Perhaps it was not quite a case of love at first sight between her and Tom, but certainly the winter had not passed before each had confessed that there was no one else in the world beside the other whose presence much mattered in the way of happiness.
But that seemed to be the end of it, for Corbitt gave young Burke to understand most decisively that he could hope for nothing more—an engagement to marry was out of the question.
“Love, let us wait,” was Marion's last word, when, on her first and last tryst, she had stolen away to meet him, and he counted her kisses as a miser counts his gold.
“Let us wait. I care for nobody else, and nobody can marry me against my will. We are young yet. Who knows what may happen? You may get money enough to satisfy papa—I don't suppose he holds me at a very, very high price, do you? Or I may be freer after a while to do as I wish.”
This was commonplace advice enough, but Tom saw both the good sense and the pure love in it, and accepted the decree, steeling his heart against the impulses of rage and revolt.
And then, quite unexpectedly, Mr. Corbitt resigned his place and went to Denver, taking his family with him. The same week the mine changed owners, and Burke was superseded by a new superintendent; and so, almost at a stroke, the lad lost both his sweetheart and the weapon by which he was to fight for her in the business tournament of the world. However, the latter evil was presently remedied, and he worked on, saving his money and teasing his brain for suggestions how to make it increase faster.
At that time the mighty range had never been very carefully prospected. Men had, indeed, ascended Crimson Creek to its sources in search of the deposits of quartz whence the auriferous gravels below had been enriched, but they had brought back a discouraging report. Tom was not satisfied to accept their conclusions. He was confident, from the geological and other indications, that treasures of ore lay undiscovered among those azure heights. At last, resolved to see for himself, he enlisted the help of a young miner and mountaineer named Cooper, and one day late in August they started.
After passing the pillared gateways of the Canyon, and ascending for a few miles the great gorge down which the creek cascaded over boulders and ledges of granite and rounded fragments of trachyte and quartz, you come to a noble cataract leaping into the Canyon from the left through a narrow gash or depression in the wall. By climbing up the opposite slope a little way, you see that this stream comes tumbling white and furious down a long rugged stairway of rocky fragments before it reaches the brink, whence it shoots out in the air and then falls in a thousand wreaths of dangling vapor.
“Cooper,” Tom called out to his companion, who was more comrade than servant, “I guess we'll camp here. I want to examine this side gorge a bit.”
“It looks to me,” remarked Tom, “as if this had formerly been the main stream, and had carried pretty much all the drainage of the valley until a big landslide—and it didn't happen so very long ago either—dammed the exit of the valley and changed the shape of things generally, eh?”