Sunset of that momentous and tragic day found Adam and Dismukes camped beyond the mouth of a wide pass that bisected the Funeral range. It was a dry camp, but water from a pure spring some miles down had been packed out. Greasewood grew abundantly on the wide flat, and there were bunches of dry gray sage. Adam felt well-nigh exhausted, and he would have been gloomy and silent but for his comrade. Dismukes might never have been harnessed to the beam of an _arrastra_ and driven like a mule, and his awful treadmill toil in the terrible heat under the lacerating lash was as if it had never been. Dismukes was elated, he was exultant, he was strangely young again. Always, to Adam, this giant prospector, Dismukes, had been beyond understanding. But now he was enigmatic. He transcended his old self. In the excitement following his rescue he had not mentioned the fact that Adam had saved his life. Adam thought greatly of this squaring of his old debt. But Dismukes seemed not to consider it. He never mentioned that but for Adam’s intervention he would have been goaded like a mule, kicked and flayed and driven in the stifling heat, until he fell down to die. All Dismukes thought of was the gold he had mined, the gold the claim jumpers had mined--the bags of heavy gold that were his, and the possession of which ended forever his life-long toil for a fortune. A hundred times that afternoon, as the men had packed and climbed out of the valley, Dismukes had tried to force upon Adam a half of the gold, a quarter of it, a share. But Adam refused. “Why, for Lord’s sake?” Dismukes at last exploded, his great ox eyes rolling. “It’s gold. Most of it I mined before those devils came. It’s clean an’ honest. You deserve a share. An’ the half of it will more than make up the sum I’ve slaved an’ saved to get. Why, man--why won’t you take it?” “Well, friend, I guess the only reason I’ve got is that it’s too heavy to pack,” replied Adam. He smiled as he spoke, but the fact was he had no other reason for refusal. Dismukes stared with wide eyes and open mouth. Adam, apparently, was beyond his comprehension just the same as Dismukes was beyond Adam’s. Finally he swore his astonishment, grunted his disapproval, and then, resigning himself to Adam’s strange apathy, he straightway glowed again. Adam, despite his amusement and something of sadness, could not help but respond in a measure to the intense rapture of his friend. Dismukes’ great work had ended. His long quest for the Golden Fleece had been rewarded. His thirty-five years of wandering and enduring and toiling were over, and life had suddenly loomed beautiful and enchanting. The dream of boyhood had come true. The fortune had been made. And now to look forward to ease, rest, travel, joy--all that he had slaved for. Marvelous past--magnificent prospect of future!