfy Mrs. Carter's most
stringent exactions.

He