Brooke smiled somewhat drily. As a matter of fact, a near kinsman of his had gained distinction in the Royal Engineers, and another's name was famous in connection with irrigation works in Egypt. He did not, however, feel it in any way incumbent on him to explain this to Devine. "I could not exactly say they are," he said. "Anyway, isn't it a little outside the question?" "Well," said Devine, drily, "I don't quite know. What's born in a man will come out somehow, whether it's good for him or not. Now, I was thinking over another piece of work you might feel inclined to put through for me." Brooke became suddenly intent, and Devine noticed the little gleam in his eyes as he said, "If you can give me any particulars----" "Come along," said Devine, a trifle grimly, "and I'll show you them. Then if you still feel willing to go into the thing we can worry out my notion." Brooke rose and followed him along the hillside, which was seamed with rock outcrop and thinly covered with brushwood, while the roar of water grew louder in his ears. When they had made a mile or so Devine stopped and looked about him. "It wouldn't cost too much to clear a ground-sled trail from here to the mine," he said. "A team of mules could haul a good many props in over it in a day." "But where are you going to get them from?" said Brooke. Devine smiled curiously. "Come along a little further, and I'll show you." Again Brooke went with him, wondering a little, for he knew that a canyon would cut off all further progress presently, until Devine stopped once more where the hillside fell sheer away beneath them. "Now," he said, quietly, "I guess we're there. You can see plenty young firs that would make mining props yonder." Brooke certainly could. The hillside in front of him rose, steep as a roof, to the ridge where the tufts of ragged pines were silhouetted in sombre outline against the gleaming snow behind. Streaked with drifting mist, they rolled upwards in serried ranks, and there was apparently timber enough for half the mines in the province. The difficulty, however, was the reaching it, for, between him and it, a green-stained torrent thundered through a tremendous gap, whose walls were worn smooth and polished for four hundred feet or so. Above that awful chasm rose bare and slippery slopes of rock, on which there was foothold for neither man nor beast, and only a stunted pine clung here and there in the crannies. What the total depth was he did not know, but he recoiled instinctively from the contemplation of it, and would have drawn back a yard or two only that Devine stood still, looking down into the gap with his usual grim smile.