Professor Becke, who had taken her in, and Mrs. Cameron simultaneously

addressed their temporary partners, and Gregory was now to listen to

an account, both spirited and kindly, of the admiration his wife had

excited in her native town. Mrs. Cameron suspected the breach, in spite

of the clever acting of both, and made up her mind to do what she could

to bridge it. She had not an inkling of the cause, for, like Ida, she

knew nothing of that fateful hour on the steps of the School of Mines;

but as there was no gossip abroad about either Gregory or his wife,

she inferred that it was one of those misunderstandings that so often

separate young couples, always prone to take themselves too seriously.

She knew that Gregory would value her praise; he not only had been

fond of her as a schoolboy, when he spent an occasional Saturday

with her son, but he knew that her experience of the world was very

wide. She was a woman whom long years of wealth had enabled to travel

extensively, she visited intimately at some of the greatest country

homes in Europe, and she had her own position in New York. She subtly

made Gregory feel prouder still of Ida, and then said teasingly:

“It is well that you have her devotion. I know of three men that are

quite off their heads about her----”

“Ah? Who are they?” A sultan may weary of his sultana, but his sultana

she is all the same.

“That I’ll not tell you. Even your wife could not, I fancy. I’ve never

seen a woman treat men with a more careless impartiality. What a

relief--with all these divorces pending. Merely a shuffling of cards,

too, I understand. It is disgusting. I asked your wife as a personal

favour to me to invite none of them tonight. Butte either has long

orgies of respectability or goes quite off her head.”

“My wife is singularly indifferent to men for a beautiful woman,”

replied Gregory, comfortably ignorant of his beautiful wife’s

depredations abroad. “Nor is she likely to countenance divorce. She has

a good deal of her old New England mother in her.” He had a haughty

contempt for explanations as a rule, but his quick instinct had caught

the significance of his companion’s remarks; knowing that Ida must wish

to stand well with this amiable but rigid arbiter of Butte’s court of

last resort, he added:

“I am sorry not to be in Butte oftener, and give her what little

assistance a man may, but it is all I can do to leave the mine for a

few hours every week or two.”

“That is the fate of too many of our American women married to our

too busy American men. But--well--Gregory--I have married sons and

daughters, and I am an old friend of yours. Young wives must not be

neglected, and resentment eats like a cancer until women are old enough

to be philosophical. Just think that over.” And before he could answer

Ida gave the signal and the men were left alone.

VIII

As the women dispersed about the long drawing-room Ora laid her arm

lightly round the waist of Ida, who was standing for the moment apart.

“Your dinner is a tremendous success, my dear,” she said, “and so are

you. That gown! It makes mine look so crude. I wish I had worn white as

I intended until the last minute. How splendidly everything went off.

Not a detail to criticise, and every woman has worn something new from

New York or Paris. But you--well, Ida, you are always beautiful, of

course, but tonight you are something more than lovely.”

“Oh, am I?” Ida gave a little gasp, forgetting her passing astonishment

at so much tribute from Ora at once. “Well, I ought to be. I never felt

quite like this in all my life. Geewhil--no, I’m too happy even for

slang. I wish I could sing.”

Ora sighed. “I’ve always known you would get everything you wanted, and

I can guess just how you feel tonight. You are a complete success. How

many people ever are able to say that?”

“Yes, I feel as if I owned the earth!” But her brows met in a puzzled

frown. “I never felt, though, as if even the conquest of Butte would

all but send me off my head. I never feel very much excited about any

old thing; it’s not my make; but I’ve got a sort of shiver inside of

me, and a watery feeling in the heart region. If that chef had spoilt

the dinner I’d have gone out and wrung his neck.”

“Well, nothing can go wrong now. The worst is over, and no dinner was

ever more delicious. Why don’t you let them dance? I know that Mrs.

O’Hara plays.”

“Good idea! I’ll ring this minute for a few of those extra near-waiters

to take out the rugs and move the furniture.”

Two of the younger women, who had returned not long since from San

Francisco, were showing their scandalised friends the turkey-trot when

the men came down the hall from the dining-room. Ida drew Gregory aside.

“Tell me,” she asked, with an eager almost childish note in her voice

new to him. “Did it go off well? Am I all I ought to be after all the

money you have spent on me? Do I look nice in my fine clothes?”

Gregory patted her on the shoulder. “I know little about such things,”

he said kindly, “but it outclassed all the banquets I’ve been obliged

to attend in the last six or eight months. I felt quite proud that it

was in my own house--yours, to be literal--and Mrs. Blake assured me

that she had never seen anything better done.”

“Ora is an angel, and without her--but you know all that. Tell

me--well, Gregory, I want a good old-fashioned compliment!”

His voice lost its bantering tone and became formal with gallantry:

“You are, as ever, the handsomest woman in Montana. I shouldn’t wonder

a bit if those New York reporters were right and that you are the

handsomest woman in America.”

Ida looked for a long moment into his eyes. Again her brows met in a

puzzled frown, this time because her singular lightness of spirit had

fled abruptly. She was too proud, too far developed beyond the old Ida,

to put forth the arts of the siren until they were alone; but she asked

softly, and again with that almost childish naïveté:

“Do you really admire me?”

“You are all right,” he said with a heartiness that masked a sudden

misgiving. “I must come in and take you to the theatre the next time a

good show comes to town. Let me know. I’ll gratify my vanity by sitting

beside you in a box----”

“There’s a play tomorrow night. Stay over!”

“I’m sorry. I don’t dare. Apex is sinking for all she’s worth. We may

have a set-to any minute. It was a risk even to come away for a night.”

“Oh, do let me go out, and down into the mine----”

“I should think not. And do your best to keep Mrs. Blake in Butte for

at least a week.”

“Well, let me go out when the danger is over. I long to see

chalcopyrite in the vein. I saw some beautiful specimens at the School

of Mines the other day. It looks like pure gold.”

He looked at her in amazement. “What on earth do you know about ores?

Did you include Freiberg in your itinerary?”

“This is Butte, remember. I no sooner returned than I realised how

interesting she was.”

“Ah, well, when this affair is settled, come out and stay with Mrs.

Blake and I’ll take you down. I’ve no place to put you up. Even the

ranch house is full. Mrs. Blake’s manager and foreman are boarding

there at present, and Oakley also puts up my secretary----”

“And those crops Oakley put in with such enthusiasm?” cried Ida with a

sudden inspiration, and racking her memory. “Did they turn out as he

expected? Was there a drought--in--in--those states?”

“What a memory you have! Yes, Oakley is doing wonders, and the drought

arrived as per schedule. He would scorn to put the ranch under the

ditch, although that is my long suit at present.”

“I suppose Circle-G Ranch looks like Holland by this time.”

“Not quite yet! But the work is progressing splendidly, all except----”

He paused. It had never been his habit to talk to her, and the

complicated details of business he regarded as beyond the intelligent

apprehension of any woman. But as Ida moved closer to him with

wide-open eyes she looked intelligent enough to understand anything,

and a letter received that morning had been on his mind ever since.

“There is some trouble about the railroad,” he said. “The Land Company

was to build it, but either doesn’t want the bother or really has lost

a lot of money, as it claims. I placed a deed in escrow which pledges

me to build it if the Land Company failed to keep its agreement; and

the seed houses, which bought several large blocks of land, and a

number of private settlers are demanding that the railroad be begun--it

was to be finished at the end of a year----”

Ida saw her opportunity and grasped it. “We both must do our duty, and

not monopolise each other,” she said hurriedly. “But tell me all about

it after they have gone. Now, go and dance with Kitty Collier. She’s

the best-looking woman in Butte. I can’t dance in this harness, but

I’ll talk English politics with my portlier guests.” As he smiled and

moved toward the music, she laid her hand lightly on his arm. “I want

to thank you for coming tonight, Gregory,” she said. “It means a great

deal to me socially. Besides, it is good to see you again.” And this

time she looked very sweet; but there was a slight aloofness in her

manner, as if to admonish him that, although he was forgiven, there was

still a breach which it was for him to close. Then she added lightly:

“Well, we’ll talk it all over later. Go, now, and dance.”

* * * * *

Gregory stood by the front door talking to two of the men, whose wives

had walked on; their homes were but a door or two away. Ida ran up the

stairs to Ora’s room, where they unhooked each other.

“You look tired,” said Ida, sympathetically.

“Oh, I am tired,” replied Ora, her arms hanging. “Tired. Tired.”

“It’s a long while since you danced like that. Just drop into bed. Lend

me a scarf, will you?”

She covered her opened gown with the lace and walked slowly over to

her room. Then she suddenly turned back to the head of the stairs. The

three men were still talking below.

“Gregory,” she called, and her voice was very sweet.

“Yes?”

“Lock up, will you? The servants have gone to bed.”

“I will.”

“Don’t forget,” and omitting to add a good-night, she went swiftly to

her room, changed her formal evening gown for a soft combination of

yellow silk and lace that made her look like a tulip in a primrose bed,

let down the black masses of her hair, and threw herself into a deep

chair. But there was no repose in her attitude. More than once her body

stiffened and she raised her head. Pride and shrewdness forbade her

to leave her door open, and it would be impossible to hear that light

panther-like tread on the heavy carpet of the stair. The front door

might have closed while she was changing in the dressing-room.

Suddenly she heard it slam. Nervous as she was she smiled

reminiscently. Gregory might be soft of foot, but otherwise he was as

noisy as most men. Then the smile froze until her lips were distended

in a grin. Another door had slammed. Gregory was in his own room.

After a few moments she became aware that her body was rigid and that

she was grasping the arms of her chair. She rose with an exclamation of

impatience, but stood with her head bent, listening intently. Suddenly

she swayed a little, once more flooded with that sense of excited

gladness with which guests and chefs had had naught to do: she thought

she heard a door open softly, a light footfall. But her straining

ear-drums had deceived her. The house was as still as a mausoleum.

She pressed her hands against her breast in the gesture the stage has

borrowed from life; her heart felt as if swimming against an undertow.

Then she began pacing up and down. After her habit she tried to arrange

her thoughts by putting them into words, and, as people still do off

the stage, muttered them aloud.

“My God! Do I care as much as that? Do I really _care_? No! No! No!

Any woman of pride, let alone vanity, would make up her mind to bring

her husband back--especially if she could make him as proud of her

as I made him of me tonight. And when he still thinks me beautiful.

What woman wouldn’t? Even if she didn’t have an ounce of any kind of

feeling for him? Men are only interesting when they forget about us in

that purely masculine world where women are warned off the grass. To

lure them back--that is the spice of life in this country. And if one

doesn’t succeed the first time--he may be so tired and sleepy that he’s

forgotten about me--or shy, afraid I’d laugh at him--the world does not

come to an end tonight--What an idiot I am! I made him admire me more

than ever, astonished him--why am I not satisfied for the present?--It

can’t be that I care--that I long for him to come--Good God! I’d rather

be dead than _that_!”

But she went to the door and, laying her ear against it, listened until

she became aware that her lungs were bursting with imprisoned breath.

Then she sank into a chair trembling, her eyes filled with fear. A

moment more and she flung her arms over the table and dropped her face

upon them and broke into heavy weeping.

IX

Ora looked round the large living-room of her bungalow with a deep

sense of content. The walls were covered with a material coarse in

weave and of a red warm but not too bright. The colour was repeated in

the divan and chairs, melting softly into browns that harmonised with

the heavy beams of the ceiling. A few Navajo rugs covered the floor.

Above the divan of many cushions was a bookshelf crowded with the new

fiction of two continents. Several shelves, built like a bookcase,

occupied a corner and were furnished more ponderously. In the middle

of the room a large table was half covered with the best periodicals

of the day, although there was room for a large lamp with a red shade

and a vase filled with wild flowers. Down at the far end of the room,

which was about thirty feet long, and opposite the kitchen, were

the dining-table and a small sideboard. The main door opened upon a

verandah, and one beside the fireplace into a narrow hall, giving

privacy to the bedrooms. Ora had no atavistic yearnings for the life

of the pioneer; she might feel as much at home in a bungalow as in a

palace, but elementals, save when pictorially valuable, like overhead

beams, were rigidly excluded.

Her hands clasped behind her, she drifted up and down the long room,

her mode of ambulation expressing the state of her mind. Quick and

final as she could be in decision, if necessity spurred, the deeper

sensuousness in her nature impelled her to drift whenever circumstances

would permit. For two months she intended to drift--or gamble! She had

not come out here further to alienate the affections of her friend’s

husband, and those old tumultuous dreams were still crowded in some

remote brain cell with seals on the door. She had even told herself in

so many words that she had no desire for anything so terrific as their

complete materialisation. She had plumbed the depth and intensity of

life in her imagination. Let that suffice. And reality was not so much

to be feared because of the wreck it might make of her life as because

it was reasonably sure to leave a corpse in her memory, instead of that

ever burning soul of past delights.

But she had come out to her mine to enjoy the constant companionship

of Gregory Compton before she left her country for ever and married

a European. That much she owed to the extraordinary imaginative

experience in which they had been one. If she could spend long hours

with him, make him as eager for her companionship as she was for his,

forget his mine now and then, feel that mysterious and satisfying bond

of the spirit, she would ask no more, not even an admission of love

when they parted.

When a woman goes on a still hunt for a man’s soul she is far more

dangerous than the obvious siren, for her self-delusion is complete,

her guards are down, her wiles disarming. Ora had had too little

practical experience of men to be prepared to admit, in spite of her

abstract knowledge of life, that there has been but one foundation of

love since the world began, and never will be another till life on

this planet ends, whatever may be the starry mysteries of the spheres.

But while she was (spasmodically) too honest to deny even her own sex

encumbrance, she believed, like many other, particularly American women

of narrow experience, that it had been politely emasculated by the

higher civilisation, was merely synonymous with poetry, romance, and

sentiment. This convention was imported to the New World by England’s

middle-class and became a convenient national superstition. It is on

the wane.

That Gregory, granted she were successful in capturing his soul, might

desire to contribute the rest of himself to the spoils, now that she no

longer was the wife of his friend, let loose those subversive passions

she had divined the night of their meeting and dared to recognise in

the realm of imagination, she would have refused to admit had the

possibility occurred to her. She was out for the ideal, and not yet had

she learned to take her imagination in hand like a refractory child.

Moreover, she had an imperious will, gracefully as she concealed it.

This last year of freedom and wealth and feminine triumphs had tempered

that will into a pliable and dangerous weapon. What she wanted she

would have. As she planned a thing so should it work out. But the

details--ah, they were veiled in the future, and from their mysteries

came this reflex vibration, this pleasant sense of drifting, of

wondering how it would all begin and what would happen next.

In a sense it had begun. Gregory had called two days before to ask

if she were comfortable. He was in his overalls (purposely), and had

refused at first to sit down, but finally had succumbed to the deepest

of the chairs before the log fire. He had finished by remaining for

supper, and again had occupied the chair until eleven o’clock. Neither

had suspected the other’s secret passion, for love before union, being

nine parts imagination, needs solitude for indulgence, and is capable,

moreover, of long and satisfying quietudes if fed with externals. There

was sheer delight in sitting together by that warm intimate fire,

at the dining-table at the end of the long shadowy room, in feeling

cut off from the world on the edge of that rough mountain camp, in

listening to the soughing of the pines during the silences. That both

were on their guard lest the other take fright and the experience

be impossible of repetition but exaggerated the atmosphere of

friendliness, of almost sexless comradeship. Gregory betrayed one only

of his reflections: he admitted to himself what Ora subtly compelled

him to admit, and had no difficulty in divining, that the companionship

of woman was a blessed thing, and that he had been the loneliest of men.

Their talk was mainly of ores! She was permitted to learn how little

else interested him in comparison with the enthralling inside of

Montana. But he told her also the legends of the great copper mines on

Lake Superior, so old that copper was found pure, looking much like the

smelted product from the copper ores of the later geological formations

of the Rocky Mountains. These vast mines, particularly that on Isle

Royal, bore unmistakable signs of having been worked systematically

by a prehistoric people experienced in mining; presumably by the

Atlantans, who, after their own mines were worked out and they still

demanded “orichalcum” for their monuments and bronze for their

implements, went annually in ships for the metal. That there had been

a self-supporting mining colony on Isle Royal was indicated by certain

agricultural remains.

Gregory and Ora had amused themselves reconstructing that old time

when the metal island was as lively as today, and considerably more

picturesque--owing to the alternative of skins for muck-spattered

overalls; an underground chapter of the Niebelungenlied, its gnomes

toiling down in those two miles of workings, stoping out less in a

hundred years than the methods of today force a mine to yield in one.

How they must have swarmed to the surface, regardless of discipline,

at the first signal of the approaching ships, their one link with a

world that was not all water and forest and underground cavern. By

what tortuous way did those archaic ships travel from the Atlantic to

the northwest corner of that vast inland sheet; unless, indeed, which

is likely, subsequent upheavals have destroyed a waterway which may

have connected sea and lake prior to 10000 B.C.[B] How many of those

old ships lie in the bed of Lake Superior, laden with rude nuggets of

copper, pounded from the gangue, or, who knows? smelted by a lost art

into sheets and blocks? Archaic ships rode high, and no doubt those

from Atlantis were overladen; for what has kept Atlantis in the realm

of myth so long save the unscientific legend that she perished of greed

and its vicious offspring? What archaic mysteries may not the terrible

storms of that great north lake yet uncover? What strange variety of

copper, washed and bitten by the waters of twelve thousand years, for

which the enraptured geologist must find a new name? Who knows?--the

bed of Lake Superior may be one unbroken floor of malachite; and the

North American Indian of that region the descendant of those ancient

miners, abandoned and forgotten when Atlantis plunged to the bottom of

the sea.

It was Ora who advanced these last frivolous theories, and--the clock

striking eleven--Gregory sprang to his feet.

“Likely as any,” he said. “All theories change about as often as it

is time to get out a new edition of an encyclopædia, or develop a

‘new school’ which makes its reputation by the short cut of upsetting

the solemn conclusions of its predecessors. I’m going down into the

mine.” He bolted out with no further ceremony, but Ora was long since

accustomed to the manners of Western men. She went to bed feeling that

sadness had gone out of the world.

She had not seen him since. Nor had anything new and interesting

happened. Her manager, Raymond, refused to take her down in the mine,

alleging that when Apex broke into the workings of Perch of the Devil,

there was sure to be a fight, and the bohunks would retreat, not up

their own shaft but through the tunnels of the Primo mine. The young

man was manifestly distressed to refuse any boon to so charming a

woman, and he and his foreman had moved at once into the half-finished

cottage, but he heartily wished her back in Butte, nevertheless. The

best of miners love a fight, and it would be impossible to protect her

from flying bullets if the row was continued above ground. Ora merely

had laughed when he begged her to return or to remain within doors, but

had promised to be prudent and flourished her automatic .25.

X

She glanced at the clock. It was half-past three. She knew that Gregory

frequently went below in the morning, and had half expected that he

would cross over to her hill for a moment when he came up at three

o’clock. The drifting mood vanished. She decided that two days were

enough for feminine passivity and went to her bedroom and changed her

pretty house frock for a stout out-of-doors’ costume of forest green

tweed: as she had no mind to look either the outworn Western heroine of

romance, or a fright, she had omitted khaki from her mountain wardrobe.

She tied a light green veil round her head, put on a pair of loose

chamois gloves, selected a green parasol lined with pink, and went out

to give the fates a gentle shove.

Hitherto she had so far yielded to the solicitude of her manager as to

take her walks through the pine woods above her bungalow, but today she

marched deliberately through her grove and stood for several moments

on the edge of the little bluff above the tableland on which her claim

was located. It was her first prolonged look at the three mining

camps, for she had arrived at night. She had driven out occasionally

to mining camps with her father, once or twice with Mark; the scene

was both typical and picturesquely ugly. In or near the centre of each

claim was the shaft house; fifty feet beyond--the distance prescribed

by law to prevent overhead fires from communicating with underground

timbers--were the buildings containing the hoisting machinery and the

compressed air plant. Scattered about were the shacks of the miners,

the long bunk- and mess-houses, blacksmith and carpenter shops. Just

below the Apex claim, and on Government land, an enterprising publican

had established himself. On all sides were other claims of recent

location, for there had been the inevitable rush.

The rude buildings were grey and weather-beaten, and all traces of the

gentle spring verdure had disappeared. About the collar of each shaft

was an immense dump heap, waste rock brought up from the depths, and

the highest of these was on Perch of the Devil. Near each were the ore

bins, but these for the most part were empty, and, save on the De Smet

hill, there was a notable absence of “double-sixes.” The Primo vein had

not been recovered, Apex had not yet touched bottom; Gregory Compton,

for reasons best known to himself, had changed his original plan and

was merely uncovering his new vein, taking out as little of its ore as

possible. His bins were furnished with ore from the second level of his

mine, where work had proceeded steadily on the original vein.

The men off shift were standing about in groups as they did in Butte,

or passing in and out of the saloon. And the racket was deafening: the

roar of the machinery in the hoisting and compressor houses, the crash

of rock dumped from the buckets or skips, the ringing of hammer on

anvil. The scene was not beautiful but it was alive! One could fancy

the thrill of the hidden metals, knowing that their hour, after vast

geological ages of waiting, was come; that, like mortals, they were to

agonise in the crucible of life and achieve their ultimate destiny.

Ora walked through the grove until she was beyond the long mess-house

at the back of her claim, climbed over the abrupt rise of Apex--which,

combined with the hardness of the rock, had made its task so long--and,

ascertaining that the larger buildings hid her, crawled under the De

Smet fence, and drew a long breath as she set her feet squarely on the

famous Perch of the Devil. Here the buildings, large and small, were

scattered up to the brow of the hill and over on the other side. It

had, in fact, something of the appearance of a growing village with

irregular streets; and before several of the cabins children were

playing, or women took their Monday washing from the line. The fronts

of some of these cottages were painted white, and here and there

flowers grew in boxes. There were even a reading-room and a large

“general store.” Altogether Perch of the Devil looked as if it might

grow larger, and more solid and permanent of aspect, with the years.

Ora walked through the crooked streets on the steep hillside until

she reached the deep chamber into which had leached the acids of the

centuries to enrich the ores, and incidentally Gregory Compton.

Thousands of tons of dump made a hill in itself and shut off the view

to the south, but below were the acres of waving wheat, the alfalfa

with its purple flower, the sprouting flax, the winding creek that

was often dry but sometimes wet, the brush sheds for the cattle, the

substantial farm buildings. The broad peaceful expanse looked as

if even a winter wind had never shaken it, so entirely did it seem

dissociated from the frantic energies of its northeast corner. And

still beyond was perfect beauty: the massive pine-covered mountains,

rising tier above tier, ridges of the great Rockies, far away and up to

the sky-cutting line, glittering with eternal snows. For a few moments

Ora forgot the raucous noises about her, Nature delivering herself

of her precious children with loud protesting pains. Then she turned

suddenly and looked upward.

Gregory had just stepped from his cabin. For a moment he did not see

her, but stood staring, his hands in his pockets, at the distant

mountains. He wore his favourite overalls and a battered cap on

the back of his head; but he looked so remote in spirit from that

materialising costume that Ora watched him with a sensation of helpless

jealousy. Not for a moment could she delude herself that he was

thinking of her. He looked like a seer.

“Can you see right into the heart of those mountains?” she asked

lightly, as she walked up the hill toward him. “You looked as if your

imagination were ‘blocking out’ thousands of tons of gold quartz.”

He started and coloured, but smiled with a sudden pleasure at the

charming picture in the foreground. “Something like that. This mine

is all right, and now that I’ve got over my disappointment, I have a

feeling for it that I guess I’ll never have for another mine--something

like the affection for one’s first born! But all the same I intend to

have a gold mine one of these days. Have you been admiring my view?”

He had walked down and joined her.

“Yes, but that is not what I came over here for. Nor is it what I came

out to the mines for. I brought a small library, but I find I am not in

the humour for books. I want to be doing something myself. Mr. Raymond

won’t take me down into my mine. I want to go down into yours--now.”

He hesitated a moment. “Well--why not? Apex is not working this

afternoon--something the matter with their compressor. They sounded

pretty close to our workings this morning, but the men quit about one

o’clock, and as they didn’t blast it was probably because the holes

weren’t deep enough. I’ve just been told that they can’t get to work

again before tomorrow. But you look much too fine!”

“Everything cleans; and I’ll leave my veil and parasol in the shaft

house.”

“All right,” he said abruptly. “Come along.”

When they were in the shaft house he asked, “Will you go down in the

skip or by the ladder?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do anything so ignominious as to go down in a

bucket, and I’m very agile. How far is it?”

“A hundred feet. I shall only take you to the first level.”

Ora peered down into the black and slanting and apparently bottomless

well. A ladder was built flat against one side. A skip full of ore was

banging against the sides of the other compartment on its way up. She

looked again at the ladder, shuddered, and set her teeth.

Gregory put two candles in his pocket, inserted his long limber body

into the narrow aperture and ran down sideways.

“Oh!” gasped Ora. “I can’t do that. Please wait. I--I think I’d better

go down backward.”

“By all means. Sit down and turn round. I’ll catch hold of one of your

feet and put it on a rung. The rest will be easy.”

Ora followed these instructions gingerly, concluding that the skip

would have been more dignified. Then she forgot dignity and only

wondered if her bones had gone out of her: she had rolled over on her

equatorial zone and was kicking helplessly in the void. But as Gregory

caught her feet and planted them safely she set her teeth once more and

summoned her pride.

“Glad you have on stout boots,” he said, practically. “We’ve not enough

water in the mine for pumps, but it’s a little damp underfoot. Wait a

minute while I light a candle.” He struck a match and performed this

feat; how, Ora could not even guess; but she glanced down sideways and

saw that he was holding the lighted candle up at arm’s length.

“Come on,” he said. “You mustn’t be frightened.”

“I’m not a bit frightened, but don’t go too fast.”

Gregory, who was running down the ladder, moderated his pace, and sent

up an occasional word of cheer. Suddenly Ora heard a horrid noise below

like the crash and roar of an express train. “Has the mine fallen in?”

she gasped.

“Hope not. That’s the tram with ore and rock for the skip. By and by

we’ll use the waste rock to fill up the stopes with, but we’re only

blocking out at present.”

“How frightfully interesting mining is--in all its details!” Ora’s

hands were smarting, and every part of her, not excluding her

imagination, felt as if on the rack. “That noise is over!”

“Did I hear you say ‘Thank heaven’?”

“Of course not. How much farther is it? Haven’t we passed the first

level?”

“If we had I should be carrying you. Only about twenty feet more.”

And a few moments later, with the deepest sigh of relief she had ever

drawn, she was standing in the small station beside the shaft.

“It’s hard work the first time,” he said sympathetically. “But you’ll

soon get used to it.”

“How dark it is!”

“I’ll put in electricity when my troubles with Amalgamated are over.”

He lit another candle and handed it to her. “Be careful of your frock.”

The ore car was rumbling away in the distance. Gregory followed the

sound down the tunnel and Ora kept close at his heels. “I suppose we’ll

see something after a while?” she ventured. “I can’t see even you now,

only your candle.”

“We’ll soon be out of this,” he said cheerfully. “You see, we’ve had

to walk under the chamber from which I took that great deposit of

carbonates, and then some----” He paused a moment, but not before he

had turned acutely to the left. “This is where I lost the vein. We

are in the fault now. How would you like to be in an earthquake that

broke a vein in two and hurled one end----” His voice was lost in the

rattling roar of the compressed air drills, although there was nothing

to be seen until they reached another little station and faced a wider

drift on the right, some twelve feet long. Candles were flaring from

the miners’ candlesticks, whose long points were thrust into stulls or

the softer part of the rock, and four men were manipulating two of the

cumbersome air drills which stood on tripods. Gregory made a sign to

the shift boss, who shut off a valve, and the din stopped abruptly.

“Now,” said Gregory. “This is what you have come for.” He moved his

candle along the brassy glitter of chalcopyrite in the vein, steadying

her with his arm, for the floor was uneven and littered.

Ora trembled. She forgot the arm about her; it felt like mere steel

for that matter; she was in one of the magic caverns of her dreams and

she thrilled to the magnet of the ores. “It looks like pure gold,” she

whispered.

“So it is in a sense, and far more beautiful to look at in the vein.”

They had been standing near the opening of the drift. He guided her

down toward the farther end; the miners made way for them and went out

to the station nothing loath; owing their lives to what has cost many a

man his life and more, the caprice of a woman.

“I want to show you how the holes look before we put the sticks of

powder in,” Gregory began, as he waved his candle once more aloft, this

time over a less dazzling surface. He stopped abruptly. She felt his

body stiffen. Then, as he whirled her about, he screamed to the men:

“Get out! Run!”

Ora had the sensation of being swept along by a bar of steel burrowing

into the flesh of her waist. But in another instant she had lost all

sense of her body. There was a shock as if something had hit the hill

at its foundations, a dull roar, and then the crash of falling rock

behind them.

The men were all ahead. Ora dimly could see them running like rabbits

up the fault drift. Then she became conscious of the stifling sickening

smell of powder and a bursting sensation in her head. No one paused for

a second, nor drew breath until all had turned the corner and were in

the main level. For a space nothing was heard but the hoarse effort to

refill tormented lungs. The men leaned against the walls of the tunnel.

Ora leaned against Gregory. All sense of fear had departed out of

her. She had had her baptism of fire and doubted if she ever should be

capable of the sensation of fear again.

The silence lasted but a moment. Out of the intense darkness flew oaths

like red-hot rocks from boiling craters.

“Shut up!” said Gregory sharply. “There’s a lady here. And light up

if you have any extra candles. I’ve dropped mine. We must find out if

anybody is missing.”

“I held on to mine,” said Ora proudly. Gregory lit it, and the shift

boss counted his men. “All here, sir; but by jink, it was a narrow

squeak. The--the--the----”

“Never mind--who’s this?” A man was running toward them from the

direction of the shaft.

“It’s me, sir.” Gregory recognised Mann’s voice. “I’ve just got on to

what they were up to. There wasn’t a blamed thing the matter with the

compressor. They just meant to catch us off guard--anybody hurt?”

“All right. How did you find out?”

“I suspicioned something crooked, so I got one of those damned bohunks

drunk and bribed him. They’d put in the sticks before they quit,

pretending the compressor had gone wrong and they couldn’t finish

drilling. I suppose they sneaked back while I was getting the story,

and lit the fuses.”

“You’ll let us get back at ’em, boss?” demanded the men.

“Oh, yes,” said Gregory, in a voice of deadly irony. “We’ll get back at

them.”

He was holding the candle. Ora saw him bend his head forward in the

attitude so characteristic of him. But he raised it in a moment.

“Go up, every one of you,” he said, “and down to the saloon. Talk

about what happened, but assume that it was an accident. Any fighting

above ground and you’ll be canned. Say that there’s a big cave-in and

we’re obliged to quit work on this level for the present. See that

that spreads all over Apex camp. Say that I’ve given you the rest of

the shift off. Come down as soon as you’ve had your drink and said

your say. Jerry”--to the shift boss--“you watch the Apex shaft house.

I don’t figure that they’ll go down under an hour, on account of the

smoke, but if they do just drop below. I’ll wait for you here. And

before you come,” he added grimly, “go over to the compressor house

and tell them to turn the steam on the air line.”

“Hooray!” The shouting of the men made almost as much noise in the

tunnel as the recent explosion. “That’s the ticket, boss. Oh, we won’t

do a thing to them!”

“Get out of this,” said the shift boss. “Don’t take more than one

drink; and hold on to your tempers, or there’ll be no fun below.”

A moment later Gregory and Ora were alone in the tunnel.

XI

“How did you guess?” asked Ora.

“I didn’t guess. I saw a drill hole just beyond where my men were

working. I also did a little quick deduction. Miners blast just before

they go off shift. The afternoon change of shift is at three o’clock.

As I told you I had seen the Apex men come up about one o’clock when

their compressor stopped. That hole not only told me that they were

closer than we had thought, but that they were up to devilment. I

guessed that they had timed to blast just before we were ready to drill

at that point. Were you very much frightened?”

“I didn’t like it.” Ora knew that bravery in woman makes no appeal to

the lordly male. “But I hardly had time to think; and after all you

left me nothing to do.”

“Well, you were game and didn’t scream or cry,” he conceded handsomely.

“Let’s light up.”

They had walked as far as the station at the foot of the shaft. Gregory

unlocked the door of a small cupboard, found two candles and inserted

them in miners’ candlesticks that were stabbed into the walls. They

flickered in the draft as a skip rattled up from the second level, but

relieved the oppressive darkness.

“Why, your hair is down!” exclaimed Gregory.

Ora put up a hand. “So it is! Well--I am sure I never should know if my

hair fell down at a good play, and ours was live drama. I’ll braid it

and put on my veil up above.”

He watched her for a moment as she sat on a box braiding her long fair

hair, vaguely recalling the legend of the Lorelei. He noticed that her

eyes as she peered up at him looked green in that uncertain light. But

in a moment his thoughts wandered from her. He folded his arms and

stared downward.

Ora leaned back against the wall. She saw that he had forgotten her,

but had made up her mind to accept him as he was; she had no more

desire to dictate his moods than to read in advance the book of the

next two months. There was the same pleasurably painful vibration in

her nerves as on the night when she had piled stake upon stake at Monte

Carlo. From that scene her thoughts travelled naturally to Valdobia and

she suddenly laughed aloud.

“What are you laughing at?” demanded Gregory suspiciously.

“I was trying to imagine that we were imprisoned in the underground

dungeon of an Italian palace in the middle ages.”

“Hard work, I should think. Although if we had a cave-in I guess the

results would be about the same.”

“And you? Were you seeing your minerals winking three thousand feet

below?”

He laughed then, and sat beside her. “At all events the mystery down

there is more romantic than your mediæval dungeons--and so will the

great underground caverns be when the ores have been taken out.”

“Pity the caverns--stopes!--have to be filled up with débris to prevent

the mine caving in,” said Ora flippantly. “I went underground in Butte

last week--to the eighteenth level of the Leonard. Nothing but endless

streets and cross-alleys, all numbered----”

“And you didn’t find that interesting?” he asked indignantly. “To be

a third of a mile below the surface of the earth and find it laid out

like a city, with streets and rooms, and stations ten times as large as

this, and lighted with electricity?”

“Yes, but the knowledge that you have a third of a mile of those

streets and rooms--seventeen levels of them--on top of you, supported

only by waste rock in the stopes, and timbers that are always snapping

in two from the terrific pressure--timbermen working at every

turn--‘Save YOURSELF’ the first thing you see when you leave that

cage--Oh, well, I felt there was quite enough romance on top of the

earth.”

“I am deeply disappointed in you. You told me once--why, even

lately----”

“Oh, I haven’t changed the least little bit. Nothing in life,” and she

looked at him with laughing eyes, “interests me as much at present

as these two mines. But I am thankful that we are still within a

reasonable distance of the surface. I am quite content to screw up

my eyes and wander in fancy among the primary deposits close to the

central fires. If I had a mine like yours, full of the beautiful copper

ores instead of that hideous pyroxenite of mine, I should leave a

glittering layer in every stope, support the roof with polished stone

columns, light with hidden electric bulbs, and wander from one to the

other imagining myself in Aladdin’s palace.”

“A fine practical miner you would make. It’s lucky that your mine is

pyroxenite, not quartz. That is if you want to live in Europe.--Do you?”

“Of course. What have I in this part of the world? A mine cannot

satisfy a woman for ever. I suppose you wouldn’t care if you never saw

a woman again!”

“Oh!” He was looking hard at her.

“What else were you thinking of just now?” asked Ora, with that

perverse desire to be superficial which so often possesses American

women in decisive moments.

He sighed impatiently. “I’ve got a big job on my hands, one that will

take me away from here more or less. Did Mark tell you of a land deal I

put through?”

“I should think so!”

“Well, I’ve got to build that railroad. Apex will close down when it

finds I won’t let its men work underground. Amalgamated’s next move

will be to bring suit for apex rights, and get out an injunction to

enjoin me from working on that vein until the case is decided. As soon

as I have driven them out now, however, I must get to work on the

railroad--find my engineers--Oh, there are too many details to bother

you with. But it means that I must spend a good deal of time in Butte

until the thing is started----”

“How delighted Ida will be!” interrupted Ora softly. “And that house

will be so comfortable after your cabin.”

For a moment he did not speak. Nor did his face betray him; but she

fancied that his muscles stiffened. He replied suavely: “I should

have gone on to say that it is more likely I shall have to attend to

the matter in Helena. That is the centre of the land interest. It is

doubtful if I could find the sort of men I want in Butte.”

“Have you any other land schemes on hand?”

“Not at present.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well--when I have taken a couple more millions out of this hill

I shall begin to buy land, put it under the ditch, build the short

railroads that may be necessary, and sell to small farmers--in other

words push along the colonisation of this state. I believe you gave me

that idea--the night we talked Butte--the first time, I mean.”

“I thought you had forgotten that night altogether.”

“Forgotten it!” Ora’s heart stood still at the explicit vibration in

his well-ordered voice. She leaned back and closed her eyes. He had

loved her all these months, dreamed of her as she had dreamed of him.

Her first sensation of wonder and delight was succeeded by a faint

disappointment.

She had the instinct of the born huntress, although she was far too

highly civilised to have recognised it before. She wondered if his

capitulation meant her own deliverance, too ignorant in the ways of

love to guess that whether this were a passing or a permanent phase

depended on the man.

While Gregory hurried on to tell her of all he should be able to do

for Montana with the millions at present locked in the vaults of his

hill, she had a full moment of honesty, and confessed that she had come

out here to make Gregory Compton love her. And he did! It was a mighty

personality to conquer; and the victory had been won long since! But

the disappointment passed in a cynical smile. That he had no intention

of declaring himself her lover was as patent as his inhuman power of

self-control. Here were barricades to storm if barricades she wanted?

What difference? And did she?

He sprang to his feet and stood at the foot of the shaft, looking up.

“They’re coming down,” he said.

Joshua Mann emerged a moment later.

“Apex bunch being rounded up to go below,” he said. “Our men are on the

way.”

“Steam on the air line?”

“You bet!”

“Let’s get to work.” He turned to Ora. “Stay here till I come back,” he

said peremptorily. “I can’t take you up in the skip now.”

“I am quite comfortable,” said Ora, coolly. “How many men will come

down?”

“Five.” And he and Mann disappeared into the tunnel.

Ora waited until the other men had descended one by one and run into

the blackness. Then she dislodged one of the candlesticks from the wall

and ran after them. When she reached the fault drift she thrust the

long point of the candlestick into a stull before turning the corner.

Then she crept toward the station, from which she could witness the

punishment about to be inflicted upon the Apex men, whatever it might

be.

There was a glimmer of light in the new drift. Ora saw the men binding

a piece of hose to the same length of pipe. They attached the hose to

the air line and held it just inside the ragged hole some twelve feet

above.

There was a distant murmur of voices overhead and to the right. The

solitary candle was extinguished. The murmur of voices in the drift

which led from Apex shaft along the continuation of the Primo vein grew

louder. Men were laughing. One man was giving orders. It appeared that

they were to let themselves down and go systematically to work on the

Perch vein, which was now driving under the Apex claim.

Ora heard a sharp whispered word: “Now!” and barely recognised

Gregory’s voice. A second later and she was deafened by the roar and

hiss of escaping steam, mingled with shrieks of agony above, and

fiendish cat-calls and jeers below, all expressed in the spectacular

profanity of the mining camp. The episode was over in a moment. The

Apex men tumbled over one another in their anxiety to leave the scene,

and those manifestly disabled--Ora could hear them gasping horribly as

the steam was turned off abruptly--were dragged away. She felt her own

way rapidly along the fault drift, snatched her candlestick from the

wall as she turned the corner, and scampered back to the shaft station.

When the men arrived she was sitting demurely on the box. Gregory

evidently had telephoned from the other station, for the skip came

rattling down just before his appearance at the head of his laughing,

cursing column.

“Did it go off well?” asked Ora.

“Did it?” cried Mann, tossing his cap in the air.

“They’re settled for the moment,” said Gregory. “They’ll come back at

us later with steam on their own air line, and slacked lime; but we’ll

be ready for them. They stand no show.”

Two of the men had been left on watch. Gregory lifted Ora into the

skip. He and Mann stood on the edge. A second more and Ora was

holding her breath as they were hurtled upward at express speed, the

metal car banging from side to side of the shaft. In something under

three-quarters of a minute Gregory helped her to alight in the shaft

house, while the skip descended for the miners.

“Well,” he said, smiling, as she lifted her braid to the top of her

head and wound the veil about it, “have you supped full of sensations

for one day?”

“The last was the worst! And I do mean the skip. Now that we are where

you cannot beat me I will confess that I followed you and saw your neat

little mediæval revenge from the station----”

“Hush!” Gregory glanced about apprehensively, and drew her outside.

“You mustn’t tell anyone else that. You don’t want to be summoned to

the witness stand, I suppose?”

Ora gasped. “I never thought of that.”

“When will women let men do their thinking?” Gregory looked the

primeval male as he scowled down at her. Nor did he mitigate her alarms

with the information that underground battles seldom were continued in

the courts. “Now, I am going to take you to your cottage, and I want

you to stay there until the trouble is over. The men are bound to get

drunk and fight. Better go to Butte----”

“I won’t.”

“Very well, then, stay in your house.”

“And be bored to death? Besides. I need exercise. I’ll roam all over

the place unless you promise to come to supper every night and then

take me for a walk in the woods.”

His eyes flickered. “Perhaps your engineer----”

“He’s a mere child. I hate boys. And I must have exercise.”

He looked at her with apparent stolidity for another moment, but she

knew that he was investigating her expressive orbs. They expressed

nothing that could be construed as flirtation, coquetry, or personal

interest in himself. He saw himself mirrored there merely as the friend

of her husband and the husband of her friend. “Very well,” he said

curtly and swung on his heel. “I suppose I must look out for you. Come

along.”

XII

Gregory had worn a clean suit of overalls into the mine. He was now

spattered from head to foot, including his face and hands, but he swung

along beside Ora with an unconsciousness of his disreputable appearance

that was quite superb. All the miners of the three camps’ off shift

were gathered about the saloon. As Gregory appeared the greater number

of these men cheered wildly, but the “dark men,” who stood apart,

maintained an ominous silence.

“Aren’t you afraid they’ll take a shot at you some night?” asked Ora.

“How they must hate you!”

“You don’t go into any business nowadays and put it over without

running the risk of being shot by some sort of down-and-outer. What’s

the sense in worrying? Unless I’m much mistaken we’ll be rid of that

scum inside of twenty-four hours.”

And he was right. There was another battle underground, in which more

of the Apex men were scalded, and the Perch men unhurt. Then the Apex

men refused to work, and the mine closed. Gregory was shot at on the

following night, and Joshua Mann was slightly wounded. Both the Perch

and Primo men tumbled out of bed, hunted down the offenders, and

chased them into Pony, riddling the air with shot and rending it with

bloodthirsty yells. It would be some time before Apex would be able to

hire miners of any nationality willing to trust themselves between the

two belligerent camps. But bohunks--more recent importations--would

return in the future, if any. These ignorant and friendless South

Europeans can be killed for about two hundred dollars apiece, whereas

it costs several thousands to kill an American, Cornishman, or

Irishman, as he leaves behind him an equally intelligent family or

friends. It was unlikely, in any case, that high class miners would

“take a job” in the predatory Apex. They not only liked Gregory

Compton because he was his own manager and worshipped by his miners,

but because he possessed in overflowing measure the two qualities that

the American in his heart of hearts respects most, luck and bluff.

Amalgamated immediately brought suit against Gregory Compton, charging

not only that the faulted vein apexed in their claim, but that his

original patent was agricultural and gave him no lateral rights in

mining; furthermore, that a patented claim could not be repatented.

This was a fine legal point and could impoverish several generations

before it was decided.

Gregory paid no attention to this suit beyond issuing an invitation

through the press to eight of the leading geologists of the United

States and Canada to come to Montana at his expense and make a personal

inspection of the two veins. If they did not agree that the vein on

which he had been working, containing a shoot of chalcopyrite six

feet wide, and of the highest grade, was the original vein, and the

Primo-Apex a mere stringer, or at most a fork from his, he would let

the suit go by default. The geologists promptly accepted, and it was

agreed that they should all arrive in Butte on the second of June.

Once more Gregory Compton had scored. Scientific men are normally

honest, although the great fees offered to geologists frequently infuse

their judgment with that malleable quality peculiar to the lawyer under

the subtle influence of his brief. But these men, all of high repute,

would be too afraid of one another, and of the merciless newspaper men

that would accompany them, to deliver aught but a just verdict. Gregory

knew that Amalgamated was profoundly disconcerted, and that in the face

of public opinion it was improbable that the suit ever would be brought

into court. But they could devil him meanwhile, and he was enjoined

from working on the recovered vein until the case should be decided.

He accepted the injunction without protest and transferred the miners,

whom he had kept hard at work blocking out until the last minute, down

to the second level of the mine.

“They’ll get a jolt from that quarter, too,” said Gregory to Ora, and

he was not referring to the miners. “They’ll go on fighting me for

years, no doubt, but I’ll spring some sort of a facer on them every

time. They may have more money, but I have enough.”

“You never feel afraid they may beat you in the end?”

“Beat me?” Gregory’s eyes glittered. “Not unless they bore a hole in

my skull and introduce a microbe that will devour my brains. I can get

ahead of them in more ways than one. Long before all the ore on the

second level is stoped out I shall be in a position to put up my own

reduction works if they freeze me out of Anaconda or Great Falls. If I

ever go into politics it will be to fight for a state smelter.”

Ora looked at him speculatively. He was walking up and down her

living-room with a swift gliding motion peculiar to him in certain

moods; his head was a little bent as if his narrow concentrated gaze

were following a trail.

“I believe you love the fight as much as any part of it,” she said.

“I do. And as soon as I’ve taken out money enough I’m going to buy

a big tract of land, irrigate it, plant it in beets, put up a sugar

refinery and fight the Havemeyer trust.”

“Why don’t you form a company, buy your beet land, and put up the

factory now? You could raise all the money you wanted.”

“No companies or partners for me,” he said curtly. “What I’ll do I’ll

do alone. I want no man’s help and no man’s money. And I certainly want

no other man’s ideas interfering with mine.”

Ora sighed. He had been away for a week on his railroad and land

business, and during this, their first meeting since his return, he had

talked of nothing save his mine and the new possibilities of Circle-G

Ranch. Investigation of the soil and timber values of the 35,000 acres

which he had originally hypothecated as a guarantee that the railroad

should be built, but which perforce had reverted to him when the Land

Selling Company had failed to keep this part of their contract, would

be worth, after proper transportation facilities were insured, not

less than twenty-five dollars an acre. A member of the Land Selling

Company whom he had taken with him had been convinced of this, and that

the soil was peculiarly adapted to the raising of apples by intensive

culture. As soon as the railroad was built there would be no difficulty

in selling the timber and the rest of the land, and the Company had

agreed to buy it. His profits would be $875,000, and the railroad would

cost but $300,000.

No wonder, thought Ora, that a man with a business brain of that

calibre had little place in it for woman. True, he had called her up

once from Helena, evidently seized with a sudden desire to hear her

voice, but he had been interrupted; and the only tangible result had

been to keep her in such a fever of expectancy that she barely had

left the house lest he call her up again and she miss him. He did not,

and her nerves had become so ragged that she almost had hated him

and obeyed the impulse to pack her trunks and flee to Europe. He had

come to see her within an hour of his return, but, beyond his rare

delightful smile and a hard pressure of the hand, he had manifestly

been too absorbed to feel any personal appeal beyond her always welcome

companionship.

And the next morning he telephoned that he was leaving for Butte. Ida

had reminded him of his promise to appear in public with her. Mary

Garden was to sing that night and she had taken a box. He had grumbled

but finally agreed to go, as he had business in Butte which might

as well be transacted that afternoon. Ida thanked him politely and

promised him an interesting party at dinner. Then she called up Ora and

invited her, but Ora declined on the plea of good taste; the story of

her impending divorce was common property, and it was hardly decent for

her to appear in public.

XIII

Reaction, after the emotional recognition of the subtle but certain

change that had been wrought in her unsuspected depths, had filled Ida

for many hours with a sullen rage against Gregory Compton and herself.

But in a day or two the buoyancy of youth and the common sense, of

which she possessed an uncommon store, asserted themselves, and, while

devoting her time to the small daily distractions of society, her

determination to win back her husband never waned for a moment. She

knew that she must play the waiting game, keep a sharp eye out for the

blessed opportunity and pounce upon it, but make no attempt to “rush

things.”

The day after the Apex mine closed down, she rang him up and offered

her congratulations, told him something of the excitement in Butte,

then rang off before he began to feel detained. As he passed through

Butte later, on his way to Helena, he could do no less than call on

her, and, to his relief and her secret rage, he found several pleasant

people taking tea in the library. But she showed her pride in him so

frankly that he could not but be flattered, and talked so intelligently

of the undoubted sequel of the battle underground that he forgot her

guests and addressed his conversation to her. She drew him on to

describe that grim but picturesque episode underground, and he would

have been less than man had he failed to be sensible of the rise of

his chest while surrounded by a breathless circle of charming women.

When they were about to withdraw tactfully and leave him alone with

his wife, he glanced at his watch, bade them all a hasty good-bye and

bolted out to catch his train. Ida once more had been able to exhibit

to her little world an evidence of the pleasant understanding between

herself and her busy husband, and got what consolation out of this fact

that she could.

“I can wait,” she thought grimly. “I can wait! I guess patience is my

one all-wool-and-a-yard-wide virtue. I’ll wait!”

She gave several small dinners and a dancing party, devoted to the new

excitement of “ragging,” in which no one became more proficient than

herself. She “went” harder than ever, and even joined the more extreme

younger set (elegantly known as “The Bunch”) one night in a progress

among the road houses of The Flat, and danced in the ballroom of the

Five Mile House until dawn. But she had no real taste for this side

of life; and did penance by visiting the Poor Farm and several other

charities under the wing of Mrs. Cameron. Her popularity on all sides

was unchallenged, and not only was she firmly established in the city

of her heart, but Mrs. Cameron had offered to take a house with her in

New York for the following winter if she cared to mount still higher.

She was gratified and grateful, but she was filled with that desperate

loneliness that only a man can banish.

On the night of the opera she wore black velvet unrelieved and never

had looked handsomer. The neck of the apparently inseverable gown was

cut square, and her beautiful arms were exposed as far to the top as

fashion permitted; she wore her hair banded closely about her head,

and, at the base of her throat, a barbaric necklace of dull red and

blue stones that she had picked up in an antiquity shop in Munich. As

she sat in her box between Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. Collier, one of the

handsomest and best dressed of the younger women of Butte, Gregory, who

sat behind and facing the house, saw that during the first entr’acte

the audience levelled its glasses at her constantly, and that,

indisputably, she divided the honours of the night with the prima donna.

He looked at her more than once himself, her classic beauty, or the

classic effect she made it produce, appealing to his æsthetic sense as

beauty in any form always did. He wondered a little that it should so

have lost its once irresistible appeal to his senses, wondered again

if he could not still have loved her well enough to live with had Ora

never entered his life. Certainly he was very proud of her, and her

conversation as well as her personality interested him. He respected

her profoundly for what she had achieved, giving her full credit for

the revolution in appearance, manners, and speech, in spite of her

exceptional opportunities. Then he forgot her as his thoughts wandered

to Ora, whom he saw sitting alone in her warm shadowy room, in which he

had come to feel so much at home. As he always went to her when he was

tired, after a day filled with excitement or hard physical labour, he

experienced only peace and content in her nearness; but when away, as

tonight, and with the music of Thaïs singing into his keen responsive

nerves, he was filled with an inexpressible longing.

He was roused by a faint exclamation from Ida. She was leaning forward.

A moment later a man, whom he had never seen before and who looked like

an Englishman of distinction, silently entered the box. Ida left her

chair, and gave him both her hands in greeting, then went with him out

into the passageway where their conversation would not interfere with

her guests’ enjoyment of the music.

Gregory felt very much like any other husband at that moment. He

was conscious of no sting of jealousy, or stab of doubt, but he did

not like it. He also received a distinct impression that his rights

of proprietorship were menaced. Moreover, he was so invaded by mere

curiosity that it was with difficulty he refrained from gratifying it

at once. But, although he belonged to the type of Western man who would

shoot the filcher of his woman without an instant’s consideration, he

was the last man in the world to make a fool of himself.

Ida tried his patience but a few moments. As soon as the curtain fell

she re-entered the box and presented the stranger as Lord John Mowbray,

who had arrived by the evening train and sought the opera house as a

relief from the hotel. She did not add that he had telephoned at once

to her house and followed her as quickly as he could change his clothes.

The husband was the last to be made known to the distinguished

stranger, and in spite of Mowbray’s ability to look vacuous, and

Gregory’s to look like a graven image, neither could repress a spark

under his lowered lids. Mowbray reared his haughty crest at once and

turned away. Like many young Englishman he blushed easily, and he was

by no means the first man to feel uncomfortable under the eyes of

Gregory Compton. He felt the colour rising to his white forehead, and

was not sorry to present his splendid back and length of limb to that

searching gaze.

He sat close to Ida during the last act, and then the party went to her

house to supper, there being no restaurant worthy the name in Butte.

Gregory detained Ida at the door after the other had entered.

“Good night,” he said. “Luning promised to wait for me at his office. I

shall talk to him until it is time to catch the train for Pony.”

“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Ida politely, and smiling charmingly. “So

will the others be. And I wanted you to talk to Lord John. His brother

has a ranch in Wyoming, and he has come here on some mining business.

I am so glad to see him again. The men here are--well, they are all

right, but quite absorbed in one thing only--whatever their profession

or business happens to be. Lord John knows a little about everything. I

am sure you would like him. Do ask me to take him out to the mine. He

is a friend of Ora’s, too. She will ask us if you don’t.”

“Come whenever you like. If I’m not there my foreman will show you

round. Good night.” And he was off. Ida, feeling that Mowbray’s arrival

had been timed by Providence, went in to her guests.

XIV

“Who is this Mowbray?” Gregory asked Ora abruptly on the following

evening. He was in Ora’s living-room, his long legs stretched out to

the fire.

Ora, who was working on a small piece of embroidery in a frame,

superlatively feminine, enveloped in a tea gown imponderable and white,

looked up in surprise. They had been sitting together for an hour or

more and their conversation had been wholly of his plans to entertain

his party of geologists, and the attention this sensational flank

attack had attracted throughout the country.

“Is Lord John here?”

“Yes. Came into the box last night. Handsome chap.”

“Mowbray is a dear. We saw a great deal of him, and he bought our

tickets and helped us off generally, when we were so upset over your

cable.”

“Ah! Tame cat? General utility man?”

“Hardly! He’s full of life and a charming companion.”

“Hm.”

There was another silence and then he asked abruptly: “Is he in love

with Ida?”

This time Ora dropped her work and sat up rigidly; her hands turned

cold. There was a peculiar alteration of pitch in Gregory’s voice that

might register jealousy in a hypersensitive ear. And when his face

looked most like a bronze reproduction of itself, his friends deduced

that he was masking emotion.

Ora’s brain always worked swiftly. Was it possible that by subtle

manipulation she could reunite this man and her friend? That he loved

herself she no longer doubted, but it was equally doubtful if he would

ever confess it; on the cards that if he did he never would see her

again. If she left the country after adroitly re-awakening his interest

in Ida and playing on his vanity and jealousy, would not reaction, the

desire for consolation and companionship, carry him straight to the

wife whose beauty and magnetism had once, and not so long ago, aroused

all the ardours of his manhood? Ida was far more beautiful now, and

quite capable of holding any man. Ora did not for a moment believe

that Ida loved her husband, or never would she herself have returned

to Butte; but she had divined her mortification, her wounded pride;

and as a young and beautiful woman Ida needed and was entitled to the

protection of her husband.

Was this her moment? Her great opportunity? Her bosom heaved, her

breath came short. Almost she experienced the subtle delights of

renunciation, of sacrifice, of the martyrdom of woman. It would be a

great rôle to play, a great memory. And after all she had Valdobia. It

was this last irresistible reflection that gave her soaring spirit a

sharp tumble and she laughed aloud.

Gregory turned his head and smiled as he met the cynical amusement in

her eyes. “What is it?”

“I was merely commiserating poor Mowbray. Of course he is more or less

_épris_; but Ida--she hasn’t it in her to love any man.”

“That is the conclusion I arrived at long ago. But it looked as if he

had followed her here, and I don’t care for that sort of talk.”

“He had planned to visit his brother in Wyoming before we met him in

Genoa. Don’t worry. Ida never will let any man compromise her. She’ll

parade her son of a duke for the benefit of Butte, but if he shows

signs of getting out of hand she’ll pack him off.”

“Yes, Ida is too ambitious to compromise herself.”

And then another little arrow flew into Ora’s brain. Her hands

trembled, but she clenched them in her lap. “Gregory,” she said

steadily, “as you and Ida no longer love each other, why don’t you

suggest a divorce? She could marry Mowbray and have a big position in

London--his brother is almost sure not to marry--is a wreck--Ida would

be quite in her element as a duchess--and you--you would be free--if

you ever wanted to marry again.”

When nature has given a man a dark skin and he has permitted it to

accumulate yearly coats of tan, it is difficult for him to turn white

under the stress of emotion; but Gregory achieved this phenomenon as

he realised abruptly what freedom might mean to him. He stood up and

leaned his back against the high chimneypiece, thrusting his hands

into his pockets; he had long nervous fingers which sometimes betrayed

him when his face was set.

“Ida would never consent to a divorce,” he said heavily. “She’s got all

sorts of old-fashioned American ideals. The West has the reputation for

being lawless, and it’s got more Puritans to the square inch than are

left in New England. Ida’s one of them.”

“She may have acquired more liberal ideas in Europe.”

“She told me that she didn’t care if she never saw Europe again. Last

night I had quite a long talk with her before the others came in for

dinner. She said she thought it the duty of Western women--particularly

the women of the newer Northwest--to live in their native state and

only go away occasionally in order to bring something back to it. She

intimated that you put that idea into her head when you two first met.”

“Oh, yes, I believe that to be right, whatever I may do, myself.”

“What is your idea in going to Europe to live? You are just the sort of

woman the West needs.” He bit out his words in the effort to be calm

and casual.

“I don’t feel that I have any place here.”

Gregory started on a restless walk up and down the room.

“Look at here,” he shot out finally, “are you--I haven’t said anything

about it--but--of course I’ve wanted to--are you determined to leave

Mark? He’s one of the best fellows in the world. I hate to see him

thrown down. You--you--I think you should reconsider.”

“I had done all my considering before I spoke to Mark. I am doing

him the greatest possible kindness. He needs another sort of woman

altogether to make him happy. And I? Have I not my right to happiness?

Do you think I could find it with Mark?”

“No!” The word exploded. “And you--shall you marry again?”

“I don’t know.” Ora spoke in a strangled voice. New possibilities were

shaking her to her foundations. For a moment the perverse imp in the

purely feminine section of her brain counselled her to run away as

ever from the serious mood in man, to play with great issues and then

dodge them. But she brushed the prompting aside with frantic haste and

summoned her courage. If this was happiness coming to her grasp she

would seize it.

Gregory came swiftly back from the farther end of the room and stood

before her. He had set the muscles of the lower part of his face so

tightly that he could hardly open his mouth, but his narrow eyes were

blazing. “If Ida would give me my freedom,” he said, “I should want to

marry you. Do you understand?”

Ora stood up. Her white face was so radiant that Gregory fell back.

“You love me?” he asked.

“Yes.--Oh, yes----”

“You would marry me?”

“Yes!”

Gregory stared at her, wondering if she really were suffused with white

fire. Her hands fluttered toward him, and his own face was suddenly

relaxed, unmasked. Ora’s lips parted and she bent forward. She knew

then why men and women sacrificed the world when they found their

predestined mates. Here was the one man who could give her primal joy,

suffocate her intellect. And the knowledge that she was capable of

such passion and of the sacrifices it might involve gave her far more

satisfaction than her former brief mood of renunciation.

She made another step forward, but Gregory was at the door. “Talk to

Ida!” he said harshly. “I leave it to you. Go to see her tomorrow. You

can do anything with her. You must!”

And he was out of the house. He left the door open and Ora could hear

his light running footsteps.

XV

On the following morning Gregory, who had spent the night in the mine

and had just come up to the cabin, heard his telephone ring as he was

about to take his bath and go to bed. His first impulse was to ignore

the summons, but, his business instinct prevailing, he went into the

office and unhooked the receiver.

“Well?” he asked, in a voice both flat and uninviting.

“It is Ida. How tired your voice sounds. I won’t keep you a minute. I

have a plan to suggest. Why not let me put up those geologists? Mrs.

Cameron has asked me to stay with her and will come over and help me

entertain them at meals. It will not only save you a fearful hotel bill

but keep them from wandering into the wrong fold.”

“Good idea!” Gregory’s voice was more animated.

“I’ll get Professor Becke to take them down into one of the big mines

here, take them out myself to yours, amuse them between times with the

prettiest women in town--in short stick to them closer than a brother.”

“Good! You are the right sort. I’ll meet them at the train--on the

night of the second, it is--and take them right up to your house. It’s

putting you to a lot----”

“Not a bit. It will be immense fun. Good-bye.”

* * * * *

On that same morning Ora went to Butte. She had telephoned to Ida, and

Mowbray met her at the train with the limousine.

“Mrs. Compton had to go to some charity meeting or other,” he said, as

they shook hands warmly. “I am to drive you about for an hour.”

This was better fortune than Ora, who possessed little of Ida’s

patience and talent for the waiting game, had dared to anticipate.

“How jolly!” Her face lost its traces of a sleepless night as it

flashed with hope and enthusiasm. “And after that dreadful train! Drive

to the Gardens,” she said to the chauffeur.

She pointed out Anaconda Hill as they passed under that famous portal,

and the shaft houses of other mines, suggesting that he go down with

the geologists when they made the inevitable descent. “But you will

find your visit to Mr. Compton’s mine more satisfactory,” she added

lightly. “You will see more ore in the vein. How do you like him?”

Mowbray growled something in his thick inarticulate English voice, and

Ora grasped her opportunity. She turned to him with the uncompromising

directness her sinuous mind knew so well how to assume.

“Take me into your confidence,” she said peremptorily. “I can help you.

At all events keep you from making any mistakes with Ida. She is what

is called a difficult proposition. Are you in love with her?”

Mowbray turned a deep brick-red and frowned, but he answered

intelligibly: “You know jolly well I am.”

“Then let me tell you that there is only one way you can get her. Ida

is moral to the marrow of her bones. You might make her love you, for

she and her husband are practically separated, but you can get her only

by persuading her to divorce Mr. Compton.”

“I’ve thought of that. Of course I’d rather marry her. I’m a decent

sort myself--hate skulking--and lying--she’s the last woman I’d want to

compromise. But I’m so beastly poor. I’ve only twelve hundred pounds a

year.”

“And she has forty thousand pounds now of her own. You need not

hesitate to spend the capital, for Mr. Compton is most generous, and is

sure to give her much more. He is bound to be a multimillionaire--it is

only a question of a few years.”

“Does he want his own freedom?”

“I am not in his confidence. But as they no longer care for each other

and have agreed to live apart--merely showing themselves together in

public occasionally to avoid gossip--it is natural to suppose that he

would be indifferent, at least. He cannot be more than thirty, and will

be sure to want his freedom sooner or later.”

“This is splendid of you!” cried the Englishman gratefully. “She’s not

happy. I know that, and now I shall know just what to do.”

“Sympathise with her. Make yourself necessary--make her feel the

neglected wife, and what a devoted husband would mean. You have the

game in your own hands, and I will help you.”

XVI

Ora discerned certain changes in Ida as the three reunited friends,

with so many pleasant memories in common, talked gaily at luncheon.

It was not only that she was a trifle thinner but there were shadows

in her eyes that gave them troubled depths. The curves of her mouth

also were less assured, and her strong, rather large, but beautiful

hands had a restless movement. Ora, whose imagination was always ready

to spring from the leash and visualise a desired conclusion, pictured

Ida, if not already in love with this good-looking and delightful

Englishman, as circling close; neglected and mortified, she longed for

the opportunity to live her life with him; in short was champing the

bit.

Ora led the conversation--no great adroitness was necessary--to the

many divorces pending in Butte at the moment. Ida sniffed. Ora asserted

gaily that they were merely a casual result of an era of universal

progress and individualism; one of the commonplaces of modern life

that hardly called for comment. “You are so up to date in everything

else, my dear,” she concluded, “that I wonder you cling to such old

middle-class prejudices.”

“I guess there are a few conservatives and brakes left in this

country,” said Ida, drily. “I may look back with horror at the time

when I chewed gum and walked out of a restaurant with a toothpick in my

mouth, but Ma hammered most of my good old-fashioned prejudices into

my back with the broom-handle, and I’m no more likely to forget her

opinion of divorce--the poor get it sometimes as well as the rich--than

the bastings I got if I played hookey from school, or sneaked out after

dark alone with a beau.”

“My mother was exactly the same,” said Ora, with that charming

spontaneity which so often robbed her words of the subtle insult of

condescension, or the more cryptic of irony. “If I hadn’t happened to

be a book-worm and had indulged in clandestine love affairs I should

have been shut up on bread and water. And she had all a Southern

woman’s horror of divorce. But, dear Ida! That was in the dark ages.

We live in the most enlightened and individualistic era of the world’s

history. I have kept my eyes and ears open ever since. Nor do I believe

for a moment that we are getting any worse--we merely have achieved a

more well-bred indifference toward other people’s affairs. One can hear

a scandal a minute in large towns and small, if one has nothing better

to do than listen; but whereas in our mothers’ time a woman was dropped

if she was ‘talked about,’ today we don’t turn a hair at anything short

of a quite superlative divorce court scandal--not even about girls;

always provided that they continue to dress well, and keep on being

charming and spending money.”

“That is about the most cynical thing I ever heard you say.”

“The truth always sounds cynical. You laugh at me for dreaming and

being an idealist, but I never have shut my mind to facts as you do.”

“I don’t even blink the old facts. I don’t like them, that’s all. I

don’t say, of course, that if I were married to a brute who came home

drunk and beat me--but this swapping husbands like horses--well, I’m

content to be a brake as long as there’s any wheel to freeze to. You

know I’m not hitting at you,” she added hastily. “I’d give you the moon

if you wanted it; but I put you in a class by yourself, that’s all.”

“Oh,” cried Ora, laughing. “Let us change the subject before you prove

that your logic turns feminine at the crucial test. Heavens! How

hideous Butte is. We drove----”

“Hideous? Butte?” demanded Ida indignantly.

“Oh, you see it through the glamour of a triumphal progress. Wait until

the novelty has worn off. How do you find it?” she asked Mowbray, who

had relished his excellent luncheon and admired his ally’s tactics.

“Rippin’ air. Nearly took a header out of the window this mornin’

thinkin’ I had wings. But as for looks--those mountains in the

distance are not half-bad, but the foreground is--er--a little

ragged--and--new--you know.” He smiled into Ida’s warning eyes.

“Really, dear lady, I can understand that you were keen on gettin’

home again, because home is home, don’t you know. But beauty--tell me

just where you do find it.”

Ida tossed her head. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and mine

beholds it. That is enough for me. Now, run along to the Club. I

haven’t seen Ora for ages. You may come back for tea.”

She led the way up to her bedroom and they made themselves comfortable

and lit their cigarettes.

“Odd as it would seem,” said Ida, “to those east and west of us who

have an idea that Butte has been on one prolonged spree since she

was really a camp, I have to enjoy my occasional cigarette on the

sly. A few of the younger women smoke, when they have locked the

doors and pulled the blinds down--and of course The Bunch does; but

the majority--and those that never bat an eyelash at cocktails and

champagne--think it indecent for a woman to smoke. Funny world.”

“Butte is a provincial hole. As there are no strangers present you

needn’t bother to defend it. I’ve just had a brilliant idea. Why don’t

you divorce Mr. Compton and marry Mowbray?”

“Aw!” Ida dropped her cigarette and burned a hole in her skirt. “Are

you raving crazy?”

“I thought I was advancing a peculiarly level-headed suggestion----”

“None of it in mine!”

“But, my dear Ida, you will tire inevitably of this old camp. The

glamour of all this return in a gilded chariot drawn by the cheering

populace will wear off in about six months. So will your own novelty

for them. It is all indescribably cheap, anyhow. If you send Mowbray

away now, he will try to forget you, and forgetting is man’s peculiar

accomplishment. You will have missed a great opportunity. You and Mr.

Compton are manifestly indifferent to each other. Seize your chance,

dear--not only for happiness, but for a splendid social position,

before----”

Ora paused. Ida was glaring ahead of her with her heavy black brows

pushed low over her flaming eyes. Her lips were drawn back over her

sharp little teeth. Her nostrils were distended. She looked like some

magnificent beast of the jungle stalking her prey.

“By God!” she whispered, her whole body heaving, “I’ll have him back. I

was a fool before I left, and maybe I shouldn’t have left him at all.

It’s never safe to leave a man. But when I do get him back he’ll be

glad of all I’ve learned. He’s like a lunatic with a fixed idea just

now--but wait.”

Ora felt cold and numb. She tried to rise, and wondered if the shock

had paralysed her. She managed to articulate: “You love him then?”

But not even to Ora could Ida make any such admission; she who always

had flouted both sentiment and passion! She recovered herself and

tossed her head.

“Love! Who cares about love? Do you think I’m the sort of woman a man

can throw down for a mine? I wouldn’t stand it even it were another

woman--but ore! It makes me sick. I won’t be thrown down. And I’ll get

him back!”

Ora too had recovered herself. She lit another cigarette. “I’m so glad

you don’t care, dear. No man is worth agonising over, as you so often

have said yourself. Forgive the doubt. I should have remembered that

you were far too clever and worldly-wise for that sort of thing. That

is the main reason that I am willing to marry Valdobia: I can be fond

of him, like him always, be grateful for his companionship, but he

can’t tear my heart out.”

“I thought you told me when you came back that you were mad about him?”

“Oh, I fancy I was strung up that day. When I am excited I always

exaggerate. But do think over what I have said about Mowbray. And it

would be heavenly to have you in Europe.”

“My mind’s made up. I guess I’m American to my core and marrow. Titles

will never seem natural to me, and I guess we’ll both live to see them

so tangled up with democracy that those that are left will look like

old labels on new cans. No has-beens in mine. Oh, chuck it! What’s this

I hear about little Whalen--that he’s resigned from the High and been

out in the mountains prospecting since the beginning of Spring? I’ve

only seen him once since I came back and then he looked like a viper

that had been stepped on.”

“I met him the other day when I was out walking. He bought a claim of

one of the prospectors that swarmed out there as soon as they heard

of the Primo and the Perch strikes. He wore overalls and a beard.

I scarcely knew him. He talked rather wildly about the hill he has

located on being another Perch of the Devil.”

“I guess Gregory is responsible for that and a good many other wild

dreams. I hear that a lot of young men are coming out from the East

this Summer to prospect in those hills. Well, they’ll succeed or fail

according to their luck mostly. Let’s go out. You’ve got two hours

before your train goes--but if you’ve got a list a yard long----”

And the two sallied forth in perfect peace to shop.

XVII

Ora had more than one cause for uneasiness when she returned to her

little home in the pine woods, but paramount was the fear that she

should not see Gregory Compton again unless by accident. She rose

early after another almost sleepless night and spent a distracted day

wandering over the hills, returning at intervals to inquire if her

telephone bell had rung. Once more she felt a disposition to run away,

anathematising the slavery of love. Only the hope that Mowbray would

wear down Ida’s resistance kept her from yielding to the impatient,

imaginative, too highly organised woman’s impulse to flee when love

seems hopeless and a nervous explosion imminent. She still refused to

feel traitorous to Ida, but she did wonder once or twice if she ever

should dare to face her as Mrs. Gregory Compton. Ida was the reverse of

a fool. She might be blind now, for obvious reasons--but Ora shrugged

her shoulders at the vision of Ida’s horror and wrath. What did she

care for Ida or any other woman if she got her man?

She made one of her sudden dashes into the house as the telephone bell

was ringing. For the moment she thought she was about to faint; then,

both appalled and angry at the lawless behaviour of her nerves, she

stamped her foot, shook herself, marched over to the telephone, took

down the receiver, and asked in a bored voice: “Well?”

“I shall come to supper tonight if you will have me?” Gregory’s tones

were those he employed when “canning” a miner.

“Delighted.” Ora’s nerves fell into place like good little soldiers.

“Will you be here at seven?”

“About. I prefer to have you tell me here what she had to say.”

“Constitutionally opposed at present, but that was to be expected.

Seeds always sprout if well planted and judiciously watered. Our friend

from England will do his part.”

“Good. We’ll say no more about it. But I shall go to see you as usual.”

“Why not? We are not fools or children. Any new developments at the

mine?”

“Shaft has reached third level. Vein seems to be about the same

richness as on the second. Mann is here. Good-bye.”

As Ora, her body no longer braced and rigid, but so filled with the

languor of happiness that she wanted to throw herself down on the divan

and sleep, crossed the room, she became aware that someone was standing

in the outer doorway. His hat was in his hand, and as she focussed her

absent gaze she managed to recognise Professor Whalen. Her impulse

was to turn her back and run into her bedroom; but Ora was always a

great lady. She could be extremely rude to a member of her own class,

but she had never permitted herself to wound the morbid sensitiveness

of those to whom fortune had been less kind. So, secretly wondering

if the little man really stood there, or if anything so insignificant

mattered, she went forward smiling and offered him her hand.

“So good of you to come and have a cup of tea with me.” She rang a

bell and ordered tea of her Chinaman. “But why did you dress up? I am

accustomed to overalls and flannel shirts, and quite like the idea of

living in a mining camp.”

Whalen sat on the edge of his chair and stared into the fire, twirling

his hat in his hands. “I guess I’ve got to be a gentleman again,” he

said with a short laugh. “There’s nothing else left for me to be.”

“Oh! I hope----”

“My find--and I paid a thousand dollars for the claim--was nothing but

a gash vein. Nothing in that but low grade carbonates.”

“But are you so sure? Often veins appears to pinch out a hundred feet

or more above a really rich lode.”

“I’ve poured into that hole all my savings; all I had saved from my

salary during four years, and every cent of my reward in the field of

letters. I even--and against my secret resolutions--consumed a legacy

left me by an uncle.”

“Perhaps if you would ask Mr. Compton to look at your claim--he is a

sort of ore wizard----”

“I’ll ask no favours of Gregory Compton!” Whalen burst out, violently.

“Were it not for him I never would have been enticed into this foolish

venture. I cannot realise it--I, who was brought up in the most

conservative corner of this conservative country--I, a pedagogue, a

man of letters, that I should have so far descended as to become a

prospector--live in a hut, cook my own bacon, dig with a pick----” He

paused choking.

“Doubtless you remembered that some of the greatest millionaires in the

country began that way. Or possibly the Northwest kindled your sense

of adventure--that is inherent in every real man. But why blame Mr.

Compton?”

Whalen had recovered his breath. He spat out his words. “Why should a

man like that have all the luck? And such colossal luck! Who is he?

What is he? In what way does he compare with me--a man of no family, of

no culture, of no intellect----”

“Mr. Compton has given evidence that he has one of the best brains this

country has produced.” Ora spoke evenly but with a glint in her eye.