It was a hot morning shortly after Brooke's return to the Elktail mine, and Saxton sat in his galvanized shanty with his feet on a chair and a cigar in his hand. The door stood open and let a stream of sunlight and balsamic odors of the forest in. He wore soil-stained jean, and seemed very damp, for he had just come out of the mine. Thomas P. Saxton was what is termed a rustler in that country, a man of unlimited assurance and activity, troubled by no particular scruples and keen to seize on any chances that might result in the acquisition of even a very few dollars. He was also, like most of his countrymen, eminently adaptable, and the fact that he occasionally knew very little about the task he took in hand seldom acted as a deterrent. It was characteristic that during the past hour he had been endeavoring to show his foreman how to run a new rock-drilling machine which he had never seen in operation until that time.

Brooke, who had been speaking, sat watching him with a faint ironical appreciation. The man was delightfully candid, at least with him, and though he was evidently not averse from sailing perilously near the wind it was done with boldness and ingenuity. There was a little twinkle in his keen eyes as he glanced at his companion.

"Well," he said, "one has to take his chances when he has all to gain and very little to let up upon. That's the kind of man I am."

"I believe you told me you had got quite a few dollars together not very long ago," said Brooke, reflectively.

The smile became a trifle plainer in Saxton's eyes. "I did, but very few of them are mine. Somehow I get to know everybody worth knowing in the province, and now and then folks with dollars to spare for a venture hand them me to put into a deal."

"On the principle that one has to take his chances in this country?"

Saxton laughed good-humoredly. "Well," he said, "I never go back upon a partner, anyway, and when we make a deal the other folks are quite at liberty to keep their eyes on me. They know the rules of the game, and if they don't always get the value they expected they most usually lie low and sell out to another man instead of blaming me. It pays their way better than crying down their bargain. Still, I have started off mills and wild-cat mines that turned out well, and went on coining dollars for everybody.""Which was no doubt a cause of satisfaction to you!"

Saxton shook his head. "No, sir," he said. "I felt sorry ever after I hadn't kept them."

Brooke straightened himself a trifle in his chair, for he felt that they were straying from the point.

"Industrial speculations in this province remind me of a game we have in England. Perhaps you have seen it," he said, reflectively. "You bet a shilling or half-a-crown that when you lift up a thimble you will find a pea you have seen a man place under it. It is not very often that you accomplish it. Still, in that case—there is—a pea."

"And there's nothing but low-grade ore in the Dayspring? Now, nobody ever quite knows what he will find in a mine if he lays out enough dollars looking for it."

"That," said Brooke, drily, "is probably correct enough, especially if he is ignorant of geology. What I take exception to is the sprinkling of the mine with richer ore to induce him to buy it. Such a proceeding would be called by very unpleasant names in England, and I'm not quite sure it mightn't bring you within the reach of the law here. Mind, what you may think fit to do is, naturally, no concern of mine, but I have tolerably strong objections to taking any further personal part in the scheme."

"The point is that we're playing it off on Devine, the man who robbed you, and has once or twice put his foot on me. I was considerably flattened when I crawled from under. He's a big man and he puts it down heavy."

"Still, I feel it's necessary to draw the line at a swindle."

Saxton made a little whimsical gesture. "Call it the game with the pea and thimble. Devine has got a notion there's something in the mine, and I don't know any reason why I shouldn't humor him. He's quite often right, you see."

"It does not affect the point, but are you quite sure he isn't right now?"

"You mean that Allonby may be?"

"I shouldn't consider it quite out of the question."

Saxton laughed softly. "Allonby's a whisky-skin, and I keep him because he's cheap and it's a charity. Everybody knows that story of his, and he only trots it out when he has got a good bottle of old rye into him. At most other times he's quite sensible. Anyway, Devine doesn't want the mine to keep. He has to get a working group with a certain output and assays that look well all round before he floats it off on the English market. If he knew I was quietly dumping that ore in I'm not quite sure it would rile him."

Brooke sat silent a space. He had discovered by this time that it is not advisable to expect any excess of probity in a mining deal, and that it is the speculator, and not the men who face the perils of the wilderness (which are many, prospecting), who usually takes the profit. A handful or two of dollars for them, and a big bank balance for the trickster stock manipulator appeared to be the rules of the game. Still, nobody can expect to acquire riches without risk or labor, and it seemed no great wrong to him that the men with the dollars should lose a few of them occasionally. Granting that, he did not, however, feel it warranted him in taking any active part in fleecing them.

"Still, if another bag of ore goes into the Dayspring you can count me out," he said. "No doubt, it's a trifle inconsistent, but you will understand plainly that I take no further share in selling the mine."

Saxton shook his head reproachfully. "Those notions of yours are going to get in your way, and it's unfortunate, because we have taken hold of a big thing," he said. "I'm an irresponsible planter of wild-cat mining schemes, you're nobody, and between us we're going to best Devine, the biggest man in his line in the province, and a clever one. Still, that's one reason why the notion gets hold of me. When you come in ahead of the little man there's nothing to be got out of him, and Devine's good for quite a pile when we can put the screw on."

Again Brooke was sensible of a certain tempered admiration for his comrade's hardihood, for it seemed to him that the project he had mooted might very well involve them both in disaster.

"You expect to accomplish it?" he said.

"Well," said Saxton, drily, "I mean to try. We can't squeeze him much on the Dayspring, but we want dollars to fight him with, and that's how we're going to get a few of them. It's on the Canopus I mean to strike him."

"The Canopus!" said Brooke, who knew the mine in question was considered a rich one. "How could you gain any hold on him over that?"

"On the title. By jumping it. Devine takes too many chances now and then, and if one could put his fingers on a little information I have a notion the Canopus wouldn't be his. I guess you know that unless you do this, that, and the other, after recording your correct frontage on the lead or vein, you can't hold a mine on a patent from the Crown. Suppose you have got possession, and it's found that there was anything wrong with the papers you or your prospectors filed, the minerals go back to the Crown again, and the man who's first to drive his stakes in can re-locate them. It's done now and then."

Brooke sat silent a space. A jumper—as the man who re-locates the minerals somebody else has found, on the ground of incorrect record or non-compliance with the mining enactments, is called—is not regarded with any particular favor in that province, or, indeed, elsewhere, but his proceedings may be, at least, perfectly legitimate, and there was a certain simplicity and daring of conception in the new scheme that had its effect on Brooke.

"I will do what I can within limits," he said.

Saxton nodded. "Then you will have to get into the mine, though I don't quite know how we are going to fix it yet," he said. "Anyway, we've talked enough for one day already, and you have to go down to the settlement to see about getting those new drills up."

Brooke set out for the settlement, and slept at a ranch on the way, where he left his horse which had fallen lame, for it was a two days' journey, while it was late in the afternoon when he sat down to rest where the trail crossed a bridge. The latter was a somewhat rudimentary log structure put together with the axe and saw alone, of a width that would just allow one of the light wagons in use in that country to cross over it, and, as the bottom of the hollow the river swirled through was level there, an ungainly piece of trestle work carried the road up to it. There was a long, white rapid not far away, and the roar of it rang in deep vibrations among the rocks above. Brooke, who had walked a long way, found the pulsating sound soothing, while the fragrance the dusky cedars distilled had its usual drowsy effect on him, and as he watched the glancing water slide by his eyes grew heavy.

He did not remember falling asleep, but by and by the sombre wall of coniferous forest that shut the hollow in seemed to dwindle to the likeness of a trim yew hedge, and the river now slid by smooth and placidly. There was also velvet grass beneath his feet in place of wheel-rutted gravel and brown fir needles. Still, the scene he gazed upon was known to him, though it seemed incomplete until a girl with brown eyes in a long white dress and big white hat appeared at his side. She fitted the surroundings wonderfully, for her almost stately serenity harmonized with the quietness and order of the still English valley, but yet he was puzzled, for there was sunlight on the water, and he felt that the moon should be shining round and full above her shoulder. Then when he would have spoken the picture faded, and he became suddenly conscious that his pipe had fallen from his hand, and that he was dressed in soil-stained jean which seemed quite out of keeping with the English lawn. That was his first impression, but while he wondered vaguely how he came to have a pipe made out of a corn-cob, which cost him about thirty cents, at all, a rattle of displaced gravel and pounding of hoofs became audible, and he recognized that something unusual was going on.

He shook himself to attention, and looking about him saw a man sitting stiffly erect on the driving seat of a light wagon and endeavoring to urge a pair of unwilling horses up the sloping trestle. They were Cayuses, beasts of native blood and very uncertain temper, bred by Indians, and as usual, about half-broken to the rein. They also appeared to have decided objections to crossing the bridge, for which any one new to the province would scarcely have felt inclined to blame them. The river frothed beneath it, the ascent was steep with a twist in it, and a small log, perhaps a foot through, spiked down to the timbers, served as sole protection. It would evidently not be difficult for a pair of frightened horses to tilt a wheel of the very light vehicle over it.

Still, the structure compared favorably with most of those in the mountains, and Brooke, who knew that it is not always advisable to interfere in a dispute between a bush rancher and his horses, sat still, until it became evident to him that the man did not belong to that community. He was elderly, for there was grey in the hair beneath the wide hat, while something in the way he held himself and the fit of his clothes, which appeared unusually good, suggested a connection with the cities. It was, however, evident that he was a determined man, for he showed no intention of dismounting, and responded to the off horse's vicious kicking with a stinging cut of the whip. The result of this was a plunge, and one wheel struck the foot-high guard with a crash. The man plied the whip again, and with another plunge and scramble the beasts gained the level of the bridge. Here they stopped altogether, and one attempted to stand upright while Brooke sprang to his feet.

"Hadn't you better get down, sir, or let me lead them across?" he said.

The man, tightening both hands upon the reins, cast a momentary glance at him, and his little grim smile and the firm grip of his long, lean fingers supplied a hint of his character.

"Not until I have to," he said. "They're going to cross this bridge."

Brooke moved a few paces nearer. It was one thing for a rancher accustomed to horses and bridges of that description to take pleasure in such a struggle, but quite another in the case of a man from the cities, and he had misgivings as to the result of it. The latter, however, showed very little concern, though the near horse was now apparently endeavoring to kick the front of the wagon in. Then Brooke sprang suddenly towards them as both backed the wagon against the log. He fancied that one wheel was mounting it when he seized the near horse's head, but after that he had very little opportunity of noticing anything.

The beast plunged, and came near swinging him off his feet, the wagon pole creaked portentously, and the whip fell swishing across the other horse's back again. Then there was a hammering of hoofs, and a rattle; the team bolted incontinently, and because the bridge was narrow, Brooke, who lost his hold, sprang upon the log that very indifferently guarded it. It was, however, rounded on the top, and next moment he found himself standing knee-deep in the river, shaken, and considerably astonished, but by no means hurt. A drop of ten feet or so is not very apt to hurt an agile man who alights upon his feet. He saw the wagon bounce upon the half-round logs, as with the team stretching out in a furious gallop in front of it, it crossed the trestle on the opposite side, and vanish into the forest; and then finding himself very little the worse, proceeded to wade back to the bridge. He was plodding up the climbing trail beneath the firs when a shout came down and he saw the man had pulled the wagon up. When Brooke drew level he looked at him with a little dry smile.

"I guess you and the Cayuses came off the worst," he said.

Brooke glanced at the horses. They were flecked with lather but quiet enough now, and it was evident that the driver had beaten the spirit out of them on the ascent.

"I fancied the result would have been different a little while ago," he said.

The stranger laughed. "I 'most always get my way," he said. "Still, I didn't pull the team up to tell you that. You're going in to the settlement?"

Brooke said he was, and the stranger bade him get up, which he did, and seized the first opportunity of glancing at his companion. There is, it had already appeared to him, a greater typical likeness between the business men of the Pacific slope, in which category he placed his companion, than is usual in the case of Englishmen. Even when large of frame they seldom put on flesh, and the characteristic lean face and spare figure alone supply a hint of restlessness and activity, which is emphasized by mobility of features and quick nervous gesture. The man who drove the wagon was almost unusually gaunt, and while his eyes, which were brown, and reminded Brooke curiously of somebody else's, seemed to scintillate with a faint sardonic twinkle, there was a suggestion of reticence in his firm thin lips, and an unmistakable stamp of command upon him. He also held himself well, and Brooke fancied that he was in his own sphere a man of some importance. His first observation was, however, not exactly what Brooke would have expected from an Englishman of his apparent station.

"I'm much obliged to you," he said. "I don't like to be beaten, and it's a thing that doesn't happen very often. Besides, when a horse is too much for a man it's kind of humiliating. There's something that doesn't strike one as quite fitting in the principle of the thing."

Brooke laughed. "I'm not sure it's worth while to worry very much over a point of that kind, especially when it seems likely to lead to nothing beyond the probability of being pitched into a river."

"Still," said the stranger, with the little twinkle showing plainer in his eyes, "in this case it was the other man who fell in."

"I fancy it quite frequently is," said Brooke, reflectively. "That is usually the result of meddling."

The stranger nodded, and quietly inspected him. "You have been here some time, but you are an Englishman," he said.

"I am," said Brooke. "Is there any reason why I should hide the fact?"

"You couldn't do it. How long have you been here?"

"Four years in all, I think."

"What did you come out for?"

Brooke was accustomed to Western brusquerie, and there was nothing in his companion's manner which made the question offensive.

"I fancy my motive was not an unusual one. To pick up a few dollars."

"Got them yet?"

"I can't say I have."

The stranger appeared reflective. "There are not many folks who would have admitted that," he said. "When a man has been four years in this country he ought to have put a few dollars together. What have you been at?"

"Ranching most of the time. Road-making, saw-milling, and a few other occupations of the same kind afterwards."

"What was wrong with the ranch?"Persistent questioning is not unusual in that country, for what is considered delicacy depends largely upon locality, and Brooke laughed.

"Almost everything," he said. "It had a good many disadvantages besides its rockiness, sterility, and an unusually abundant growth of two-hundred-feet trees. Still, it was the man who sold it me I found most fault with. He was a land agent."

"One of the little men?"

"No. I believe he is considered rather a big one—in fact about the biggest in that particular line."

The little sardonic gleam showed a trifle more plainly in the stranger's eyes. "He told you the land was nicely cleared ready, and would grow anything?"

"No," said Brooke. "He, however, led me to believe that it could be cleared with very little difficulty, and that the lumber was worth a good deal. I daresay it is, if there was any means whatever of getting it to a mill, which there isn't. He certainly told me there was no reason it shouldn't grow as good fruit as any that comes from Oregon, while I found the greatest difficulty in getting a little green oat fodder out of it."

"You went back, and tried to cry off your bargain?"

Brooke glanced at his companion, and fancied that he was watching him closely. "I really don't know any reason why I should worry you with my affairs. My case isn't at all an unusual one.""I don't know of any why you shouldn't. Go right on."

"Then I never got hold of the man himself. It was one of his agents I made the deal with, and there was nothing to be obtained from him. In fact, I could see no probability of getting any redress at all. It appears to be considered commendable to take the newly-arrived Britisher in."

The other man smiled drily. "Well," he said, "some of them 'most seem to expect it. Ever think of trying the law against the principal?"

"The law," said Brooke, "is apt to prove a very uncertain remedy, and I spent my last few dollars convincing myself that the ranch was worthless. Now, one confidence ought to warrant another. What has brought you into the bush? You do not belong to it."

The stranger laughed. "There's not much bush in this country, from Kootenay to Caribou, I haven't wandered through. I used to live in it—quite a long while ago. I came up to look at a mine. I buy one up occasionally."

"Isn't that a little risky?"

"Well," said the other, with a little smile, "it depends. There are goods, like eggs and oranges, you don't want to keep."

"And a good market in England for whatever the Colonials have no particular use for?"The stranger laughed good-humoredly. "Did you ever strike any real good salt pork in Canada?"

"No," said Brooke, decisively, "I certainly never did."

"Then where does the best bacon you get in England come from? Same with cheese—and other things."

"Including mines?"

"Well, when any of them look like paying it's generally your folk who get them. Know anything about the Dayspring?"

"Not a great deal," Brooke said, guardedly. "I have been in the workings, and it is for sale."

"Ore worth anything at the smelter?"

Now Brooke was perfectly certain that such a man as his companion appeared to be would attach no great importance to any information obtained by chance from a stranger.

"There is certainly a little good ore in it," he said, drily.

"That is about all you mean to tell me?"

"It is about all I know definitely."

The stranger smiled curiously. "Well," he said, "I'm not going to worry you, and I guess I know a little more."

Brooke changed the topic, and listened with growing interest, and a little astonishment, to his companion as they drove on. The man seemed acquainted with everything he could mention, including the sentiments of the insular English and the economics as well as the history of their country. He was even more astonished when, as they alighted before the little log hotel at the pine-shrouded settlement, the host greeted the stranger.

"You'll be Mr. Devine who wrote me about the room and a saddle horse?" he said.

"Yes," said the other man, who glanced at Brooke with a little whimsical smile, "you have addressed me quite correctly."

Brooke said nothing, for he realized then something of the nature of the task he and Saxton had undertaken, while it was painfully evident that he had done very little to further his cause at the first encounter. He also found the little gleam in Devine's eyes almost exasperating, and turned to the hotel-keeper to conceal the fact.

"Has the freighter come through?" he said.

"No," said the man. "Bob, who has just come in, said he'd a big load and we needn't expect him until to-morrow."

Devine had turned away now, and Brooke touched the hotel-keeper's arm. "I don't wish that man to know I'm from the Elktail," he said.

"Well," said the hotel-keeper, "you know Saxton's business best, but if I had any share in it and struck a man of that kind looking round for mines I'd do what was in me to shove the Dayspring off on to him."