Was it to be believed, the Trennors asked, was it _likely_ there was gold in a place where fellows with such keen noses as the Russians—they shook their heads. Both of them shook their heads, for the Trennor brothers always did everything together. Who could believe it had been left for a man like Mar—besides, that gold should be up there was dead against the best geologic opinion of the day. The precious metal had never been found under these conditions. There were reasons, scientific reasons, as anybody but Mar would know, why gold couldn’t exist in just that formation (they spoke as if the vast new realm boasted but one). And, finally, even if there _was_ gold in such a place, how the dickens was it going to be got out? It was in the talk about mining facilities that Mar’s own faith suffered the first of many hurts. He was obliged to concede that these astute young men were well-informed as regards the difficulties and disappointments of mining, even in a land where transport was easy, food cheap, and labor plentiful—a land blessed by running water and perpetual summer. No less was Mar constrained to admit that this gold he believed he had found was hidden in a barren corner of the uttermost North, where not even an occasional tree promised timber for sluice boxes, where the winter was nine months long, and where, even in summer, the soil six inches below the surface was welded with the frost of ages. They were surprised, the Trennors said, that any one should expect them to take stock in such a— Oh, he didn’t (Mar hastened to defend himself), he didn’t at all expect—it was only that his wife had begged him to come to them first. And they smiled. They always smiled when Mar’s mad notion was mentioned. Even after it ceased to be actually mentioned, they had for his mere name a particular kind of tolerant, distant-cousin-by-marriage smile that said “poor Mar,” with an accent on the adjective. The new Mrs. Mar was at first boundlessly indignant with her kinsmen. “Never mind,” she adjured her husband, with flashing eyes; as soon as he should be able to travel, they would go up there themselves. She seemed unobservant of the fact that his spirits were not raised by her kind proposition. They would have no trouble, she assured him, in finding worthier partners to join them in the great scheme when once they had “made sure.” “Made sure?” said Mar, wincing; “but I _have_ made sure.” “Yes, yes, of course. Still you did lose the nugget—and the gold dust, too.” For the first time Mar changed the subject. “You haven’t anything _to show_,” she persisted. To which he answered nothing. Shortly after they were married, Mar’s mother became very ill. The following spring she died. Mar’s own health and spirits were a good deal lowered by the surgical torment he was called on periodically to undergo, as amputation followed amputation.