old friend in whom I am interested.”

This happened when they talked about Sicamous one night.

“I am going as far as Sicamous, at any rate,” she had said. “And that reminds me, there are things I wanted to ask you about Sicamous.... Perhaps you remember—we were interrupted?”

“Something about mines, wasn’t it?” said Clement with a careful casualness.

“Yes.... I want you to tell me all about mines in that area.... Now—please tell me.”

Clement laughed with a touch of dismay.

“But all about them. That’s a terrifically large order. In the first place, there’s nothing to say about them—and then there’s everything.”

“That sounds enigmatic. You’ll have to explain.”

“I mean by that there are not so very many mines—those at Nelson, on Kootenay Lake—silver-mines, they are—are perhaps the most important. But, on the other hand, it’s always supposed that there are great possibilities among those rocky valleys.”

“Ah,” breathed the girl, “there are possibilities then.” 

[Pg 57]

[Pg 57]

“Not thinking of going in for mining, are you?” Clement teased—and with a reason.

“N-o,” said the girl. “It’s rather—it’s rather because a friend of mine is interested. Deeply interested. I wanted to learn if there is any foundation for—for expecting big things, immense returns from mining in the Sicamous district.”

Clement was excited. Then it was mining. That was the venture Henry Gunning was supposed to need backing for. He answered without any show of his emotion. “What exactly are your friend’s interests—silver, copper, gold?”

“All of them,” she answered quickly, and Clement though he saw the character of Gunning at once in that report. Your unsuccessful prospector is rather like that. He hasn’t merely a Golconda of one metal up his sleeve—he has all the rare metals in the world, only asking to be picked out of the surface ... if only some one will oblige with the money to buy picks. “All of them,” repeated the girl. “I understand that—that the claims 

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