A dreary wind wailed about the shack, and now and then the iron roof cracked as it shrank and wrenched its fastenings in the bitter cold.  The room was not warm, although the front of the stove glowed a bright red, and after supper Thirlwell pulled his chair between it and the wall.  He had been out for some hours with snowshoe and rifle, but had seen nothing to shoot.  The white desolation was empty of life, and silent except for the wind among the pine-tops.

“I’d meant to look into the Snake Creek muskegs, but the cold drove me back,” he said.  “In summer one’s bitten by sand-flies and mosquitoes; in winter one runs some risk of freezing to death.  I wonder now and then whether mining’s worth the hardship and why we stop here.”

“Unprofitable mining isn’t logically worth much hardship,” Scott remarked.  “But don’t you mean you wonder why you came back?”

“No,” said Thirlwell, with a touch of embarrassment; “that was pretty obvious.  I was offered a good post in England, but it meant I’d be dependent on a man I don’t like.  A rough life with liberty is better than luxurious servitude.”

“The latter has some advantages,” Scott rejoined.  “To-night, for example, you could enjoy a good dinner instead of moldy beans and rancid pork, put on clean clothes, and go to a concert or theater.  Then you’d get up next morning in a warm room, with a bath and hot water at hand, instead of freezing by a stove that had burned low.  Anyhow, admitting that you’re obstinate and hate to go where others want, I’ve a notion that you felt you had to see me out when you refused that post.”

“Oh, well,” said Thirlwell awkwardly.  “In a sense, I was bound ­”

“By your scruples?  But we’ll let it go,” Scott rejoined.  “I expect we’re all to some extent the slaves of an idea.  I’d pull out to-morrow if I didn’t feel I had to make my mining venture good before I quit.  All the same, it looks as if I’d save my money by stopping now.”

He looked up, for there was a knock at the door and a man who had gone down to the settlements came in.  His skin cap was pulled down to meet the collar of his coat, leaving only his eyes and nose exposed, and fine frost-dried snow stuck to the shaggy furs.

“It’s surely fierce to-night,” he said.  “Thought we couldn’t make it when we met the wind on Loon Lake, but there was no shelter on the beach and our tea had run out.  I brought a letter for Mr. Thirlwell along.”

“Nothing else?” Scott asked.

The man said there was nothing, and when he went away Scott smiled.

“Well, that’s a relief!  I had expected a reminder that we hadn’t paid our last bill for tools.  But I guess you want to read your letter.”

Thirlwell felt a thrill of satisfaction as he recognized the hand, for it was some time since Agatha had written to him.  He got thoughtful as he read the letter, and when he had finished put it down and lighted his pipe.

“I’d like you to listen to this and tell me what you think,” he said.

Scott make a sign of agreement, and when Thirlwell had read Agatha’s account of her meeting with the burglar and Stormont, he remarked:  “It’s a nice frank letter, and Miss Strange has some talent for dramatic narrative.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Thirlwell, with an impatient frown.  “What d’you think about Stormont’s visit?”

“On the whole, I imagine Miss Strange ran less risk of being robbed when she met the burglar.”

“So I think.  But why did the fellow go?”

Scott looked thoughtful.  “Though Stormont’s said to be a rogue, he’s certainly not a fool.  You seem to take it for granted that Strange never found the lode, but I’m not sure.  Anyhow, it looks as if Stormont didn’t agree with you.”

“But how did he hear about the lode?”

“It’s not very plain, but I have a suspicion.  There’s a curious thing; I don’t see much difference between Stormont’s object and the burglar’s.  Both seemed to want the letters Strange wrote to the girl.”

“Now I come to think of it, perhaps there wasn’t much difference.  The fellow stole nothing, although he broke open the writing-table and Miss Strange’s trunk.  She says he disturbed nothing else.  But the matter gets no clearer.”

Scott smiled.  “My explanation is that Stormont tried to buy the letters after he found they couldn’t be stolen.”

“But he’d have to trust the man he hired to break into the house; and this would put him in the fellow’s power.”

“I reckon the man told him about the lode; Miss Strange states that he was lame,” Scott remarked in a meaning tone.  “Where has Black Steve been since he left this neighborhood?”

Thirlwell started.  “It’s possible you have got near the truth.  Nobody knows as much as Driscoll about Strange’s prospecting.  But I must answer the letter.  What am I to say?”

“If you tell her to have nothing to do with Stormont, it ought to be enough in the meantime,” Scott replied.  “You could send down your answer when, the next Hudson’s Bay breeds come along.”

They were silent for a few minutes, and then Scott resumed:  “I understand Miss Strange means to look for the vein next summer and you are going.  Why is that, since you don’t believe her father’s tale?”

“She’s resolved to go and I can help.  When she’s persuaded the ore can’t be found she’ll be content to give the notion up.  I don’t want the thing to occupy her thoughts until it becomes a kind of mania, as it did with Strange.”

“I imagine she’s an attractive girl.”

“She is attractive; but that has nothing to do with it,” Thirlwell replied with a frown.  “I’m not in love with Miss Strange.  To begin with, I can’t support a wife, and marriage hasn’t much charm for me.  Then I think she’s clever enough to make her mark, and will stick to her occupation until she does, if she gets rid of this foolish notion of looking for the ore.”

“I see,” said Scott, with some dryness.  “You feel sorry for the girl and want to save her from getting like Strange?  Well, it’s a chivalrous object; but there’s a thing you don’t seem to have thought of yet.  Prospecting a big belt of country is a long job, and if you’re away much of the summer, how are you going to keep your engagement with me?”

“I have thought of it,” Thirlwell replied.  “It’s awkward ­”

Scott smiled at his embarrassment.  “Well, I’ll let you go.  In fact, I don’t mind taking a stake in the expedition, in the way of food and tools.”

“Miss Strange wouldn’t agree.”

“Very well.  Suppose you locate the ore, she’ll need advice and further help.  Now I know something about mining; I’ve paid pretty high for what I’ve learned.  I understand Miss Strange hasn’t much money, and we might save her some expensive mistakes.  You see, I haven’t much hope of getting down to pay-dirt here.”

Thirlwell pondered.  He liked and trusted Scott, and the thought of being able to offer Agatha the help she might need was attractive; but he meant to be honest and exercised some self-control.

“It would pay you better to leave the thing alone.  I feel pretty sure the ore’s a freak of Strange’s imagination.”

“It’s possible,” Scott agreed.  “Go and see.”

Thirlwell knocked out and filled his pipe; and then remarked with some diffidence:  “You stated that you didn’t think you had enough capital to keep the Clermont going long.”

“I haven’t enough,” Scott said, smiling.  “But I have some rich relations who might finance me if I could show them a sure snap.  I’d like to do so, anyhow, because, after spending most all my money, I feel I’ve got to make good.”

“I can understand this.  Why did you come up here in the beginning?”

“It’s rather a long story and I reckon it starts with a canoe trip I made in the North one fall.  I had then begun a business in which family influence could give me a lift.  Well, it was Indian summer; mosquitoes dying off, lakes and rivers all asleep in the pale sunshine.  As we paddled and portaged through the woods I felt I’d got into another world.  Wanted to stop forever and began to hate the cities; the feeling wasn’t new, but I hadn’t got it really strong till then.  Sometimes at night, when the loons were calling on the lake and my packers were asleep, I’d lie by the fire and speculate what civilization was worth and if a man might not do better to cut loose and live by his gun and traps.  Well, of course, it was a crank notion, and I wasn’t all a fool.  I stopped longer than I meant, but I pulled out and got to work again.”

Scott paused and smoked meditatively before he resumed:  “It was of no use; the city palled.  Don’t know that I’m a cynic or much of a philosopher, but the folks I knew seemed to have a wrong idea of values.  Spent their best efforts grubbing for money and trying to take the lead in smart society.  They made me tired with their hustling about things that didn’t matter; I wanted the woods and the quiet the river hardly breaks.”

“You went back?”

“I did,” said Scott.  “Felt I had to go.  It was winter and the cold was fierce, but we made four hundred miles with the hand-sledge across the snow, and when I came out with some fingers frozen I was nine pounds heavier.  Used to sit in my office afterwards and dream about the glittering lakes and the stiff white pines; saw them crowding round the lonely camps, when I ought to have been studying the market reports.  Well, I couldn’t concentrate on buying and selling things.  Betting on the market and getting after other people’s money seemed a pretty mean business.”  He paused and added with a twinkle:  “That’s how I felt then, and I don’t know that I’ve changed my opinions much.”

“All the same, you’re anxious to make your mining pay.”

“It isn’t logical, but I was born a white man and had got civilized.  You can’t altogether get rid of what you’re taught when young, and it’s harder when the notions you inherit are backed by your training.  Well, I saw there was a danger of my turning out a hobo if I went back North without a job.  I must get some work, and when Brinsmead came with a proposition about the Clermont vein I took down my shingle and located here with him.”

“But what about your relations?  Did they object?”

“Not much.  On the whole, I reckon they were satisfied to see me go.  They had long decided I was a crank, and since I was bound to do something foolish, I’d better do it where I wouldn’t disgrace them.  That’s about all.  We’re here, and I don’t know that I’d go back if the road was open.  Would you?”

Thirlwell pondered.  It was a hard life he led, working, for the most part, in the dark underground, for when money was scarce and wages high he could not be satisfied to superintend.  Scott, indeed, worked like a paid hand, and they had fought a long, and it seemed a losing, battle against forces whose strength science cannot yet properly measure.  The fish-oil lamps sometimes went out in poisonous air while they examined an unsafe working face; props broke under a load they ought to have borne; and now and then the roof came down.  Rock pillars crushed, massive stones fell out where one least expected, and there was always the icy water that the pump could not keep under and the frost could not stop.

Yet there was something that thrilled one in the stubborn fight, and a strange ascetic satisfaction in proving how much flesh and blood could stand.  One felt stronger for bracing one’s tired body against fresh fatigue, and watchfulness in the face of constant danger toned up the brain.  Then, after all, the vast, silent wilderness had a seductive charm.

“This country draws, and holds what it gets,” he said.  “I’m satisfied to stop here, as long as I’m young.”

For a time they smoked in silence, and presently went to bed, tired with exhausting labor and glad to rest in dreamless sleep until they began again in the bitter dawn.