“Ne’m mind about the wages; they can wait. If half o’ what they’re sayin’ about this here strike o’ yourn is so, there’ll be ore enough on the dump, come spring, to pay all the bills--and then some, I reckon. All I’ll ask’ll be a chance to stake a claim somewheres round next to yourn, maybe.” “You won’t have to ask anybody’s permission to do that,” Philip put in. “But still there is the question of the short grub-stake.” The big man grinned cheerfully. “Might trust in the Lord a li’l’ bit, mightn’t we? Maybe He’ll send us a short winter. Anyhow, I’ll take my chance o’ starvin’; it won’t be the first time by a long chalk. Whadda yuh say? Is it a go?” It was far enough from Philip’s normal promptings to decide anything so momentous without due and thoughtful consideration. But the exigencies had suddenly become urgent. In his mind’s eye he could see the Neighbors gang of desperadoes besieging the log cabin, with its scanty garrison of two untrained defenders. One additional loyal pair of eyes and hands might turn the scale. Hasty decisions, headlong initiative, were the very essence of the time, and of the treasure-seekers’ existence. Impulsively he thrust out a bargain-clinching hand. “It’s a go, if you want to throw in with us, and I’ll promise you you won’t lose anything by it,” he said. “What may I call you?” “Name’s Garth--‘Big Jim,’ for short.” “Mine is Philip Trask. We are strangers to each other, but that’s an even stand-off. I’m banking on you for what you did for the little girl on the train. Let’s hurry and find that park ranch you speak of. It’s running in my mind that we can’t get back to the claim any too soon.” It was after they had mounted and were herding the jacks down the descending trail that Garth said: “What about the li’l’ gal with the sick daddy? Ever see her again?” “Just once,” Philip returned, “five or six weeks after they reached Denver. The family was living in one of the tent colonies, and from what was said, I judged the father was pretty badly off.” “Uh-huh,” said Garth. “You hear a heap nowadays about what the dry air’ll do for them lungers, but the health boosters tell only half o’ the story. That same old thin air kills ’em swift if they come too late. It shore do.” By pushing the animals as fast as the hazardous trail would permit, the ranch in the inter-mountain park was reached in the shank of the afternoon. Philip made a hurried bargain with the ranch owner, a white-haired, white-bearded old man who might have figured as a reincarnation of Elijah the Tishbite; and after a consultation with Garth, refused the old man’s offer of a night’s lodging. Garth’s vote was for an immediate return to the “Little Jean.” The skies were clear and there would be a moon for at least the first half of the night. “We’ve left a trail in the snow that a blind man could back-track on,” he pointed out. “I’m hep for the night tramp, if so be you are.”