“Stay here two days,” advised Devine. “Gather up a load of specimens and try to trace the vein. Then we’ll put in our stakes, and start right off for the settlement, to record as many feet of frontage as the law will allow us. After that, you, as holding the larger share, will see what can be done about handing it over to a company, while I come back with provisions and get the assessment work put in. You’re going to have mighty little trouble about raising the money when people see those specimens.”
He broke off for a moment and glanced back toward the willows.
“In a way,” he added, “it’s rough on Grenfell.”
“Ah,” said Weston, quietly, “neither you nor I can be sure of that.”
After that there was silence, and it seemed to both of them that the shadows crept in closer about their flickering fire, and that the little wind which sighed among the pine-tops had grown colder. The camp seemed strangely empty, and, glancing around from force of habit once or twice, they realized with a little start that there was now no third figure sitting beside the blaze. The man who had made that weary march with them had taken the unmarked trail.
It was two days later when they started south. Reaching a little desolate settlement in due time, without misadventure, they limped into it, ragged and dusty, leading the pack-horse, which was very lame. They stopped outside a little wooden store which had a kind of rude veranda in front of it, where the loungers sat on hot afternoons, and a man in a white shirt and store trousers came out and leaned on the railing. He had a hard face, and it grew a trifle more grim as he looked at them, for the light had not quite gone, although it was late in the evening.
“Where’s Grenfell?” he asked.
“Dead,” said Weston.
The man made a gesture of resignation. He had acquired his money with some difficulty, and there was no great trade in that neighborhood, while it not infrequently happened that his customers failed to pay him when the Government became economical and voted no money for the making of roads, which is the small bush rancher’s chief source of support.
“Well,” he said, “I’m sorry. You’re broke?”