"Yes," he said quietly, "I guess you've struck it rich!"
Ingleby laughed and handed him a little bag.
"I almost think we have. Feel that!" he said.
Tomlinson poised the bag in one hand, and then sat down with a little gesture of assent, for he was not by any means a demonstrative man.
"Well," he said, "it will make it easier for Hetty, and I'm glad of it. Slaving away at that bakery isn't the kind of thing for her. It's going to the opera at Vancouver with the best of them she ought to be doing. I guess that would suit most young women quite as well as baking bread; but it's a little rough on me that Hetty Leger would sooner stay right where she is."
"What do you mean?" asked Ingleby.
"Tom knows," said Tomlinson, ruefully. "I haven't put it quite straight to Hetty. Just now, anyway, it wouldn't be any good. She's quite happy holding on to that blame bakery, though what she wants to do it for is more than I can figure. It can't be the money, because I've a claim back yonder that's turning out a pile of it every day, and she could have all she'd any use for."
Ingleby found himself in a position of some perplexity. He could not well admit that there was any reason why an honest man of excellent character, such as Tomlinson appeared to be, should not marry Hetty, and yet the mere probability of this was distasteful to him. It was, in fact, unpleasant to contemplate the possibility of Hetty's marrying anybody. He remembered that she had by no means displayed the satisfaction one would have expected when they found the gold, and from this it appeared that Tomlinson's suggestion that she was quite content to continue the bakery was warranted. It was, however, difficult to discover any reason for this, and he was still considering the question when Leger came up. Tomlinson turned to him.
"You kept the thing kind of quiet. Told nobody yet?" he said.
"Only one of the policemen. We were too busy to spend a good deal of the day coming over to let the boys know, though Ingleby was thinking of going across to-night. You have a good claim already, and you can't hold more than one, you know."