"You said Mr. Emerson's new proposition was better than mining, did you not?" He was the embodiment of friendly interest, showing just the proper degree of complaisant expectancy. "I am decidedly curious to know what undertaking is sufficiently momentous to draw a young man away from beauty's side up into such a wilderness, particularly in the dead of winter." Miss Wayland's guarded reply gave Emerson a moment in which to collect his thoughts. He was still too much confused by the recent disclosures to adjust himself fully to the situation. The one idea uppermost in his mind was to enlighten Marsh as little as possible; for if this new train of events was really to prove his undoing, as already he half believed, he would at any rate save himself from the humiliation of acknowledging defeat. If, on the other hand, he should decide to go ahead and wage war against the trust as an independent packer, then secrecy for the present was doubly imperative. Once Marsh gained an inkling that he and Big George were equipping themselves to go back to Kalvik--to Kalvik, Marsh's own stronghold, of all places!--he could and would thwart them without doubt. These thoughts flashed through Boyd's mind with bewildering rapidity, yet he managed to equal the other's show of polite indifference as he remarked: "I am not far enough along with my plans to discuss them." "Perhaps if I knew their nature I might--" Boyd laughed. "I am afraid a hydraulic proposition would not interest such a hard-headed business man as you." To himself he added: "Good heavens! I am worse than Fraser with his nebulous schemes!" "Oh, hydraulic mining? Well, hardly!" the other replied. "I understood Miss Wayland to say that this was something better than a mine." "Is a hydraulic a mine?" inquired Mildred; "I thought it was a water-power of some sort!" "Once a miner always a miner," the younger man quoted, lightly. As if with a shadow of doubt, Marsh next inquired: "Didn't I meet you the other evening at the Annex?" Boyd admitted the fact, with the air of one who exaggerates his interest in a trifling topic for the sake of conversation. He was beginning to be surprised at his own powers of dissimulation. "And you were with George Balt?" "Exactly. I picked him up on my way out from Nome; he was so thoroughly disgusted with Alaska that I helped him get back to the States." Marsh's eyes gleamed at this welcome intelligence for certain misgivings had preyed upon him since that night of the encounter. He turned to the girl with the explanation: "This fellow we speak of is a queer, unbalanced savage who nurses an insane hatred for me. I employed him once, but had to discharge him for incompetence, and he has threatened my life repeatedly. You may imagine the start it gave me to stroll into a cafe, at this distance from Kalvik, and find him seated at a near-by table." "How strange!" Miss Wayland observed. "What did he do?"