Fourteen days later found Ralph in the metropolis of the Pacific. During the interim he had made the fifteen hundred miles swing around the country as laid out by David Cranston, except that instead of leaving the transcontinental train at Yewcroft and heading north for Fort Edward, he had come through to the coast. Here he meant to indulge himself in buying the gift for Nahnya. He had likewise supplies to lay in for the journey back to her. All the days and nights of the way out he had little to do but plan the details of the return trip. By this time all the meagre details of the published maps of that country were transferred to his brain.

Ralph's first act in town was to visit the government assay office. His dust amounted to close on two thousand dollars. Thereafter in his peregrinations through the streets a pair of sharp eyes followed his every movement. When Ralph made purchases in a store the eyes affected to be examining goods at a nearby counter; when he ate a meal in a restaurant the eyes watched him over the top of a menu card from the table behind; when he returned to the railway station and bought a ticket for Yewcroft and a berth on next day's train, the eyes next in line bought the same kind of ticket and booked a berth in the same car.

Not until they had satisfied themselves that Ralph was safe in his hotel room for the night did the eyes relax their watch on him. Then they looked for a taxi-cab. These eyes were what is known as mouse colour, which is not the colour of any breed of mouse, but a kind of yellowish gray. They were fixed in the head of a little nervous man with a sickly complexion of a lighter yellowish gray; mouse-coloured hair that stuck out in different directions, and a moustache to match, with drooping ends, ragged from being gnawed.

He had himself carried in the taxicab to an imposing residence in the west end of town. The name that he sent in was John Stack. After a certain wait the owner of the residence received him in his library. This was a Captain of Industry, rosy with fat living and nonchalant with money.

"Well, Stack, what do you want at this time o' night?" he said with good-natured insolence.

Stack's obsequiousness supplied the complement to his insolence. His smile was painfully ingratiating. "I flushed a good lead to-day," he said, with a queer imitation of the other's off-hand air.

"Heard that before," said the financier, attending to his nails.

"But I never started anything like this."

"What is it?"

"I've been watching the assay office," Stack said eagerly. "It was my own idea. We all know there's plenty of gold waiting to be found up North. Well, I haven't got the money to spend staking prospectors, and in bribing and wheedling the miners. So I watch the assay office. Everything that comes out is bound to go there."

"Well, what then?" asked the financier.

"No one knows the game better than me," Stack continued, with a little red spot in either sickly cheek. "I'm acquainted with all the known mines and diggings. I know all the old-timers in the field, and all the agents here in town. To-day a new man came in with a sweet little bag of dust. A youngster of twenty-five with the tan of high altitudes still on his skin. He was green; didn't know where to go with his dust. It was in a mooseskin bag, Indian made—nearly two thousand. He hasn't a friend here. I haven't let him out of my sight!"

"Suppose he has something good up there, how do you expect to get in on it? What do you want me to do?"

"Stake me to five hundred so I can follow him back to his claim," said Stack breathlessly.

To his relief the other man did not flout him. "How do you know he's going back?" he asked.

"He bought a folding canvas boat," said Stack eagerly; "a rifle, a revolver, and a shelter tent. He took ticket and berth to Yewcroft on to-morrow's train."

"H'm! What did he do with the two thousand?"

"Spent the whole of it on a necklace, an emerald pendant, the finest stone in town."

"A woman in the case, eh? Ain't you afraid to risk your skin among these rough guys?"

"He's a nice, decent young fellow," said Stack. "I'll make up to him. We'll be good friends before we get to Fort Edward."

"What did you come to me for?" demanded the man of money with a steely look.

The little man cringed and fawned. "You and me has turned more than one trick together," he said in a scared and silky voice. "I've been useful to you in the past. Now I got a chance to help myself. I thought maybe——"

"What do you offer me?"

"Half. I take all the risk."


It never occurred to the guileless Ralph that any one in town had any interest in his affairs. It is doubtful if during the whole of the two days he spent there he ever looked behind him. Not until he took his place in the stage at Yewcroft and sized up his fellow-passengers did he observe the small, mouse-coloured man with the insinuating smile. Ralph was not particularly impressed in his favour, but he had to have some one to talk to on the four days' trip to Lecky's Creek. Of the other passengers—a promoter and his flamboyant lady, another splendidly attired lady travelling alone, a boastful tenderfoot, and an alcoholic miner—none was at all to his taste.

At the first stopping-house the two gravitated together. Stack made it easy to make friends. Ralph, overjoyed to be clear of the city and to have his face at last turned north where his heart was, was suffering for the lack of some one to unburden himself to. When the stage went on Stack secured the place next to him.

"Fine country," he said.

It opened the floodgates. "Fine!" cried Ralph. "It's God's own country! And the farther you get from the cities, the finer it becomes! The air is purer and the people are honester! Up in the woods a man faces facts. How any young fellow with blood in his veins can be content to mess around in cities beats me!"

Stack encouraged him to talk himself out. Ralph's enthusiasm was merely general. Stack, reflecting that he had plenty of time, made no attempt to draw him. During the first day he avoided all reference to what he desired to know.

On the second day Ralph began to squirm and fidget on his seat. "Lord! what a tedious trip!" he complained. "You sit here till you lose the use of your limbs! Give me a canoe!"

"You've made this trip before?" said Stack carelessly.

"I came in for the first at the beginning of May," Ralph said.

Stack thought: "Two thousand dollars in two months! What a strike!" Aloud he said: "I suppose you're going to Fort Edward, like the rest of us."

"That's my headquarters," said Ralph.

Stack talked wisely about the real-estate business in Fort Edward, in which he designed to interest himself.

"Better leave it alone," said Ralph indifferently. "It's rotten!"

Stack insisted on the advantages of the city that was to be.

Ralph listened with growing impatience. "What do you want to make another city for?" he demanded. "Aren't there enough cities fouling the streams?"

Stack shrugged deprecatingly, and murmured something about "progress."

"Progress be damned!" said Ralph rudely. "We're progressing in the wrong direction!"

"I should like to see a bit of the real thing myself," said Stack, "but I don't suppose an inexperienced man like me could get about. If I could get a good guide!"

Ralph did not rise to the cast. "Plenty of guides," he said carelessly.

"What is the best way to go beyond Fort Edward?" asked Stack.

"There are three main routes," said Ralph; "up the Boardman to the Stukely Valley; straight north over the hills to the Campbell Lake country; or east up the Campbell River."

"What's the lake country like?" asked Stack.

"Only know it by hearsay," said Ralph. "Principally fur."

"One hears in town about the diggings in the Stukely Valley. I suppose it's pretty well worked out by now."

"I don't know," said Ralph carelessly.

"How does a man get up the Campbell River?" asked Stack.

In spite of himself a thrilled tone crept into Ralph's voice. "There's a little steamboat runs up to Gisborne portage now and then," he said, "and beyond that if any one is willing to pay."

Slight as the change was in Ralph's voice, it did not escape Stack's attentive ear. "Gisborne portage?" he said carelessly. "What is it a portage to?"

"Over to Hat Lake," said Ralph, with shining eyes.

"Aha!" thought Stack. "I'm getting warm!" He immediately changed the subject, and avoided it during the rest of the day.

On the next day he led the subject by imperceptible degrees around to the subject of maps of the country. Ralph, who had procured every map he could lay his hands on, had plenty to say on this.

"I have a map of North Cariboo that Father Ambrose the missionary made," said Stack. "Do you know it?"

"I have a copy," Ralph said.

"I was looking at it last night," Stack went on. "I found Gisborne portage and Hat Lake. That little lake seems to be one of the sources of the great Spirit River. I wonder if it's possible to follow all those little lakes and rivers down to the main stream?"

"You'll have to ask somebody more experienced than I," said Ralph.

He was an indifferent dissembler. The note of evasion was not lost on the little man. He passed to something else.

Later they were talking about rapids. "A fellow in town told me that the worst rapids in the North were in the Rice River," said Stack. "He said it was white water all the way from the mouth of the Pony to the forks of the Spirit."

Ralph was caught off his guard. "A lot he knew about it!" he said. "It's smooth going all the way."

He had no sooner said it than he regretted the slip. Looking sideways at the little man he was reassured by the innocence of his expression. Stack started to talk about other things.

Thus during the four days of the stage trip, and the day and a half on the steamboat, Stack collected his tiny scraps of information and stored them away without arousing Ralph's suspicions. Thrown upon each other as they were during the whole time, Stack managed to create and to maintain a certain fiction of intimacy betwe............