ALLEN MILLER, the rich banker, was alone—alone in the president’s room at his bank, and feeling alone in the fullest sense of the word now that Roderick Warfield had gone, the youth he had reared and loved and cherished as his own child, now turned out of doors by the old man’s deliberate act.

For full an hour he walked slowly back and forth the whole length of the apartment But at last he halted once again before the open grate where some slumbering chunks of coal were burning indifferently. He pushed them together with the iron poker, and a bright blaze sprung up.

Looking deep into the fire his thoughts went back to his boyhood days and he saw John Warfield, his chum of many years. He thought of their experience in the terrible massacre in the Sierra Madre Mountains in the region of Bridger Peak, of a lost trail, of hunger and thirst and weary tramps over mountain and down precipitous canyons, of abrupt gashes that cut the rocky gorges, of great bubbling springs and torrents of mountain streams, of a narrow valley between high mountains—a valley without a discoverable outlet—of a beautiful waterway that traversed this valley and lost itself in the sides of an abrupt mountain, and of the exhausting hardships in getting back to civilization.

Then Allen Miller, the flint-hearted financier, the stoic, the man of taciturn habits, did a strange thing. Standing there before the blazing fire, leaning against the mantel, he put his handkerchief to his eyes and his frame was convulsed with a sob. Presently he turned away from the open grate and muttered aloud: “Yes, John Warfield, I loved you and I love your boy, Roderick. Some day he shall have all I’ve got. But he is self-willed—a regular outlaw—and I must wake him up to the demands of a bread-winner, put the bits into his mouth and make him bridle-wise. Gad! He’s a dynamo, but I love him;” and he half smiled, while his eyes were yet red and his voice husky.

“Ah, John,” he mused as he looked again into the fire, “you might have been alive today to help me break this young colt to the plough, if you had only taken my advice and given up the search for that gold mine in the mountains. Thank God for the compact of secrecy between us—the secret shall die with me. The years, John, you spent in trying to re-dis-cover the vault of wealth—and what a will-o’-the-wisp it proved to be—and then the accident. But now I shall be firm—firm as a rock—and Roderick, the reckless would-be plunger, shall at last feel the iron hand of his old guardian beneath the silken glove of my foolish kindness. He’s got to be subdued and broken, even if I have to let him live on husks for a while. Firm, firm—that’s the only thing to be.”

As he muttered the last words, Allen Miller shut his square jaws together with an ugly snap that plainly told the stern policy he had resolved on and would henceforth determinedly pursue. He put on his great fur-lined cloak, and silently went out into the evening shadows and thick maze of descending snow-flakes.

Meanwhile Roderick Warfield had reached his club, engaged a bedroom, and got a cheerful fire alight for companionship as well as comfort. He had telephoned to Whitley Adams to dine with him, but for two hours he would be by himself and undisturbed. He wanted a little time to think. And then there was the letter from his father. He had settled himself in an easy chair before the fire, the sealed envelope was in his hand, and the strange solemn feeling had descended upon him that he was going to hear his dead father speak to him again.

There was in the silence that enveloped him the pulsing sensation of a mysterious presence. The ordeal now to be faced came as a climax to the stormy interview he had just passed through. He had reached a parting of the ways, and dimly realized that something was going to happen that would guide him as to the path he should follow. The letter seemed a message from another world. Unknown to himself the supreme moment that had now arrived was a moment of transfiguration—the youth became a man—old things passed away.

With grave deliberation he broke the seal. Inside the folds of a long and closely written letter was a second cover with somewhat bulky contents. This he laid for the meantime on a little table by his side. Then he set himself to a perusal of the letter. It ran as follows:

“My dear Son:—

“This is for you to read when you have come to man’s estate—when you are no longer a thoughtless boy, but a thoughtful man. With this letter you will find your mother’s picture and a ring of pure gold which I placed upon her finger the day I married her—gold with a special sentiment attached to it, for I took it from the earth myself—also a few letters—love letters written by her to me and a tress of her hair. I am sure you will honor her memory by noble deeds. I loved her dearly.

“I was younger at the time than you are now, Roderick, my son. Your Uncle Allen Miller—about my own age—and myself planned a trip to California. It was at the time of the great gold excitement in that far off land.

“The Overland Train of some two score of ox teams that we were with traveled but slowly; frequently not more than eight or ten miles a day. I remembered we had crossed the south fork of the Platte River and had traveled some two days on westward into the mountains and were near a place called Bridger Peak. It must have been about midnight when our camp was startled with the most terrific and unearthly yells ever heard by mortals. It was a band of murderous Indians, and in less time than it takes to describe the scene of devastation, all of our stock was stampeded; our wagons looted and then set on fire. Following this a general massacre began. Your Uncle Allen and myself, both of us mere boys in our ‘teens, alert and active, managed to make our escape in the darkness. Being fleet of foot we ran along the mountain side, following an opening but keeping close to a dense forest of pine trees. In this way we saved our lives. I afterwards learned that every other member of the party was killed.

“We were each equipped with two revolvers and a bowie knife and perhaps jointly had one hundred rounds of cartridges. A couple of pounds of jerked beef and a half a loaf of bread constituted our provisions. Fortunately, Allen Miller carried with him a flint and steel, so that we were enabled to sustain ourselves with cooked food of game we killed during the weary days that followed.

“With this letter I enclose a map, roughly drawn, but I am sure it will help you find the lost canyon where flows a beautiful stream of water, and where your Uncle Allen and myself discovered an amazing quantity of gold—placer gold. It is in a valley, and the sandbar of gold is about a mile up stream from where the torrent of rapid water loses itself at the lower end of the valley—seemingly flowing into the abrupt side of a mountain. At the place where we found the gold, I remember, there was a sandbar next to the mountain brook, then a gorge or pocket like an old channel of a creek bed, and it was here in this old sandbar of a channel that the nuggets of gold were found—so plentiful indeed, that notwithstanding we loaded ourselves with them to the limit of our strength, yet our ‘takings’ could scarcely be missed from this phenomenal sandbar of riches. We brought all we could possibly carry away with us in two bags which we made from extra clothing. Unfortunately we lost our way and could not find an opening from the valley, because the waters of the stream disappeared, as I have described, and we were compelled, after many unsuccessful attempts to find a water grade opening, to retrace our steps and climb out by the same precipitous trail that we had followed in going down into this strange valley.

“We wandered in the mountains as far south as a place now known as Hahn’s Peak, and then eastward, circling in every direction for many miles in extent. After tramping in an unknown wilderness for forty-seven days we finally came to the hut of a mountaineer, and were overjoyed to learn it was on a branch of the Overland trail Not long after this we fell in with a returning caravan of ox team freighters and after many weeks of tedious travel arrived at St. Joseph, Mo., footsore and weary, but still in possession of our gold. A little later we reached our home near Keokuk, Iowa, and to our great joy learned that our treasure was worth many thousands of dollars. Your Uncle Allen Miller’s half was the beginning of his fortune. An oath of secrecy exists between your Uncle Allen Miller and myself that neither shall divulge during our lifetime that which I am now writing to you, but in thus communicating my story to you, my own flesh and blood, I do not feel that I am violating my promise, because the information will not come to you until years after my death.

“Since your mother’s death, I have made seven trips into the Rocky Mountain region hunting most diligently for an odd-shaped valley where abrupt mountains wall it in, seemingly on every side, and where we found the fabulously rich sandbar of gold.

“But I have not succeeded in locating the exact place, not even finding the lost stream—or rather the spot where the waters disappeared out of sight at the base of a high mountain range. On my last trip, made less than one year ago, I met with a most serious accident that has permanently crippled me and will probably hasten my taking off. On the map I have made many notes while lying here ill and confined to my room, and they will give you my ideas of the location where the treasure may be found. To you, my beloved son, Roderick, I entrust this map. Study it well and if, as I believe, you have inherited my adventurous spirit, you will never rest until you find this lost valley and its treasure box of phenomenal wealth. In Rawlins, Wyoming, you will find an old frontiersman by the name of Jim Rankin. He has two cronies, or partners, Tom Sun and Boney Earnest. These three men rendered me great assistance. If you find the lost mine, reward them liberally.

“I have communicated to no one, not even your good Uncle Allen Miller, that I have decided on leaving this letter, and the information which it contains is for your eyes alone to peruse long after my mortal body has crumbled to dust In imparting this information I do so feeling sure that your Uncle Allen will never make any effort to relocate the treasure, so that it is quite right and proper the secret should descend to you.

“My pen drags a little—I am weary and quite exhausted with the effort of writing. I now find myself wondering whether this legacy—a legacy telling you of a lost gold mine that may be found somewhere in the fastnesses of the mountains of Wyoming—will prove a blessing to you or a disquieting evil. I shall die hoping that it will prove to your good and that your efforts in seeking this lost mine will be rewarded.

“With tenderest love and affection,

“Your father,

“John Warfield.”

When Roderick reached the end of the letter, he remained for a long time still holding it in his hands and gazing fixedly into the glowing embers. He was seeing visions—visions of a Wyoming gold mine that would bring him unbounded wealth. At last he broke from his reveries, and examined the other package. It was unsealed. The first paper to come forth proved to be the map to which his father had referred—it was a pencil drawing with numerous marginal notes that would require close examination. For the present he laid the document on the table. Then reverently and tenderly he examined the little bunch of love letters tied together by a ribbon, the tress of hair placed between two protecting pieces of cardboard, and the plain hoop of gold wrapped carefully in several folds of tissue paper. Lastly he gazed upon the photograph of his mother—the mother he had never seen, the mother who had given her life so that he might live. There were tears in his eyes as he gently kissed the sweet girlish countenance.

With thought of her and memories of the old boyhood days again he fell into a musing mood. Time sped unnoticed, and it was only the chiming of a church clock outside that aroused him to the fact that the dinner hour had arrived and that Whitley Adams would be waiting for him downstairs. He carefully placed all the papers in a writing desk that stood in a corner of the room, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. Then he descended to meet his friend.

“Nothing doing, I can see,” exclaimed Whitley the moment he saw Roderick’s grave face.

“You’ve got it right,” he answered quietly. “The big ‘if’ you feared this morning turned out to be an uncompromising ‘no.’ Uncle Allen and I have said good-by.”

“No wonder you are looking so glum.”

“Not glum, old fellow. I never felt more tranquilly happy in my life. But naturally I may seem a bit serious. I have to cut out old things in my life, take up new lines.”

“I suppose it’s back to New York for you.”

“No. Everything goes by the board there. I have to cut my losses and quit.”

“What a cruel sacrifice!”

“Or what a happy release,” smiled Roderick. “There is something calling me elsewhere—a call I cannot resist—a call I believe that beckons me to success.”

“Where?”

“Well, we won’t say anything about that at present I’ll write you later on when the outlook becomes clearer. Meanwhile we’ll dine, and I’m going to put up a little business proposition to you. I want you to buy my half share in the Black Swan.”

“Guess that can be fixed up all right,” replied Whitley, as they moved toward the dining room. And, dull care laid aside, the two old college chums gave themselves up to a pleasant evening—the last they would spend together for many a long day, as both realized.

By eleven o’clock next morning Roderick Warfield had adjusted his financial affairs. He had received cash for his half interest in the Black Swan, a river pleasure launch which he and Whitley Adams had owned in common for several years. He had written one letter, to New York surrendering his holding in the mining syndicate, and other letters to his three or four creditors enclosing bank drafts for one-half of his indebtedness and requesting six months’ time for the payment of the balance. With less than a hundred dollars left he was cheerfully prepared to face the world.

Then had come the most painful episode of the whole visit—the parting from Aunt Lois, the woman of gentle ways and kindly heart who had always loved him like a mother, who loved him still, and who tearfully pleaded with him to submit even at this eleventh hour to his uncle’s will and come back to his room in the old home. But the adieus had been spoken, resolutely though tenderly, and now Whitley Adams in his big motor car had whisked Roderick and his belongings back to the railway depot.

He had barely time to check his trunk to Burlington and swing onto the moving train. “So long,” he shouted to his friend. “Good luck,” responded Whitley as he waved farewell. And Roderick Warfield was being borne out into the big new world of venture and endeavor.

Would he succeed in cuffing the ears of chance and conquer, or would heartless fate play football with him and make him indeed the “pig-skin” as his uncle had prophesied in the coming events of his destiny—a destiny that was carrying him away among strangers and to unfamiliar scenes? As the train rushed along his mind was full of his father’s letter and his blood tingled with excitement over the secret that had come to him from the darkness of the very grave. The primal man within him was crying out with mad impatience to be in the thick of the fierce struggle for the golden spoil.

A witchery was thrumming in his heart—the witchery of the West; and instead of struggling against the impulse, he was actually encouraging it to lead him blindly on toward an unsolved mystery of the hills. He was lifted up into the heights, his soul filled with exalted thoughts and hopes.

Then came whisperings in a softer strain—gentle whisperings that brought with them memories of happy college days and the name of Stella Rain. It was perhaps nothing more nor less than the crude brutality with which his uncle had pressed his meretricious matrimonial scheme that caused Roderick now to think so longingly and so fondly of the charming little “college widow” who had been the object of his youthful aspirations.

All at once he came to a resolution. Yes; he would spend at least one day on the old campus grounds at Knox College. The call of the hills was singing in his heart, the luring irresistible call. But before responding to it he would once again press the hand and peep into the eyes of Stella Rain.