Part 2 (1/2)

”Very different,” Thirlwell agreed, and took out a photograph. ”You will see that by the picture I promised to bring.”

Agatha took the photograph. It showed a broad stretch of sullen water with a strip of forest on the other side. The pines were ragged and stunted and some leaned across each other, while the gloomy sky was smeared by the smoke of a forest-fire. In the foreground, angry waves broke in foaming turmoil among half-covered rocks. No soft beauty marked the river of the North, and the land it flowed through looked forbidding and desolate.

”The Shadow River,” said Thirlwell. ”You can see the Grand Rapid. I have marked a cross where the canoe upset.”

Agatha said nothing for a few moments, and Thirlwell was relieved. He saw she felt keenly, but she was calm. In the meantime he waited; one learns to wait in the North.

”Thank you; I would like to keep the picture,” she said by and by, and gave him a level glance. ”I suppose you knew my father well?”

”I knew him in a way,” Thirlwell answered cautiously, because he did not want to talk about Strange's habits. Perhaps the girl knew her father's weakness, and if not, it was better that she should think well of him.

Yet Thirlwell imagined she understood something of his reserve.

”Ah!” she said, ”you knew him in the bush, but not when he lived at home with us. I should like to tell you his story.”

”Not if it is painful.”

”It is painful, but I would sooner you heard it,” she replied. ”For one thing, you have been kind--” She paused, and when she resumed there was a faint sparkle in her eyes. ”I want you to understand my father. He was my hero.”

Thirlwell made a vague gesture. He had seen Strange, half drunk, reeling along the trail to the mine, but this did not lessen his sympathy for the girl. He hoped she had taken his sign to imply that he was willing to listen.

”To begin with, do you believe in the silver lode?” she asked.

”One disbelieves in nothing up yonder,” Thirlwell tactfully replied.

”It's a country of surprises; you don't know what you may find.

Besides, there is some silver--I'm now sinking a shaft--”

Agatha smiled and he saw she had the gift of humor. The smile softened her firm lips and lighted her eyes.

”I imagine you are cautious. In fact, you are rather like the picture I made of you after reading your letters.”

Thirlwell felt embarra.s.sed and said nothing, as was his prudent rule when his thoughts were not clear.

”My father found the ore many years since, when he was employed by the Hudson's Bay Company,” she resumed. ”The factory was in the Territories, three or four hundred miles north of your mine, and the agent sent him out, with a dog-train and two Indians, to collect some furs. They had to make a long journey, and were coming back, short of food, when they camped one evening beside a frozen creek. The water had worn away the face of a small cliff, and the frost had recently split off a large slab. That left the strata cleanly exposed, and my father noticed that near the foot of the rock there was a different-colored band. They were making camp in the snow then, but he went back afterwards when the moon rose and the Indians were asleep, and broke off a number of bits. The stones were unusually heavy. Doesn't that mean something?”

”Silver has a high specific gravity; so has lead. Sometimes one finds them combined.”

”I have a piece here,” said Agatha, taking out a small packet. ”My father gave it me when I was a child, and I brought it, thinking I might, perhaps, show it to you.”

Thirlwell, examining the specimen, missed something of her meaning, and did not see that her decision to show him the ore was a compliment. He looked honest, and strangers often trusted him. His friends had never known him abuse their confidence.

”Yes,” he said at length. ”I think it's silver. Traces of lead, and perhaps copper, too; you seldom find silver pure. But won't you go on with the tale?”

”The party's food was getting short. That meant they would starve if they did not reach the factory soon, and they set off again at dawn.

There was no time to prospect and deep snow covered the ground, but my father made what he called a mental photograph of the spot. It was a little hollow among the rocks, with a willow grove by the creek, and in the middle there were two or three burned pines. If you drew a line through them it pointed nearly north, and where it touched the cliff you turned east about twenty yards.”

”Aren't you rash to tell me this?” Thirlwell asked.