Furthermore, Steele concluded, Ross was more accustomed to bending over a book than over a shovel; and he shrugged his shoulders at the thought of the Weimer-Grant claims. "His backbone can't do everything," he decided, "no matter how stout it grows, especially when Weimer has lost his." Steele's shack was at the foot of Gale's Ridge. Half-way up the mountainside was another and larger shack, where his miners, thirty in number, ate. Above that was the "bunk-house" where they slept. And yet higher up was the mouth of the tunnel out of which the Gale's Ridge Mining Company expected to pull vast wealth when the Burlington Road had done its part. "I'd rather bach it," Steele explained to Ross as they sat down to beefsteak and baked potatoes, "than to be with the men. It's pleasanter for me--and," with a jolly laugh, "for them also, I expect." Ross liked this frank young superintendent who had so kindly taken him in. He felt that he must get his bearings in some way, and Steele was the man to set him right. Therefore quite early in the evening the boy burst out with: "Mr. Steele, I've come to the conclusion that I'm the greenest tenderfoot that ever came to Wyoming. Now, you know the ropes here, and I don't. Will you advise me?" "That is exactly what I've been wanting to do," assented Steele swiftly and heartily. "But I won't do it at all to-night. It'll take you a few days to get over your light-headedness, and until you do the trail around Crosby won't be healthy ridin' for you. Anyway, there's a lot to be done, for Uncle Jake Weimer hasn't laid in any winter supplies yet." Ross tipped his chair back against the unhewn logs, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Ever since the talkative prospector had passed through the stage camp he had wondered what manner of man Weimer was. But not until he was jolting along in the stage that day did one sentence especially recur to him in all its possible significance. The prospector had said, "'Curious how that snow-blindness should have touched Dutch Weimer.'" Therefore, Ross's first question was of the man he had crossed the continent to help. The answer reached far into the night; and when at last Ross, wrapped in his blankets, lay down in a bunk built against the wall, it was a long time before sleep came, tired as he was. The following evening, after a full day's work, he sat down beside the little home-made table to write to Dr. Grant and Aunt Anne while Steele washed up the supper dishes. "I should be worse than helpless, were it not for Steele," he wrote; "and even with him to help me I may as well own up I am in blue funk. Not a man is there to hire; so the programme for the next few months seems to be this: Yours truly has got to put on some muscle, and buckle down to pick and shovel. Where do you think Piersol's 'Histology' is coming in, uncle, or that man Remsen?