Both worked hard at the labor entrusted to them. But ever and again, as he straightened up to ease his cramped back, Jarvis would whisper to Dave:
“It’s all right this ’ere Seven Mines, but, man, think how rich we’ll be when we git to that City of Gold. I ’ates to think how rich we’ll be. We’ll buy reindeer or dogs from the bloody, bloomin’ ’eathen and we’ll trim our sails for the nor’west when this hexpedition’s blowed up and gone.”
Dave had always smiled and hoped.
But now, there lay before them a sad task. One of their comrades, a fine young college fellow with all of life before him, had been “bumped off.” It was their duty to determine, if possible, who was responsible for this tragedy, and, if occasion seemed to warrant, to avenge it.
With bowed heads, they stood beside the quiet form while the young doctor went about his examination.
For fully ten minutes the mine was silent as a grave. Only the faint drip, drip, drip of water from the warm spring and the almost inaudible tremble-mumble of the throbbing earth disturbed the deathlike stillness.
At last the doctor straightened up with a sigh.
“Not a scratch on his body,” he announced, “not a sign of anything.”
“Heart disease?” suggested Johnny.
“Impossible. I was particularly careful to see that every man of the expedition had a good strong heart. Low temperatures are hard on bad hearts. Langlois was exceptionally well equipped in this matter. Indeed, he told me that he had climbed Mount Evans in Colorado last summer, fourteen thousand and two hundred feet, without a murmur from his heart. Couldn’t be that.”