Ora walked through the crooked streets on the steep hillside until she reached the deep chamber into which had leached the acids of the centuries to enrich the ores, and incidentally Gregory Compton. Thousands of tons of dump made a hill in itself and shut off the view to the south, but below were the acres of waving wheat, the alfalfa with its purple flower, the sprouting flax, the winding creek that was often dry but sometimes wet, the brush sheds for the cattle, the substantial farm buildings. The broad peaceful expanse looked as if even a winter wind had never shaken it, so entirely did it seem dissociated from the frantic energies of its northeast corner. And still beyond was perfect beauty: the massive pine-covered mountains, rising tier above tier, ridges of the great Rockies, far away and up to the sky-cutting line, glittering with eternal snows. For a few moments Ora forgot the raucous noises about her, Nature delivering herself of her precious children with loud protesting pains. Then she turned suddenly and looked upward. Gregory had just stepped from his cabin. For a moment he did not see her, but stood staring, his hands in his pockets, at the distant mountains. He wore his favourite overalls and a battered cap on the back of his head; but he looked so remote in spirit from that materialising costume that Ora watched him with a sensation of helpless jealousy. Not for a moment could she delude herself that he was thinking of her. He looked like a seer. “Can you see right into the heart of those mountains?” she asked lightly, as she walked up the hill toward him. “You looked as if your imagination were ‘blocking out’ thousands of tons of gold quartz.” He started and coloured, but smiled with a sudden pleasure at the charming picture in the foreground. “Something like that. This mine is all right, and now that I’ve got over my disappointment, I have a feeling for it that I guess I’ll never have for another mine--something like the affection for one’s first born! But all the same I intend to have a gold mine one of these days. Have you been admiring my view?” He had walked down and joined her. “Yes, but that is not what I came over here for. Nor is it what I came out to the mines for. I brought a small library, but I find I am not in the humour for books. I want to be doing something myself. Mr. Raymond won’t take me down into my mine. I want to go down into yours--now.” He hesitated a moment. “Well--why not? Apex is not working this afternoon--something the matter with their compressor. They sounded pretty close to our workings this morning, but the men quit about one o’clock, and as they didn’t blast it was probably because the holes weren’t deep enough. I’ve just been told that they can’t get to work again before tomorrow. But you look much too fine!” “Everything cleans; and I’ll leave my veil and parasol in the shaft house.” “All right,” he said abruptly. “Come along.”