The livery stable keeper—a half-breed with a peculiarly pleasant smile—cocked up his shoulders with the remark:
“Three men as willing but as inexperienced as yourself have attempted the same journey during the last week and they all came back before they reached the divide. You will probably come back, too; but I shall give you as fair a start as if I knew you were going straight through.”
“But a woman has done it,” said I; “a nurse from the hospital went up that very road last week.”
“Oh, women! they can do anything—women who are nurses. But they don’t start off alone. You are going alone.”
“Yes,” I remarked grimly. “Newspaper correspondents make their journeys singly when they can.”
“Oh! you are a newspaper correspondent! Why do so many men from the papers want to see that sick old man? Because he’s so rich?”
“Don’t you know?” I asked.
He did not seem to.
I wondered at his ignorance but did not enlighten him.
“Follow the trail and ask your way from time to time. All the goatherds know where the Placide mine is.”