Ross looked around the tiny valley, with its fringe of windy, inaccessible peaks, and thought of the long months ahead of him, shut in among those cruelly cold mountains. "I hope they stay!" he declared fervently. An hour later, having talked over the situation with Ross thoroughly, explained the amount of work necessary to be done in the tunnel, and given Weimer large chunks of advice, Steele rode away, driving his packhorses in front of him. Ross watched him out of sight and then entered the shack whistling to keep his courage up. Inside he surveyed his temporary home with a shiver which stopped the whistle. "Uncle Jake," he suggested, "let's clean house the rest of the day. Willing?" Weimer, sitting on a box in front of the stove, assented without removing the pipe from his lips. "Ja, clean up all you vant to. I tink your fader was alvays vantin' to clean mit der house." "Think of my father's ever cleaning out a cabin like this!" muttered Ross. He stood helplessly in front of the door looking from the complacently smoking Weimer to the bags and boxes heaped on the floor and then around the dirt-encrusted room. He thought of Aunt Anne and her perfectly kept house with a great throb of homesickness. Then he thought of his father, who had got his "start" under such conditions as these and suddenly threw off his coat. "It's got to be done," he said aloud, "and I've got to do it!" "Vat?" asked Weimer stupidly turning his goggles in Ross's direction. Weimer was hugging his knees in a state of blissful content, the smoke from his pipe curling about his head and almost shutting from view the big young man on whose shoulders he had already shifted all burdens connected with the Grant-Weimer claims. During the remainder of the day Ross worked cleaning up the cabin and packing away their winter supplies. When night came his bunk looked better to him than the supper which Weimer was preparing, and he dropped asleep sitting beside the table waiting for the flapjacks. But, instead of turning in directly after washing the supper dishes, as he had intended, he was forced to keep awake until nine o'clock entertaining the denizens of Meadow Creek Valley. The McKenzies came over first. Weimer, who, when night approached, had removed his goggles, saw them coming first and raised his voice in protest. "Ach! dem McKenzies! See here, poy, dey mustn't come mit my cabin. Dey ist after dese claims. Vorstehen sie nicht?" "Yes, yes, Uncle Jake, I understand," Ross returned soothingly. "But they can't carry the claims away in their pockets to-night, and to-morrow morning we are going to bone down to work at such a rate that they'll come up missing on their calculations altogether." At the mention of work, Weimer groaned and retiring precipitately to his bunk lay there regarding the doorway hostilely through the smoke from his pipe. The next minute the doorway framed Sandy with Waymart close behind.