"Yes," he said. "It must have happened at least twelve hours ago. How, I can't tell exactly. Cardiac affection, I fancy. Anyway, not a fall. There is something in his hand, and a bundle of papers beside him." Brooke glanced away from the dead man, and noticed the stain of giant powder on the rock, and shattered fragments that had not been where they lay when he had last descended. Then he turned again, and took the piece of stone the doctor had, with some difficulty, dislodged from the cold fingers. "It's heavy," said the latter. "Yes," said Brooke, quietly. "A considerable percentage of it is either lead or silver. You are no doubt right in your diagnosis; so far as it goes, I'm inclined to fancy I know what brought on the cardiac affection." The doctor, who said nothing, handed him the papers, and Brooke, who opened them vacantly, started a little when he saw the jagged line, which, in drawings of the kind, usually indicates a break, was now traced across the ore vein in the plan. There was also a scrap of paper, with his name scrawled across it, and he read, "When you have got your dollars back four or five times over, sell out your stock." He scarcely realized its significance just then, and, moving the lantern a little, looked down on Allonby's face again. It was very white and quiet, and the signs of indulgence had faded from it, while Brooke was sensible of a curious thrill of compassion. "I wonder if the thing we long for most invariably comes when it is no use to us?" he said. "Well, we will go back to the shanty." There was nothing more that any man could do for Allonby until the morrow, and the darkness once more closed in on him, while the flickering light grew fainter up the shaft. XXV. BARBARA IS MERCILESS. It was about eight o'clock in the evening when Brooke stopped a moment as he entered the verandah of Devine's house, which stood girt about by sombre pines on a low rise divided by a waste of blackened stumps and branches from the outskirts of Vancouver city. Beneath him rose the clustering roofs and big electric lights, and a little lower still a broad track of silver radiance, athwart which a great ship rode with every spar silhouetted black as ebony, streaked the inlet. Though the frost was arctic in the ranges he had left a few days ago, it was almost warm down there, and he felt that he would have preferred to linger on the verandah, or even go back to his hotel, for the front of the wooden house was brilliantly lighted, and he could hear the chords of a piano.