"Perhaps she is," said Leger, with a curious smile. "I fancy I shall rest to-night."
They climbed the hillside together, Ingleby carrying the little bag; but he scarcely saw the glow of the fire that still burned outside the shanty or the clustering pines. His heart no longer throbbed as it had done, and while a curious lassitude came upon him, alluring visions floated before him. Then as they stopped in front of the shanty a shadowy figure slipped out of it, and, for the firelight fell upon them, Hetty felt her fingers quiver as she glanced at Ingleby's face.
"Oh!" she said with a little gasp, "you have found the gold!"
Ingleby gravely held out the bag. "That is the first of it—and it's yours," he said. "If it hadn't been for you we should never have held the mine. One third of it all belongs to you."
Hetty took the gold with a little smile.
"I am very glad you found it—and remembered me," she said.
Then she turned away somewhat abruptly, and went back into the shanty.
"Hetty scarcely seems as delighted as one would have expected," said Ingleby.
Leger, whose face had grown a trifle grave, laughed in a fashion which suggested that it cost him an effort. "One so seldom gets a windfall of this kind that it's a trifle difficult to know how to express one's satisfaction. The only thing that occurs to me is to smash all the cooking utensils, but, considering the distance from the settlement, that would scarcely be convenient."
Ingleby, who flung himself down beside the fire, made no answer, but vacantly drank the coffee and ate the food that Hetty brought him. He was, in fact, almost oblivious of his surroundings, for again his fancy was busy with alluring visions, and now that the tension was over his perceptions were dulled by the weariness of his worn-out body. At last, however, he became sensible that Leger was no longer there and that Hetty was sitting alone on the opposite side of the sinking fire.