“An’ then whenst I war a-tryin’ ter git over that backset—findin’ out thar warn’t no mo’ room fur me in heaven than thar war on yearth—up ye hed ter pop, like a devil out’n a bush, a-goin’ ter sarch in the mountings fur silver, sech ez that float ez I hed. An’ ye got me set ter honin’ an’ hankerin’ arter silver an’ sech—whenst I mought hev knowed ez Satan war in it, through Sam’ls takin’ off bein’ so durned cur’ous.” He rubbed his hands silently for a few minutes as he looked at the fire. “That war the reason I tuk ye ter Jepson’s old cabin ter bide a-fust—I ’lowed ye mought find sech float ’mongst them steep ledges an’ rocky slopes.” Rathburn looked up at him with an alert and kindling eye. His sense of humiliation, his troubled conscience, were forgotten in an instant. “We never went near the cave!” he exclaimed. “That was where the fellow was going. That is where you tracked his steps, Jake.” He rose to his feet and leaned over and clapped his comrade on the shoulder. “We’ll find it yet. There’s the ore. We’ll explore the cave!” The color had flared into his face; his lips curved hopefully under his yellow mustache; his hand stroked it with his wonted alert, confident gesture. The mountaineer looked up at him with a face cadaverous in its extreme pallor and the elongation of all its traits. His remonstrant eyes had a presage of hopeless defeat in the midst of their anxious entreaty. “_That_ won’t do, Eugene,” he said, in palpitating eagerness. “Laws-a-massy, boy, we can’t go rummagin’ round a dead man’s bones fur silver!” He seemed to take note of the unmoved resolution in Rathburn’s expression. In his despair and fear he sought to assume a casual air of confidence which might impose upon his companion, however little root it had in fact. “But shucks! ye wouldn’t _dare_ to go a meddlin’ round dead folks. _Ye_ know _ye_ be afeard o’ ’em!” “_I?_” exclaimed Rathburn, glancing down at him with a bantering smile, “I?—afraid of dead men’s bones?” Still looking up into his flushed, handsome, triumphant face, full of life, and light, and spirit, Baintree quailed. For did he not remember, so late though it was, his coadjutor’s profession? And had he not once seen, in the backroom of Rathburn’s office, a bleached white skull that the young physician considered a beautiful thing? The sight was renewed to Baintree’s recollection with the vivid dread of a nightmare. He felt a suffocating pressure upon his chest. A hoarse, wheezing, half-smothered unconscious cry broke from his lips. “Why, Jake!” Rathburn began, in a cheerful, rallying, reassuring tone; but the mountaineer had started to his feet, and the impetuous torrent of words would not be stopped.