The Gold Trail

utive strip of boggy natural prairie under the towering range, though the latter was then shrouded in sliding mist out of which the climbing firs raised here and

himsical carelessness had faded out of it. Both of them were dressed largely in rags, and their stout boots were rent; and they were already very wet, though that was no great matter, as they were used to it. There are a good many rivers among those ranges, and no bridges. They were t

and it's likely that we'll strike this way back. It's a long way to the s

ht, after searching in vain for a route by which they could lead t

horse is pretty sure to get a hobble of any kind foul round s

guess you understand wha

or the settlements through a most difficult country, under a heavy load, and even then leave

e that it would work down along the back trail to the settlements when the grass r

e a sign of

gain, and I'm played out, as I probably will be, you'll

ile Grenfell carried the light ax, Weston slung a frying-pan, a kettle and a pannikin about him, as well as a rifle, for there are black-tail deer in that country, and they could not be sure that their provisions would last the journey through. The prospector soon discovers how much a man can do without, and it is

them, up part of which they went on their hands and knees. When they reached the summit of this, the slightly more level strip along which they floundered was strewn with shattered rock and gravel that had come down from the heights above with the thaw in the spring; and it was with difficulty that they made a mile an hour. The gold

they spent the two days crawling along the farther side of the range, for when they had struggled through the snow in a rift between two peaks, a great wall of rock that fell almost sheer cut them off from the next valley. Somewhat to Weston's astonishment,

he asked, pointing to a ridge of som

eston, "I thi

ightened hims

emed to know they must be. Can you make ou

ere's a spire or two higher than t

n. The few weeks of abstinence and healthful toil had made a change in him, but one cannot in that space of time

hand on Weston's arm. "Did you never feel that there was something yo

s of that kind, though the curious sensat

ould have known there was h

d up at him wi

een up in the ranges several times.

rader suggested, merely fancied that he had done so, and the man's manner had borne out that supposition. Cut off from the whisky, he had now and then fallen into fits of morbid moodiness, during which he seemed very far from sure about the gold. This had natur

opposite range a mile higher, this is the wa

, with a little quiver running through him. From that point he could see that the river ran straight across to the op

below, "I must have seen it the time I struc

strip of mountainside along which the two lonely men plodded rose isolated from a sea of woolly vapor. They held on, however, until, when the dusk commenced t

t?" he asked. "

hing steadily, and then

's Verneill

watch. It had fallen away from the moldering rags, but it had a solid case, and, when at length he succeeded i

long patience, and I think he had a

n had worked their will, and there was very little left of him. Indeed, part of the bony structure had rolled clear of the shreds of tattered rags. Grenfell gazed at him fixedly, and neither of the men said anything for the next minut

. "There is a little soil among the stone

at high ridge; so they set to work in silence with the rifle butt and their naked hands. Fortunately, the stones were large, and the soil beneath them soft, and in about twenty minutes they

feel considerably better if I co

a little forc

out of it. That man

done his work, and they had found him sitting high on the lonely range to point the way. That might have been of no great service if it were only treasure to which the gold trail led, but in the unclaimed lands the prospector scouts a little ahead of the march of civilization. After him come the axmen, the ploughmen and the artisans, and or

the two men had plodded slowly on and left the little pile of stones be

quite certain," he sai

g that Weston had ded

a where you separ

left, and we couldn't find a deer. I was played out and half-dazed, but for a time we pushed on together. Then one day I found myself in the thick timber alone. Verneille

will probably be where you left him," said Weston. "It would give

he blackened kettle with water from the creek, and Grenfell, who crouched beside the snapping branches, also left him to prepare the supper. They had been on their feet since sunr

moke about them. "With a very small measure of whisky one could be warm and content." He glanced b

aid Weston, in whose vein

augh. "You'll find out some day that I was right. He w

enfell's half-maudlin observations occasionally jarred on h

It's good advice," he said. "You

it if we could find the mine. It

shook h

a time when scarcely a big mine was started in the west before they sent their specimens to me. What could success offer me now b

ariness; but his comrade straightened himself

ember him as he was that Grenfell the assayer and mineralogist can st

ow and then, but the trained man works from indication to indication until, though he is sometimes mistaken, he feels reasonably sure as to what waits to be uncover

t when you went to drink at a creek," he sai

ell l

stayed there until the provisions had almost run out. I wanted materia

d ran right back to the hill and

en it. The adit would dip a lit

as also a prey to maudlin fancies, and it seemed quite possible that the mine was no more than a creation of his disordered imagination. There were only two things that partly warranted his belief in it-a fragment of quartz, and the presence of the dead man on the lonely range, though Weston admitted that there

m his mind, "I'll turn out at sun-up, and

s face, was sound asleep in a few minutes. Grenfell, however, sat awake for a long time