There was a little pause while Fisette sheared thin shavings of tobacco from a dog-eared plug. He rolled them into a ball between his tawny palms, thoughtfully unpicked the ball, re-rolled it more loosely, abstracted a match from the inside band of his tattered hat and began to suck wetly at a gurgling pipe. "What's that?" he said presently. "I asked you did you come far?" "Guess not so far as it seemed. Pretty bad bush." Manson hesitated, then, in a flash, saw through the breed's assumption of indifference. Clark had been looking for iron for more than a year. All St. Marys knew that. Now, glancing covertly at the angular projectings of the bulging sack, the constable jumped to his conclusion. Fisette had found it and was on his way to report and prove the discovery. "I often wonder," he remarked casually, "what keeps you fellows going. I never met a prospector yet who gave in that he was licked, and mighty few of them found anything. They always claim they would have had it if they could have stayed out a bit longer. Take iron, for instance. Fellows have gone out after iron for years right from here and they all thought they had it, but they didn't. There was Joe Lalonde and Pete Nanoosh and the rest of them. Same story over again. There's no iron here anyway. The country rock is wrong--a mining engineer told me that." Fisette did not move nor did his expression change. His insides seemed on fire. He would have given much to be on his way to Clark's office, but something in his Indian blood whispered warningly. Moments passed. Presently he got up a little stiffly. "I guess I'll go now." Manson yawned. "All right, I'm going that way myself." Sudden irresolution appeared on the brown face. "Oh, well, I guess there's no hurry." He sat down and took out his last match. The big man chuckled. "Look here, Fisette, I suppose you know I've been buying property around town?" "So?" "Yes, and the other day I bought a thousand-dollar mortgage. It's the one on your land. I guess you remember it?" A sense of uncertainty fell over the half-breed. He knew that he owed a thousand dollars and had owed it for years. Every six months he paid thirty dollars to a lawyer and forgot all about it for the next six. To his mind the document with the seals, beside one of which he had traced a painful signature, was a forbidding thing, typical of the authority of pale faces over brown. Then, quite suddenly, he remembered that next year he would have to pay off the whole thousand, and, moreover, pay it to Manson. "Is that so? I guess you're quite a rich man?" Manson smiled grimly. "No, not a rich man, but--" he paused, felt very deliberately in his coat and, taking out a fat pocketbook, slowly extracted a bill. It was for one hundred dollars. "I'll bet you this that there is no iron within seventy-five miles of St. Marys." He smoothed the bill on his broad knee.