"Das weiss der lieber Gott," she answered, speaking half to herself. And then recovering herself she added in a firmer voice, "Either here or at Kamloops: most likely at Kamloops, if you are not back soon."
"But we shall be back soon. What ails you to-night?"
"It is nothing, Ned; but it seems as if summer had gone soon this year, and these great mountains will all be white again directly. I don't think you will get back here this fall."
"Not get back this fall! Why, surely, Lilla, you don't think that we mean to jump your claims, or make off with your gold?"
"No, no! of course not. I know you don't care for the gold, Ned, like the other men. You don't care for anything like other men, I think."
"Don't I? Just wait until I come back from Chilcotin and pour buckets of dust into your lap. See if I won't want my share then?"
"I wonder how long it will be that I must wait, Ned? I think sometimes that we shall never meet again. Tell me, do you think such atoms as we are could ever find their way to one another, up there? It seems so hard to lose one's friends for ever."
And the girl looked despairingly up into the great blue vault above them, wherein even the greatest of the stars are but as golden motes.
"Yes, little sister," answered Ned seriously. "I don't think that such as you will have much difficulty in finding their way up there."
After this the two were silent for some time, standing on a rise above Antler, looking out upon the deepening gloom of the evening, Ned's heart very full of tenderness towards the little woman to whom he owed so much.