“Well, Miss Bella, how’s the world treating you?” and Cheviot talked on in his old half-ironic fashion to the pale girl putting away a heap of tangled silver thread in a work-box. Mrs. Mar’s eye, grown even harder and brighter in the last moments, fell upon the envelop under the lamp. She did not scruple to tear it open. But there was little enlightenment even in the epistle to “the boys.” “He says you’ll give us the particulars.” Mrs. Mar flung the notice at Cheviot as if plainly to advertise her intention to hold him responsible if those same particulars were not reassuring. Cheviot told briefly how he had found Mr. Mar at the mission, how an eavesdropper had overheard their private talk, and how Mr. Mar reached his journey’s end only to find that the thirty-year-old secret had been filched from him, and other men (who hadn’t known it but three days), how they had gathered in the harvest. “Not all—surely father got _something_?” “By the time he reached Anvil Creek he found it staked from end to end.” Mrs. Mar was plying the crochet-needle with a rapidity superhuman. “Of course he’d be too late,” she said, with a deadly quietness. “Give him thirty years’ start, and he’ll be too late.” “It was an outrage that a handful of men should have been able to gobble the entire creek,” said Cheviot hurriedly. “The laws will be changed, beyond a doubt. They’re monstrous. Every miner has been able to take out a power of attorney, and he could locate for his entire family, for all his friends—even for people who don’t exist.” “And those missionaries took it all!” “Not the missionaries. They were chivvied out of the game by a reindeer herder they’d let into the secret. It’s too long a story to tell you now, but the herder gave the missionaries the slip, and got word to some friends of his. The rascals formed a district and elected a recorder. By the time we got there, there wasn’t an inch left for the man who’d discovered the gold.” In the pause Hildegarde hunted wildly in her mind for something to say—something that would prevent her mother from speaking—but the girl’s tongue could find no word, her mind refused to act. Fortunately, the story had reduced even Mrs. Mar to silence. “In the end Christianson and Björk didn’t fare much better than Mr. Mar, though I believe they got something. But the herder and his friends are millionaires.” It was more than one of the company could bear. Mrs. Mar got up and left the room. Cheviot met Hildegarde’s eyes. There was that in his face that gave her the sense of leaning on him in spirit—of being in close alliance with him. “Poor, poor father!” she said, in a half whisper. “Does he take it dreadfully to heart?” “Well, you can imagine it wasn’t an easy thing to bear.” “No, but why isn’t he here—we’ll all help him to bear it.” Cheviot looked at the door through which Mrs. Mar had disappeared. His eyes said plain as print, “Will she?”