TWO days after his return to the mine on Topeka Mountain, Bartrow received a letter. It came up from Alta Vista by the hands of one of the workmen who had been down to the camp blacksmith shop with the day's gathering of dulled tools, and was considerably the worse for handling when it reached its destination. Connie's monogram was on the flap of the envelope, but the address was not in Connie's handwriting. So much Bartrow remarked while he was questioning the tool-carrier. "Took you a good while, didn't it? Was Pat sober to-day?" "Naw; swimmin' full, same as usual." "Spoil anything?" "Burnt up a drill 'r two, spite of all I could do. Laid off to lick me when he got through, but I lit out 'fore he got round to it." "Did, eh? It's a pity; he's a good blacksmith if he'd only let whiskey alone. Try him in the morning next time, and maybe you'll catch him sober." "Don't make any dif'rence 'bout the time o' day with him. He's full all the time, he is." Bartrow's curiosity was beginning to bestir itself, but he put it under foot till he had climbed to the three-roomed cabin on the bench above the tunnel-opening. Wun Ling was laying the table for supper, and the master of the mine sat down on the porch to read his letter. It was from Miss Van Vetter; and the glow on Bartrow's sunburned face as he read it was not altogether the ruddy reflection from the piled-up masses of sunset crimson in the western sky. "Dear Mr. Bartrow," she wrote: "Mr. Lansdale has just been here, and we made him tell us about your trouble, though he tried very hard not to. From which we infer that you didn't want us to know,--and that was wrong. If one cannot go to one's friends at such times, it is surely a very thankless world. "Constance told me some time ago that you might not be able to go on with the Little Myriad without the investment of more capital, and I have written about it to a friend of mine in the East who has money to invest. You may call it a most unwarrantable impertinence if you please, but I'm not going to apologize for it,--not here. If you would really like to humble me, I'll give you plenary indulgence when you come to see us. "I inclose my friend's Philadelphia address, and I may say with confidence that I am quite sure he will help you if you will write him. "We have abundant faith in you and in the Little Myriad. Don't think of giving up, and please don't evade us when you are next in Denver."