Mason shook his head. To the surprise of all, he had taken what was for him a great fancy to their visitor from the East. "Not a bit," he said, readily enough; "I'll be proud to have you along," and thus the afternoon's program was settled for all. Harrison was the first to take his departure, striding cheerfully away down the path on his long jaunt to town, ready and willing to start on a journey a hundred times as far as long as it was only Ethel who said the word. Next, Jim Mason finished his pipe and rose. "Come on, Miss Ashton," he cried, "got to get to work. Life's short, and there's lots to do." With a laughing word of farewell to Ethel and Gordon, she hastened to join him, and together they left for the mine. Fifteen minutes later Gordon climbed into the buggy despatched from Seneca's only livery stable, duly received Bill Hinckley's well-filled lunch pail from Ethel Mason's hand, gathered up the reins, chirruped to his horses, and disappeared from sight around the bend in the road. No sooner, however, had he reached a safe distance from the house than he deliberately brought the team to a standstill, and then, a dark gleam of excitement in his eyes, opened the lunch pail Ethel Mason had given him, drew a tiny bottle from his pocket, and quickly poured its contents into the coffee, still steaming hot in the bottom of the tin. Having rearranged everything as before, he drew up a few moments later at the entrance to the mine, with a word of friendly greeting handed Hinckley the pail, and started in earnest on his long trip across the mountain. Singular enough, however, seemed his actions, for a man bound on an errand that had for its object the completion of a contract for the smelting of the Ethel's ore. Scarcely five minutes after he had left Hinckley he passed through a small, densely wooded plateau on the mountain's side, and here he drew rein, scanning the bushes on either hand with careful scrutiny, listened a moment, and then, tying the horses, walked straight toward what seemed to be a tangled network of overhanging boughs. Readily at his touch, however, they parted to right and left, for an instant disclosing a narrow path with a clearing at the end, and then closed noiselessly upon him. Another five minutes passed. Silence everywhere; the stern old mountain sleeping its majestic, ancient sleep in the sober calm of the peaceful, sunlit afternoon. Then from the bushes near the mouth of Abe Peters' abandoned claim a figure emerged, at first crouching, then, as the screen of bushes grew less and less, snakelike, hugging the ground itself, worming its cautious way steadily onward, at length to be swallowed up bodily in the overhanging shadow of the entrance to the mine.