"Very well. Whenever you are at liberty to go, let me know, and I will do what I can for you. When do you think you will start for Michigan, if you go at all?" "As soon as we hear from my uncle," answered Owen. "I am going to stay here several days, and maybe a week. Will you come and see me again before you go away?" "If you wish it," said Dale. More conversation followed, and then they bid Mr. Wilbur good-day and left. As they walked away the lumber merchant looked after them thoughtfully. "Two good young men," was his mental comment. "They don't want to be rewarded, and if I had offered them money they would have refused it. I'll have to keep them in mind and square up some other way." It was not until the next morning that Dale remembered with deep regret that he had wished to ask Jefferson Wilbur about the mining claim in Oregon. "What a fool I was not to think of it," he said to his chum. "I have the papers right here, too." "Better go up and see him this morning." "No, I don't care to do that." "Why not?" "He may think that I am hanging around for a reward, and I don't want a cent," answered Dale. Before the end of the week a letter came from John Hoover, intended for both Dale and Owen. It was a long communication, but the gist of it was that they might come on at once, and Owen's uncle would give each a trial, Owen as a foreman, at thirty dollars a month, and Dale as a gang hand, at twenty dollars a month, with board. If agreeable, they were to send a telegram of acceptance. "That isn't so bad," said Dale. "He might have offered you a little more," replied Owen. "Perhaps he wants to see what we are made of first." "Then you are willing to go at that?" "We might as well. We haven't got to stay with him, you know, and something is better than nothing, at the start," added Dale, who was intensely practical. So the telegram was sent without further delay, after which the pair began to look around for the cheapest method of getting to Detroit. From a man who had traveled a good deal, they learned that the cheapest and quickest way for them would be to take a regular steamer from Bangor to Boston. Here they could change to a train running through Albany to Buffalo, and from Buffalo they could get a lake steamer direct for their destination. "You won't lose much time that way," said the traveler, "and you'll save quite a few dollars on car-fare," and so it proved. As soon as passage was secured on the steamer bound for Boston, the young lumbermen dressed in their best and started to pay the promised call on Jefferson Wilbur. This time Dale carried the mining-claim papers with him, resolved to get some information concerning them if it was possible to do so. But at the hotel a disappointment awaited them. "Sorry," said the clerk at the desk. "But Mr. Wilbur got a telegram last night that seemed to upset him, and he and his wife left early this morning." "Did he say where he was going?" questioned Owen.