"And you're really off to-night? When are we going to see you again, old man?"
"I don't know." He wheeled about swiftly, then held out his hand. "Don't forget to repeat what I have told you to your father and make it as strong as you can. I'm playing a game of my own, and when we meet again it will be cards on the table. Good-bye, Win."
"Good luck!" The other hesitated wistfully. "If—if you should happen by any chance to run across Willa in your wanderings, will you tell her for me that I'm still waiting, as I said I should be; that I am still, as always, at her service?"
CHAPTER XXII
WHERE TRAILS MEET
A long, narrow valley between snow-capped mountains glistening under the January sun; a cluster of ramshackle, weather-beaten wooden houses elbowing each other on either side of a single straggling street, with here and there a newer concrete building planted firmly like respectable citizens in a disreputable mob. Stray dogs sniffing at heaps of refuse, a group of tethered horses shivering under thin blankets in the hotel shed, a battered jitney or two stalled before shop and saloon. A Chinaman with a huge bundle upon his head, a slatternly woman brushing the dry, powdered snow from the path, a tawdry one pattering along, her rouged face pitiful in the clear merciless light; red-shirted miners crawling like ants to the yawning shaft-mouths half way up the mountainside.—This was Topaz Gulch on a certain wintry morning.
In the office of the Palace Hotel, the proprietor tossed aside his week-old Chicago newspaper and rose with alacrity as a slender, girlish figure, clad in a great fur coat, came lightly down the stairs.
"Everything all right, Ma'am? Did the missus make you comfortable?"
"Yes, thank you." The girl nodded, smiling. Then her face sobered. "I wonder if you could tell me—may I ask how long you have been here in Topaz Gulch?"