"No?" he said. "It's not wise to be too sure of anything, Ingleby."
"I believe you told us you had struck gold once before. What did you do with it? When we met you in Vancouver you hadn't the appearance of a man who has a balance at his bank."
A suggestion of darker colour crept into Sewell's face. "You can't carry on a campaign of any kind without funds. The one I embarked upon not long before you came across me was too big for us. It broke the exchequer, and landed me in jail."
"Precisely!" said Ingleby. "And what title have I to the money you would hold in trust? That is the difference between us. I'm not a leader—I'm glad of it just now—and what gold I find I want for myself."
Once more Sewell's expression furnished Leger with food for reflection, though Ingleby did not appear to notice it. It is now and then a trifle embarrassing to have one's good deeds proclaimed to one's face, and Leger was aware that all Sewell gained was usually expended on the extension of his propaganda; but that did not seem to account for everything, and he fancied the man had winced at his comrade's speech, as though it had hurt him. Then Sewell made a curious little gesture.
"It is," he said, "seldom worth while to decide what other people will do. They don't know themselves very frequently. Well, since nobody ever persuaded you, I'll get on and record the claim."
He left them, and neither Ingleby nor Leger broke the silence as they pushed on up the valley, near the farther end of which Tomlinson's claim lay. Leger knew that, because his claim adjoined the one his comrade had allowed to fall to the Crown, he, too, would in all probability find gold, and, since now it would all be his, that fact alone was sufficient to occupy him. Still, he was getting accustomed to the dramatic unexpectedness of the results of placer mining; and he was also sensible of a certain sympathy for Ingleby, who held no more than a third-share in Tomlinson's mine. Then he recalled Sewell's face and wondered again.
The man had certainly appeared embarrassed, and that had its significance in connection with what Ingleby had said. Sewell was certainly entitled to use what gold he dug toilfully from the earth as seemed best to him, and there was no reason why he should devote it to the liberation or enlightenment of those he might regard oppressed unless he wished. That he had done so hitherto was, it seemed to Leger, plain; but he fancied it was to be different now. This led to the question, what did Sewell, who lived with Spartan simplicity, want the gold for—and to that there was no answer until he changed the what to whom. Then a reason suggested itself, for Sewell of late had played chess with Major Coulthurst frequently, more often, indeed, Leger fancied, than Ingleby knew.
It was a relief to both of them when they reached Tomlinson's mine, which was by no means imposing at first sight, consisting, as it did, of a little gap in the forest strewn with blackened branches and charred fir stumps, a shanty, a pile of shattered rock and gravel, and a black hole with a very rude windlass straddling it. It did not count at all that it was engirdled by towering trees whose sombre spires, lifted one beyond the other in climbing ranks, led the wondering vision upwards ever across the face of a tremendous crag, where they clung dotted against the grey rock in the fissures, to the ethereal gleam of never-melting snow. It was sufficient that the clink of the shovel and clatter of flung-up gravel came out of the scented shadow, in token that Tomlinson's claim was on the lead, the bed which had been worn out and left ages ago by the Green River, or some other, which had washed away the matrix rock.
Ingleby stopped beside the windlass and rolled the sleeves of his blue shirt to the elbow as he looked into the shadow beneath him.