There ensued a few moments of quiet. In the bunk Weimer snored gently. A nickel clock suspended on a peg from the side logs ticked loudly. The pine chunks in the sheet-iron stove cracked and snapped cheerfully. Leslie stared dejectedly at the table, while Ross, his forehead knit into a puzzled frown, stared at Leslie. What could have happened, he asked himself, to rob the other in four weeks of his former desire to turn prospector? Homesickness? Perhaps, but Ross decided the trouble lay deeper. If it were mere homesickness, the boy would be haunting Miners' Camp and the post-office or else clearing out of the mountains. "Where's Wilson?" Ross asked finally. Leslie aroused himself with difficulty. "He's over at the McKenzies'. I came here." "How's the tunnel going? Are you making headway?" This question opened the flood-gates of Leslie's misery. "Headway?" he burst out. "Yes, we're making headway, but toward what, I'd like to know!" It was an exclamation rather than a question, and the boy brought his clenched fist down violently on the table. "Why," stammered Ross, "toward getting the claims patented, I suppose. What else did you expect?" Leslie's excitement subsided. He folded his arms on the table. "I came expecting to find gold," he confessed. "I could hardly wait to get here and now--well, I'm here, that's all, and all my money is spent for supplies." "But didn't you understand," Ross began, "that the ore up here had to be smelted in order to release the metal, and that we can never pack the ore on horseback over these trails and----" "No," cried Leslie fiercely, "I didn't understand. I understood that I was coming to work claims that would surely prove a perfect Klondike in a short time--I thought in a few weeks." "Oh, that's Wilson," broke in Ross. "He's a perfect promoter, Steele tells me, because he believes in things himself so intensely that he makes you see his way in spite of yourself. Steele says he has been quartz crazy for years. Every claim that he stakes holds his everlasting fortune in prospect." "I've found that out," assented Leslie bitterly, "and yet I can't blame Wilson. I foisted myself on him at Omaha--he didn't get after me. And he has really been square with me. He simply made me believe in his claims as thoroughly as he does, and he believes in them yet, but I don't. You see," Leslie explained, "he keeps expecting to run across a pocket of free gold, and that he says he'll turn over to me so I can get back the money I put into the supplies. I've got to get that money back pretty soon," he added emphatically. Ross looked at him commiseratingly. "I'm afraid you can't."