A few days after that, Rawley went away to his work, content because he had wheedled from Nevada a promise to write to him and keep him informed of Johnny Buffalo’s welfare and the progress of the dam. He expected to return in a month. But instead of coming he wrote a long letter. He had finished the mine report and was about to leave for Washington, he said. The president of the School of Mines where he had studied wrote him, asking if he would not offer his services to the government, which was badly in need of men for research work. Minerals hitherto in little demand had suddenly become tremendously important,--for while the country was not yet at war it was quietly preparing for such an emergency. He told Nevada that, much as he disliked to change his plans, it was too good a chance to pass up, even if his loyalty to the government did not impel him to accept the tacit offer. He would come in contact with some of the biggest men in the game, he wrote. In April, when war was actually declared, Rawley was already thoroughly shaken down into his job. He still wrote twice a month to Nevada, but his letters became shorter,--as if they were written in stray minutes snatched from his duties. An interesting assortment of postmarks Nevada collected during the ensuing two years. Every State in the Union that could flaunt a mineral product seemed to be represented. Her replies were usually about two jobs behind him, so that letters with the Nelson, Nevada, postmark trailed patiently after Rawley wherever he went. During the war, his mother saw him just once, when he happened to be passing through St. Louis and could stop over for a few hours. Johnny Buffalo, Peter, and Nevada saw him not at all. CHAPTER TWENTY NEVADA ANALYZES On a certain day in June, Rawley left his car at Nelson and started afoot down the trail to Cramers. Although the war was over he was still in the service of the government. A bit leaner, a bit harder-muscled, steadier of eye and of purpose, with a broader vision, too. Rawley had been making good. After more than two years away from this particular point on the Colorado, old emotions came sweeping back upon him as he caught sight of this bold peak or that wild gorge, familiar landmarks along the trail. Halfway to Cramers, he turned aside and followed a dim trail that went climbing tortuously up a narrow canyon and so reached a bold hillside where the cabin of Johnny Buffalo squatted snugly beside the spring.