"My father served in the northwest before the great Civil War," said Will, telling it for the fiftieth time, "and he was a man of inquiring mind. If he was in a country he always wished to know all about it that was to be known, particularly if it happened to be a wild region. He had the mind of a geographer and explorer, and the vast plains and huge mountains up here fascinated him. If there was a chance to make a great journey to treat with the Indians or to fight them he always took it." "And he'd been in California in '49," said Boyd, saying, like Will, what he had said fifty times before. "It was there I first met him, and a fine, upstanding young officer he was." The lad sighed, and for a moment or two his sorrow was so deep that it gave him an actual thrill of physical pain. "That's so, Jim. I've often heard him speak of the first time he saw you," he resumed. "He was tempted to resign and hunt gold in California with the crowd, and he did have some experience in the mines and workings there, but he concluded, at last, to remain in the army, and was finally sent into the Northwest with his command to deal with the Indians." "And it was on the longest of his journeys into the mountains that he found it!" "Yes. He noticed in a wild place among the ridges that the earth and rock formations were like those of California where the richest gold finds were made. He was alone at the time, though the rest of his command was only a few miles away, but he picked among the rocks and saw enough to prove that it was a mother lode, a great gold seam that would make many men millionaires. It was his intention to resign from the army, get permission from the Sioux to come in, organize a company, and work what he meant to be the Clarke mine. But you know what happened, Jim." "Aye, Will, I do. By the time he got back to civilization the Civil War broke like a storm, and he went east to fight for his country." "He could do no less, and he never thought of doing anything else. Bearing in mind the risks of war, he drew this map which he carried on his person and which when he was dying he sent by you to me." "Aye, Will, he died in my arms at the Wilderness before the Bloody Angle. It was a glorious death. He was one of the bravest men I ever saw. He gave me the map, told me to be sure to reach you when the war was over, and then help you to find the great mine." Water came again into Will's eyes. Though the wounds of youth heal fast, the hurt made by the death of his heroic father had not yet healed. The hunter respected his emotion and was silent while he waited. "If we find the great mother lode and take out the treasure, part of it is to be yours, of course," said the boy. "You can pay me for my work and let it go at that. Your father found the lode and the map telling the way to it, drawn by him, is yours now."