ce, empty ink-stands and blotting paper, and so blotted out
all records of the one business failure of his life.

But he could not blot out Jack Ramsey from his memory. There was a
"reason," he would say, for Ramsey's silence.

One day, when in Edmonton, he met Mayor Ross, who had come into the
country by the back door some thirty years ago. The tales coaxed from
the Mayor's memory corresponded with Ramsey's report; and having nothing
but time and money, the ex-President of the C.M. & M. Company determined
to go in _via_ the Peace River pass and see for himself. He made the
acquaintance of Smith "The Silent," as he was called, who was at that
time pathfinding for the Grand Trunk Pacific, and secured permission to
go in with the engineers.

At Little Slave Lake he picked up Jim Cromwell, a free-trader, who
engaged to guide the mining man into the wonderland he had described.

The story of Ramsey and his rambles appealed to Cromwell, who talked
tirelessly, and to the engineer, who listened long; and in time the
habitants of Cromwell's domains, which covered a country some seven
hundred miles square, all knew the story and all joined in the search.

Beyond the pass of the Peace an old Cree caught up with them and made
signs, for he was deaf and dumb. But strange as it may seem, somehow,
somewhere, he had heard the story of the lost miner and knew that this
strange white man was the miner's friend.

Long he sat by the camp fire, when the camp was asleep, trying, by
counting on his fingers and with sticks, to make Cromwell understand
what was on his mind.

When day dawned, he plucked Cromwells' sleeve, then walked away fifteen
or twenty steps, stopped, unrolled his blankets, and lay down, closing
his eyes as if asleep. Presently he got up, rubbed his eyes, lighted his
pipe, smoked for awhile, then knocked the fire out on a stone. Then he
got up, stamped the fire out as though it had been a camp fire, rolled
up his blankets, and travelled on down the slope some twenty feet and
repeated the performance. On the next march he made but ten feet. He
stopped, put his pack down, seated himself on the trunk of a fallen tree
and, with his back to Cromwell, began gesticulating, as if talking to
some one, nodding and shaking his head. Then he got a pick and began
digging.

At the end of an hour Cromwell and the engineer had agreed that these
stations were day's marches and the rests camping places. In short, it
was two and a ha