"That is my affair," and Coulthurst glanced at him sharply. "It is a little difficult to understand why you raised the question only when they had found the gold."
"I fancy that it is very natural, sir. It is no part of my duty to see the mining regulations are carried out, and it was not until I heard they had struck the lead that I remembered the little fact I noticed in looking over your register. It seemed advisable to let you know. The men seem inclined to find fault with everything just now, and if it came out that Ingleby's claim had not been sequestrated when it should have been they might get it into their heads that you had winked at the irregularity because you were on good terms with him. That would naturally increase my difficulties with them."
Coulthurst stood looking at him with a hardening face. "I am," he said, "very sorry that this has happened, but it will be gone into. May I trouble you to send one of your troopers over for Ingleby and Leger?"
XVI
AN INVALID RECORD
Supper had just been finished, and Ingleby was lying, pipe in hand, beside the creek waiting until Leger should bring another load of wash-dirt from the mine. The sunlight was still pleasantly warm, the air filled with the balsamic odours of the pines, and there was a little smile of unalloyed content in Ingleby's face as he drank them in. Though he had toiled since morning, those few minutes would be the only rest he would enjoy until long after darkness closed in, and once more he indulged in visions of a roseate future as he made the most of them.
They had washed up each bucket-load as they brought it to the surface, and the result had made the richness of the mine increasingly plain. Ingleby was getting accustomed to the fact that he was now, in all probability, at least, comparatively rich, and already his brain was occupied with half-formed projects. They did not include a further course of prospecting, for he had discovered that placer mines are addicted to playing out with disconcerting rapidity, and that in case of the deep lodes it is not as a rule the man who records the claim, but the capitalist or company-jobber, who takes the profit.
He would go back to civilization and embark on an industrial career, for there was, he fancied not altogether incorrectly, wealth awaiting the resolute and enterprising man with sufficient money who was willing to play his part in laying the foundations of the future prosperity of that rich land, and he had a young man's faith in his abilities which was in his case more or less warranted. Then when he had won a footing he would boldly ask Major Coulthurst for his daughter's hand. Social distinctions count for little in Western Canada, and, though the waiting would be hard, there was consolation in the thought that every bold venture would bring him so much nearer her. Ingleby was proud, and content to possess his soul in patience until he had shown that he could hold his own with his fellows and hew his own way to fortune.
It was, at least, a wholesome resolution, and there was behind it a vague participation in the belief held by primitive peoples and proclaimed in courts in the days of chivalry, that man before he mated should be required to make his manhood plain by deeds accomplished and pain endured. It was not fitting, he felt, that the woman should give everything or stoop too far. He must have something to offer, as well as the ability to lift himself to her level; and through all there ran the desire of the democratic Englishman for an opportunity to prove himself at least the equal of those accounted his betters.
Before Leger reached him with the bucket there was a rustling in the tall fern behind him, and Tomlinson came out upon the bank of the creek. He glanced at the little flag above the mine and the pile of debris at the water's edge, and then took up the pan Ingleby had laid down and dipped it in the stream. A whirl of it in his practised hand was enough for him.