"I'll have to make a trip over to the Hunter ranch," he announced. "I guess our mining will have to wait until I get back--unless our neighbors should happen to move on. But I've about decided that we're going to need a dugout to store our grub in. Right here in this bank is a good place to dig. While I'm gone you can be making the dugout, Tommy--and you can keep an eye on the camp while you're doing it. Right now, while Miss Hunter is in camp, I'll take you up and show you the claims. I've got a pretty rich vein and I don't want any one monkeying around there while I'm gone. I'll leave it to you and Hez." They went off together over the ridge, and Al Freeman stopped his work and openly watched their departure. When they were quite out of sight, he came shambling over to Bill's tent and pulled open the flap. "Well?" Doris looked up from spreading jam between cold biscuits for their lunch on the trail. She might have been speaking to one of her father's ranch hands, for all the emotion she showed. Al grinned slyly and placatingly. "Excuse me," he said in his flat voice that grated unpleasantly on the ear. "I left my terbaccer in here somewhere this morning. If it ain't botherin' ye none, I just thought I'd come over an' git it." "It took you a long time to miss it," Doris observed coldly. "Why didn't you ask Bill for it?" "I didn't think of it then," Al grinned, edging into the tent. "Well, I can't let you go pawing around in here while he's gone." Doris continued to spread other split biscuits with jam. "Go on out, and wait till Mr. Dale comes." "He ain't likely to be back very soon," Al argued insinuatingly. "I just about got to have a smoke, Miss Hunter--no two ways about it. Won't take me but a minute to look where I laid my terbaccer." Doris straightened and stood eyeing him attentively, a butcher knife in her left hand. "Whereabouts did you lay it, then?" she demanded. "Right on a sack in this corner. I was gittin' up to go to breakfast, an' I laid my terbaccer down on a sack in this corner. I mind now that Mr. Emmett kinda joggled things 'round, pullin' out a box to set on. I never thought no more about it till I went to make a smoke." He turned to the corner and stooped, laying hold upon a half-filled sack of something. "It musta fell over behind," he mumbled. "You get out of that corner and out of this tent," Doris commanded sternly, laying down the knife. Al lifted his lip in a smile that was half a snarl. "Aw, you wouldn't make a man go without his terbaccer," he whined, lifting the sack and finding it unexpectedly heavy. "Must be gold bricks in this sack," he tittered. "I guess that sample he showed at breakfast ain't all he's got!" "_Will_ you get out of here?" Doris took a step forward, her eyes, her whole face, hardening with anger. "Now, now, no use gittin' excited," Al protested, leering at her. "I can't go off without my terbaccer--mebby it fell into this sack. I'll just take a look."