So far as he could determine, Mr. Rayfield was concerning himself at present with the preparations for a day's fieldwork. Emmett was already waiting with his sample bag over his shoulder, his canteen at his feet ready to pick up at the last minute. Al, apparently, would be left in camp. Bill turned suddenly and beckoned to Tommy, who was glumly examining a dull pick. "You say you can sharpen steel, Tommy. I'll just let you do a little blacksmithing, this fore-noon, while I show Miss Hunter a claim I located for her," he said, when Tommy had come close. Then he lowered his voice. "You can keep an eye on camp, too. I saw Al Freeman looking hungry at that sample of gold ore, Tommy. You'll know what to do if he makes a break. Only--don't kill him. I don't want to take in boarders, and those experts can't cook." "I'll watch 'im, Mr. Dale. I will that!" Bill grinned, took a last pull at his cigarette, and went in to wipe the dishes for Doris and watch the dimple in her left cheek. And Destiny, that invisible, inscrutable companion whom men sometimes fear, sometimes curse and obey inevitably, smiled and waited to see how these souls would work out the problems she had set for them. CHAPTER EIGHT "MONTE CRISTO WOULD ENJOY THIS!" "The way this gulch is washed, I don't know whether I can show you anything or not," Bill explained worriedly, preparing for a flat failure of his little plan. "That was next thing to a cloud-burst last night, Doris--and I'll own now that I was uneasy last night when you said you had left your horses down the gulch. But then, I knew you wouldn't tie them in the bottom where they might get drowned out." "Well, I hope not," Doris retorted with some asperity. No desert-bred girl likes to be thought ignorant of desert hazards. "You'll have to make this short, you know. They'll expect me home early to-day. I don't see why you can't go. Now you've staked yourself to the luxury of a mucker, you can leave him in charge, I should think. Do you really think you've struck anything, Bill?" "You wait. If my location cut isn't filled in, I can show you in ten minutes. And--if it's good, you're in on it. I located a claim on the same ledge in your name." "You did?" Doris looked up at him quickly, but she could see only Bill's left cheek as he swung his face away from her. "Why, why for me, particularly? I couldn't develop it--dad wouldn't let me. You ought to keep your claims for yourself, Bill. You--you'd give away your head, if you could get it off!" "I might throw in the rest of me," Bill hinted meaningly, his heart pounding like a single-jack in a miners' contest. He stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye and was scared and a bit happy, too, at the flush on her cheek.