Important as the power-house was it was only a small portion of the whole. There was still the 10-inch pump in the pump-house with its 75 horse-power motor and the donkey engine with the 50 horse-power motor to get to working right, not to mention the flume and sluice-boxes, with their variety of riffles and every practicable device for trapping the elusive fine gold. And not the least of Bruce's increasing anxieties was "Alf" Banule with his constant "good enough." It was well toward the end of October and Bruce, hurrying over the trail with sheets of mica for Banule, who was working on the submerged motor which had to be rewound, noticed that the willows were turning black. What a lot had happened since he had noticed the willows turning black last year! A lifetime of hopes and fears, and new experiences had been crowded into twelve flying months. His mind straying for a moment from the work and its many problems, he fell to thinking of Helen Dunbar and her last letter. When he was not thinking of undercurrents or expanded metal riffles or wondering anxiously if the 10-inch and 8-inch pumps were going to raise sufficient water, or if the foundation built on piling, instead of cement, was "good enough," Bruce was thinking of the girl he loved. She had written in her last letter--Bruce knew them all by heart-- I had a visitor yesterday. You will be as surprised, when I tell you who it was, as I was to see him. Have you guessed? I'm sure you haven't. None other than our friend Sprudell--very apologetic--very humble and contrite, and with an explanation to offer for his behavior that was really most ingenious. There's no denying he has cleverness of a kind--craft, perhaps, is a better word. His humility was touching but so unlike him that I should have been alarmed if he had not been so obviously sincere. Nevertheless his visit has upset me. I've been worried ever since. Perhaps you'll only laugh at me when I tell you that it is because I am afraid for _you_. Truly I am! I don't know that I can explain exactly so you'll understand but there was something disturbing which I _felt_ when he spoke quite casually of you. It was almost too intangible to put into words but it was like a gloating secret satisfaction, as though he had the best of you in some way, the whip-hand. It may be just a silly notion, one of those fears that pop into one's head in the most inexplicable way and stick, refusing to be driven out by any amount of logic. Tell me, is there anything that he can do to you? Any way that he can harm you? I am nervous--_anxious_--and I cannot help it. She was anxious about him! That fact was paramount. Somebody in the world was worrying over _him_. He stopped short in the trail with fresh wonder of it. Every time he thought of it, it gave him a thrill. His face, that had been set in tired, harsh lines of late, softened with a smile of happiness.