They stood together, looking down at the skeleton. But she wasn't quite prepared for what she saw. A little cry of horror rang strangely in the dark shaft. This had been no natural death. Undoubtedly the elder Bronson had been struck down from behind, as he worked, and he lay just as he fell. There was one wound in the skull, round and ghastly, and in a moment they saw the weapon that made it. A rusted pick, such as miners use, lay beside the body. "I won't try to do much to-day," the man told her, "except to see up one of my cornerposts and erect a claim notice. My father's notice has of course rotted away in the years and the monument that probably stood out there beyond the creek bed was covered in snowslide. You see, a claim is made by putting up four stone monuments--one at each corner of the area claimed. We'll be starting down in a day or two, and I'll register the claim. Then I'll come back--and give these poor bones decent burial." From there he walked back to the end of the shaft, scratching another match. It was wholly evident that the mine was only scratched. He held the light close, studying the rear wall of the cave. It was simply a gravel bed, verifying his guess that here lay an old bed of the creek. In the first handful of stone he scraped out he found a half-ounce nugget. "It's rich?" she asked. "Beyond what I ever dreamed. But there's nothing more we can do now. I've made my find at least--but it doesn't seem to make me--as happy as it ought to. Of course that man--there against the wall--would naturally keep a man from being very happy. Of, if I could only find and kill the devil who did it!" His voice in the gloom was charged with immeasurable feeling. She had never seen this side of him before. Here was primeval emotion, the desired for vengeance, filial obligation, hate that knew no mercy and could never be forgotten. She understood, now, the savage feuds that sometimes spring up among the mountain people, unable to forget a blow or an injury. She had the first inkling of how deeply his father's murder had influenced him. But his face was calm when they emerged into the light. They walked over to the creek, and beneath its overhanging banks there were the snow had not swept, he found enough rocks for his monument. He gathered them, carried them in armfuls to a place fifty yards beyond the creek and down it, level with such a turn in the hillside above, beyond which the old creek bed obviously could not lie; then heaped them into a moment. Then he drew an old letter from his coat pocket, and searching farther, found a stub of a pencil. Virginia looked over his shoulders as he wrote. One hundred yards up the stream Harold watched them, dumbfounded as to what they were doing. He saw Bill finish the writing, then place the larger on the monument, fastening it down with a large stone. Then he came mushing toward them.