Drummond turned to Agatha with a sparkle in his eyes. "I quit now, Miss Strange. You've got there ahead of Stormont; I guess I've made good!"
"You made good when you found the broken range," Agatha replied, giving him a grateful look, and Drummond's dark face flushed with color as he turned away.
They lost the rock as they went down hill, but when they made camp the roar of falling water came faintly across the woods.
"The creek that runs south!" said Thirlwell as he lighted the fire.
They started early next morning, but the ground was rough and the sun was getting low when they came down a rocky hill into a small round hollow, through which shining water flowed. The opposite slope was in shadow, but the slanting sunbeams touched a belt of fresh growth that glowed a vivid green against the somber color of the surrounding trees.
"That," said Thirlwell, "is, no doubt, where the rampikes stood. They've gone, and young willows have sprung up. Yonder's the low cliff. It looks as if we had arrived!"
Agatha stopped for a few moments and felt her heart beat. The dream she had first dreamed long since had come true, but she knew it might not have done so had she not had Thirlwell's help. In the meantime, the scene impressed itself upon her brain, so that she could long afterwards recall it when she wished—the nearly level sunbeams falling across the trees and turning their bark fiery red, the gleam of water, and the figures of the men plodding slowly downhill with their loads. Their faces glowed like polished copper in the searching light, their overalls were ragged and stained, and one stumbled and lurched wildly down a slope with a rattle of rolling stones. Then she glanced at Thirlwell, who stood close by, watching her with a sympathetic smile, though his pose was rather strained.
"Ah," she said, "you have brought me here! Just now I cannot thank you as I ought."
"We'll go on," he answered quietly. "I'd like to fire a shot or two before it's dark, and we'll need some time to drill the holes."
Agatha gave him a quick look. "You are nothing if you're not practical, but perhaps that's fortunate. One trusts practical people when there are things that must be done."