Weimer’s manner became cringing. He backed into the cabin. "If your eyes––" he began, but Steele cut him short.
"You know you’ve not taken one pound of ore out of your tunnel since. You know you have sat around here waitin’ for Grant to send some one to help you out––"
Weimer put up a great hand, and shrank back as a child would have retreated before his mother’s upraised slipper. Steele followed him into the cabin, and Ross slowly followed Steele.
"The snow ist come," whimpered Weimer; "und I can’t see ven the snow comes, und the tunnel so far ist to valk––"
But Steele cut short his complaints sternly. "Now," he declared, "all your excuses must come to an end. Here is some one to help. Young Grant here is going to put this work through, and you’ve got to brace up and help him. I should be ashamed to sit down and let a couple of McKenzies take away my claims."
At once Weimer became alert and combative. The McKenzies should not take the claims.
"You see how it is," Steele began as he and Ross were carrying the cases of dynamite "sticks" up the trail to the tunnel in which Weimer was doing the assessment work for the four tracts to which he had laid claim. "Mentally Weimer has become suddenly an old and childish man while retaining all his physical powers. He can do the work of two ordinary men if he can be made to work–and it’s up to you to compel him. Otherwise, by the first of next July, at the time when these claims ought to be patented, you will have to forfeit ’em."
Ross’s heart sank. "The first of next July," and it was then but the middle of October! He laid the case of sticks down on the ore-dump, and, glancing up at the peaks which held him a prisoner, caught his breath in a gust of rebellion.
At the mouth of the tunnel, some seven feet high and eight wide, was the "dump," to the edge of which ran a rusty track with a "bumper" at the end. The track extended into the tunnel. On it stood a lumbering vehicle, consisting of the trucks of a hand car, on which was fastened a home-made box to carry ore.
"This," explained Steele, "is a remnant of Weimer’s better days. There was no way to pack a regular car over here, and he devised this. He was a smart man until last year."