Rumors were already abroad that in the great Appalachian mountain-range opportunity might be as golden as in that greater range on the other side of the continent. Keith had a sentiment that he would rather succeed in the South than elsewhere. "Only get rifles out and railroads in, and capital will come pouring after them," Rhodes had said. "Old Wickersham knows his business." That was a good while ago, and at last the awakening had begun. Now that carpet-bagging was at an end, and affairs were once more settled in that section, the wealth of the country was again being talked of in the press. The chief centre of the new life was a day's drive farther in the mountains than Eden, the little hamlet which Keith had visited once with Dr. Balsam when he attended an old stage-driver, Gilsey by name, and cut a bullet out of what he called his "off-leg." This was the veiled Golconda. To the original name of Humboldt the picturesque and humorous mountaineer had given the name of "Gumbolt." This was where old Adam Rawson, stirred by the young engineer's prophecy, had taken time by the forelock and had bought up the mineral rights, and "gotten ahead" of Wickersham & Company. Times and views change even in the Ridge region, and now, after years of delay, Wickersham & Company's railroad was about to be built. It had already reached Eden. Keith, after a few days with his father, stopped at Ridgely to see his old friends. The Doctor looked him over with some disapproval. "As gaunt as a greyhound," he muttered. "My patient not married yet, I suppose? Well, she will be. You'd better tear her out of your memory before she gets too firmly lodged there." Keith boldly said he would take the chances. When old Rawson saw him he, too, remarked on his thinness; but more encouragingly. "Well, 'a lean dog for a long chase,'" he said. "How are cattle?" inquired Keith. The old fellow turned his eyes on him with a keen look. "Cattle's tolerable. I been buyin' a considerable number up toward Gumbolt, where you're goin'. I may get you to look after 'em some day," he chuckled. Gordon wrote to Dave Dennison that he was going to Gumbolt and would look out for him. A little later he learned that the boy had already gone there. The means of reaching Gumbolt from Eden, the terminus of the railroad which Wickersham & Company were building, was still the stage, a survivor of the old-time mountain coach, which had outlasted all the manifold chances and changes of fortune. Happily for Keith, he had been obliged, though it was raining, to take the outside seat by the driver, old Tim Gilsey, to whom he recalled himself, and by his coolness at "Hellstreak Hill," where the road climbed over the shoulder of the mountain along a sheer cliff, and suddenly dropped to the river below, a point where old Gilsey was wont to display his skill as a driver and try the nerves of passengers, he made the old man his friend for life.