"Yes," he answered; "I'll promise that. But, as I pointed out, while we have agreed upon the two payments, I reserve the right of deciding what share your daughter and Drayton are to take afterwards within the limits sketched out. I can't fix it definitely until I've seen the timber--you'll have to trust me." The prospector once more looked at him steadily, and then implied by a gesture that he was satisfied. The man fumbled under his pillow, and produced a piece cut out from a map of the province, with rough pencil notes on the back of it. "It was on my last prospecting trip I found the spruce," he said. "I'd been looking round for the Company I was with, and I figured I'd strike the coast over the range. The creeks were full of snow-water, and as I was held up here and there before I could get across, provisions began to run short. By and by I fell sick; but I had to get out of the mountains, and I was pushing on for the Strait when I struck the place where the spruce is. After that, I got kind of muddled in the head, but I went down a long valley on an easy grade and struck some Siwash curing the last of the salmon. The trouble is, I was too sick to figure exactly where the small inlet they were camped by lies. They took me back with them to their rancherie--you could find that--and sailed me across to Comox by and by. I came down on a steamboat, and the doctor told me I'd made my last journey." Vane expressed his sympathy. The narrative has been crudely matter-of-fact, but he had been out on the prospecting trail often enough to fill in the details the sick man omitted. "How far was the valley from the inlet?" he asked. "I can't tell you. I think I was four days on the trail, but it might have been more. I was too sick to remember. Anyway, there was a creek you could run the logs down." Vane nodded. "Well," he said, "how far was the inlet from the rancherie?" "I was in the canoe part of one night and some of the next day. Guess thirty miles wouldn't be far out." "That's something to go upon." Vane rose. "If Drayton will come along with me, I'll send him back with a hundred dollars. It's part of the first payment--but your getting it now should make things a little easier for Celia." "But you haven't located the spruce yet." "I'm going to locate it, if the thing's anyway possible." Vane shook hands with the man. "I expect to get off up the Strait very shortly." The prospector looked at him with relief and gratitude in his eyes, "You're white--and I guess you'd be mighty hard to beat." Vane touched Drayton's arm, and when they reached the street, his companion glanced at him with open admiration. "I'm glad I brought you across," he broke out. "You have a way of getting hold of folks, making them believe in you. Hartley hasn't a word in writing, but he knows you mean to act square with him. Kitty felt the same thing--it was why she came down in the sloop with you."