"Short of hands?" Steele broke in. "Who isn't short of hands from Butte to Omaha--especially in Wyoming? I've been out two weeks advertising and hunting men, and here I am back again with two only." Ross turned half around in his high seat, and grasped the low back. "Is labor as scarce as that in Miners' Camp?" he burst out in a brusque, astonished tone which betrayed a personal interest. "As scarce as diamonds," returned Steele, adding with a laugh, "and almost as expensive." Andy pushed back his hat, and surveyed his young companion with curiosity. There was a little stir in the coach also. "It must be"--Amos Steele spoke as if the matter had been debated before--"that you are related to Ross Grant of New York." "Yes," returned Ross, "I am his son." He was conscious of becoming an immediate centre of speculation. "I wondered," remarked Steele, "when I saw your name on the hotel register. Going out to Camp, are you?" "Yes," Ross hesitated. "In answer to that letter you wrote father for Mr. Weimer." "Oh!" Steele's tone was edged with astonishment. "Come out to see to the work, did ye?" asked Andy. "Yes." Andy glanced sidewise, and Ross caught the look of incredulity. [Illustration: "Regular Trail from Miner's Camp to Weimer's, Etc."] "Expected to hire men to do it, did ye?" That Andy was a general information bureau was due to his faculty for asking questions. "Yes, I do," emphatically. The present tense of the reply did not escape the listener's attention. "Weimer has tried to hire," volunteered Steele; "but it's no use." "Why not?" demanded the boy. "Well, in the first place, as I said, there hain't enough men to supply the demand; and, in the second place, no man in his senses is going away over on the Creek, where he'll be shut in for months, when he can just as well stay down in Camp, and get the same wages." "Shut in for months?" repeated Ross slowly. Andy explained. "Along about first of February ye're shut in fer sartain. Trail fills up, and there's apt to be snowslides any time on old Crosby." Ross sat with widening eyes staring out into the moonlight, and wondering with tightening muscles what he was "up against." The vagueness of his father's knowledge concerning Weimer's work had not counted in New York. But here, swinging along toward Miners' Camp with two-thirds of the width of the continent between himself and his friends, Ross realized that this vagueness had put him at a disadvantage.