“What is it?” Jim asked.
“Pitchblende.”
“Pitchblende, radio-active rock. Last price quoted on radium was a million dollars an ounce,” Jim drawled. “Be great if we’d discover a pound or two laying around loose up here somewhere!”
“Wouldn’t it!” laughed Clyde.
Though she understood little of this talk and was unable to tell what was said in jest and what in earnest, Joyce was thrilled by this new discovery.
“It will go to Edmonton,” she told herself. “Be some time before we can get the report, know the truth. In the meantime we may dream, and half the joy of life comes from dreaming.”
Before retiring she slipped on her faun-skin parka and stole out into the crisp air of night. She climbed the ridge that lay between their camp and the rocky cliff. Then she turned to look back.
She caught her breath. How wonderful it was! The moon, a ball of pale gold, hung high overhead. The whole empty white world, clean as fresh laundered linen, lay before her.
But she had not come for this. Creeping farther up the ridge where some scrub spruce trees grew, she moved stealthily forward into the shadows, at last parting the branches noiselessly and looking into the space beyond.
“Ah, yes,” she breathed, “there they are.”