"Feel better?" he queried.
"I feel like a new man. I hadn't realized that I was so nearly spent."
"That is why I prescribed the blanket. Another day would have finished you."
Jeffard slid out of the hammock and went to plunge his face and hands in the stream; after which they ate again as men who postpone the lesser to the greater; with Donald the taciturn serving them, and hunger waiving speech and ceremony.
It was yet no more than twilight when the meal was finished; and Denby found a candle and matches in the henchman's saddlebags.
"If you are ready, we'll go up to the tunnel and have another look at the lead before we go," he said. "I have been examining it to-day, and I'll make you a proposition on the ground, if you like."
Jeffard pieced out the inference with the recollection of the saddled horses.
"Do we go back to-night?"
"Yes; if you are good for it. It has been a pretty warm day for the season, and we are like to have more of them. There is a good bit of snow on the trail, and if it softens we shall be shut in. That's one reason, and another is this: if we make a deal and mean to get any machinery in here before snow flies and the range is blocked, we've got to be about it."
Jeffard nodded acquiescence, and they fared forth to cross the foot-log and toil up the shelving slope of the gray dump. It was a stiff climb for a whole man, and at the summit Jeffard sat down with his hands to his head and his teeth agrind.