The words were lightly spoken, and a laugh rippled over the speaker's pretty face, but no answering smile came into the smoker's deep-set eyes. On the contrary, he sprang to his feet with so fierce an oath that Lilla started back, and the smokers at the next table turned with savage scowls to see who it was who dared to swear at their little German sweetheart.

"By mighty, I believe the girl's right!" said one of these; "the fellow looks pretty scared."

"Like enough. A fellow who cain't speak civil to a woman might do anything," growled another. This last was a Yankee, and Yankees have a great respect for the ladies, all honour to them for it.

Meanwhile the colonel and the dancing-girl stood facing each other, the smile dying out of her face as the scowl died out of his. She was half-frightened, and he had overheard his neighbours' remarks, and recognized the necessity for self-control.

"I beg your pardon, Lilla. What a brute you must think me! But don't you know better than to wake a sleeping dog suddenly?"

"But no dog is so mean as to bite a woman," protested Lilla.

"That's so, and I only barked. I've been so long packing all alone that I have lost my company manners. Won't you forgive me, Lilla?" and he held out his hand to her. Now it was part of Lilla's business to pour oil upon the troubled waters of society at Antler, and, besides, the colonel was an old acquaintance and excellent dancer, so Lilla took his hand.

"Well, I'll try, but you pay me a fine. See, not once have you asked me to dance this time in Antler. Now dance with me."

"Is that all, Lilla? Come then." And so saying he offered the girl his arm, and walked away with her to another part of the room out of ear-shot of the angry Yankee.

"I wanted to talk to you, Lilla," he began; but just then the music struck up, and the girl, who had quite recovered her spirits, beat the ground with a pretty impatient toe, exclaiming, "The talk will keep; come on now, we mustn't lose a bar of it." And then, as her partner steered her gracefully over the floor, she gave a little contented sigh and muttered, "So you have not forgotten. Ach, himmel! this is to dance."

And indeed the dark-faced man might have committed many crimes, but he was not one to trample upon a woman's tenderest feelings by treading on her toes, tearing her dress out at the gathers, and disregarding good music.

On the contrary, he had a perfect ear for time, steered by instinct, and held his partner like one who was proud of her and wanted to show her off to advantage.

When the music ceased, and not until then, Lilla and the colonel stopped dancing, and the girl had just enough breath left to say in a tone of absolute conviction:

"You must be a good man, I think, you dance so well."

"Of course I'm a good man, Lilla," laughed her partner. "Why should I not be?"

"Well, I don't know, but you frightened me pretty bad just now. What was it with you?"

"Oh, nothing—at least nothing much. I was sulky and you startled me. Are you never sulky, Lilla?"

"What is that sulky, traurig?" asked the girl.

"No, not quite. More like what you feel when a frock won't fit you, Lilla."

"So! I understand: well, wherefore are you sulky?"

"I can't sell my freight at my price. Just think what rough luck it was for me that Bacon Brown got in so soon after me. And after bringing the stuff so far and at such a cost too!" and again for a moment the colonel's face looked white and drawn in the lamp light.

The Frazer river trail was a bad one, but once its perils were passed there seemed to be no reason why an old packer should turn pale at the mere memory of them.

"Ach, sacrifice!" cried the girl. "You sell your bacon a dollar a pound, and you call that sacrifice. Have you no shame?"

"All very well for you, Lilla. You are a girl who owns a gold-mine; I'm only a poor packer. By the way, have you done anything more about Pete's Creek since last season?"

"No, but I think I'll do something soon."

"Better send me to find it for you, Lilla, before someone else gets hold of it, and give me a share in it for my work. I'll take you, and you keep the creek. How will that do?"

"And what do I become—ach, I mean what shall I get for my share?"

Her partner laid his hand upon his heart and made her his most impressive bow, but the girl only burst out laughing merrily. Perhaps the noise and bright lights of a dance-house are unfavourable to sentiment.

"Ach so, Colonel. Bacon a dollar a pound, and you will trade yourself for the richest gold-mine in Cariboo and me! Danke schön," and she curtsied to him laughingly.

"As you please, Lilla. But will you bet me that I don't know where your creek is?"

"I know you don't know anything about it, except what I told you last fall."

"Don't be too sure. You'd better trust me, Lilla. It isn't the other side of the Frazer in the Chilcotin country, is it?"

"I told you so much, and then—"

"It isn't up at the head of the Chilcotin?"

"On which bank?"

"The right."

"Ach so! I knew you didn't know," and then the girl stopped, and for a moment suspicion looked out from her simple blue eyes. Lilla wasn't quite sure whether her dancing partner had not been trying to pump her.

But the colonel saw the look, and knowing that he had obtained all the information which he was likely to get, he deftly turned the conversation into a fresh channel.

"Of course it's only my chaff, Lilla. I would rather have the pretty gold on your head than all the gold in Pete's Creek, even if there was such a place, which I doubt. But who is the new invalid you are nursing?"

"A Britisher as you are, Colonel; only I find him better-looking," replied Lilla mischievously.

"He might easily be that, Lilla. I'm getting old, my dear, with waiting for you. But how did you find this new treasure?"

"Bacon Brown brought him in."

"Brown brought him in! When?"

"Three days from to-day—when his train came along."

"Where did he find him? Is he one of his men?"

"Ach no. I tell you he is English not Yankee. Brown found him dying on the trail."

"On the trail! Where?"

"I don't know quite where, but somewhere between this place and where the trail forks for Williams Creek."

Whilst the girl had been speaking her companion had shifted his position, so that he now stood with his back to the light, so that no casual observer would have noticed even if his face should turn white and his hand shake.

"What is your friend like, and what was the matter with him, Lilla?" asked the colonel after a while, with a certain show of carelessness, dropping out his words disjointedly between his efforts to light a cigar.

"Well, I can hardly tell you, he lies down all the time. He is too weak to stand up, but he looks a fine man, tall and big—oh, very big, and hair like a Deutscher's, and blue eyes, more blue, I think, than mine;" and she opened those pretty orbs very wide to let her questioner see how very blue eyes would have to be to be bluer than her own.

"Is that so, and Lilla is half in love with him already? Oh, Lilla, Lilla! And when will this beautiful person be well again?"

"Don't talk foolishness," replied the girl, blushing furiously. "How could I love a man who has the 'jim-jams?'"

"The 'jim-jams!' What! from drink?"

"I don't know. But there, there's the music, come along;" and once more Lilla bore away the best waltzer in Antler to the tune of some slow rhythmical German air.

During the dance the girl said nothing, and after it was over she left her partner for someone else (mind you, dancing meant business for Lilla); but towards the end of the evening she sought out the colonel again, and leading him on one side, said:

"What will you do when you have sold your freight?"

"I don't know. Anything. Why?"

"I have a fancy, and you shall not laugh at me. Pete gave me the map to find his creek when he died. That is good. Now comes another Englishman, also dying. I am, what do you call it—abergläubig?"

"I don't know superstitious perhaps?"

"Perhaps superstitious. Suppose this man gets well, he has no money, he is dead-broke, and very young. Do you see?"

"I see. You say he is ill and a 'dead-beat.' Most of your patients are that way, Lilla."

"No, he is not a 'dead-beat.' I think he is—ach, well no matter. But see here, if you will give money for the outfit and grub, and take this man along when he is well again, I will give you the map, and you two can take half the mine between you. Is that good?"

"But why give him a quarter of your mine?"

"I give you a quarter also; and I tell you Pete was English, and you say you are English, and he is English. I think Pete would have liked it so, and this shall bring me luck."

"As you please, Lilla. I would go for you for nothing. Shall I have the map to-night?" And at that moment the light fell upon the man's face, which he had moved somewhat during the conversation, and showed that the mouth was twitching and the eyes glittering with strong excitement which would not be entirely suppressed.

"No, not to-night. When Corbett is well. I may change my mind before then, you know, and give you all the mine, and myself too—who knows!"

And with a nod and a smile, half mocking, half friendly, Lilla the hurdy girl turned on her heel and left the dancing-room for a little poorly furnished chamber, where, behind a Hudson Bay blanket hung up as a curtain, lay Ned Corbett in the first quiet sleep he had enjoyed since Bacon Brown found him insensible upon the trail which leads to Antler.

CHAPTER XVI. THE PRICE OF BLOOD.

It was neither day nor night in Antler, but that time between the two when the stars are fading and the moon has set and the sun has not yet risen.

The men of the night-shift had gone back to the claims; the hurdy girls had all followed Lilla's example and slipped away to their own rooms, and though the big dancing hall was still open, the only people in it were a few maudlin topers dozing over their liquor.

Out in the main street there was no light, no light either of sun or moon; no light at all except one feeble ray which flickered from Lilla's window, and fell upon the black water which hurried through the wooden boxes laid across the highway.

By and by a man came out of the gloom, blundered heavily over the boxes, and swore savagely below his breath as if the boxes had consciously conspired for his downfall.

When he had picked himself up again from the mud, this night-bird stood looking fixedly towards the light. Had he swayed unsteadily from side to side, and perhaps fallen again, there would have been nothing worth watching about him. Rye whisky, the fresh night air, and the ditches laid across the roads, used often to persuade very honest gentlemen to pass their nights beside the gutter. But this man stood firmly upon his feet, looking steadily at the light ahead of him. Presently he appeared to have made up his mind, for after looking up and down the road to see whether anyone was watching him, he stole up to the window and crouched beside it in such a position that he could peer in unseen.

Inside the room the light fell upon bare wooden walls, from which hung a little mirror, and a man's coat and broad-brimmed hat. There was a rifle in one corner, and half the room appeared to be partitioned off from the rest by a bright red Hudson Bay blanket hung up as a curtain. In spite of the rifle and the coat an expert would have decided at once that the room was a woman's room. There was a trimness about it not masculine, a cleanliness not Indian. Whatever a red lady's virtues may be, cleanliness and order are not among them. But the figures upon which the light fell explained the anomaly of a rifle and a mirror hung side by side in a miner's shack, and explained, too, why a room in which hung a miner's coat and hat was swept and garnished and in order.

In a bunk against the wall lay a fair-haired man, his eyes shut in sleep, with one powerful arm thrown limp and nerveless upon the outside of his bed. The man who watched him felt a nervous twitching at his throat as his eyes rested upon the big brown hand, contrasting so strongly with the white linen upon which it rested; for Lilla had given her patient of her best, and Ned Corbett was sleeping between the only pair of sheets in Cariboo.

The worst was evidently over for Corbett. The fever, or whatever his disease had been, had left him, worn and pulled down it is true; but the peacefulness of his sleep, the calm child-like restfulness of his face, told both his watchers that unless a relapse took place his young life would be as strong in him as ever before many days had passed.

The colonel, peering in at Lilla's face as she sat and watched her patient, saw very little chance of a relapse whilst she was Corbett's nurse. If tender care and ceaseless watching would save him, Corbett would be saved. The colonel fancied, indeed, that he saw even more than this. His eyes ever since very early days had peered deep into the hearts of men and women; not from sympathy with them, not even from idle curiosity, but to see what profit could be made out of them. Now he thought that he recognized in Lilla's eyes, and in the caressing touch of her hand as she brushed back Corbett's yellow hair, something which he had often seen before, something which he had generally turned to his own advantage at whatever cost to the woman.

"The little fool!" he muttered. "She has got stuck on him because he has blue eyes and yellow hair like a Deutscher. Great Scott, what simpletons these women are!"

Perhaps the colonel's guess as to the state of Lilla's heart was a shrewd one, perhaps not. At any rate if the girl was in love with her handsome patient she was not herself conscious of it as yet, and as she sat crooning the tender words of a German love song, she was unconscious that they had any special meaning for her.

"Du du liegst mir im Hertzen," she sang; but as she sang, she believed that the only feeling which stirred her heart for the sick man at her side was one of pity for a helpless bankrupt brother.

For some time Lilla sat dreaming and crooning scraps of German songs, and then a thought seemed to strike her, and she drew from her bosom a little leather case. Opening this she drew from it what looked like an old bill, and indeed it was an old bill-head, frayed and torn as if it had been carried for many, many months in some traveller's pocket. But there was no account of goods delivered and still unpaid for upon that dirty scrap of paper. As Lilla turned it to catch the light, the man at the window had a glimpse of it, and started as if someone had struck him.

"Old Pete's map, by thunder!" he exclaimed; and so loudly did he speak, or so noisy was his movement as he tried to obtain a better view of that precious document, that Lilla heard something, and replacing the paper in her pocket rose and came to the window.

There was only a thin partition of rustic boarding and the bosom of a woman's dress between the most reckless scoundrel in Cariboo and the key to Cariboo's richest gold-mine. He could hear her breathing on the other side of that thin partition, and he knew that his strong fingers could tear it down and wrench away that secret before the woman and the sick man her friend could even call assistance. But he dared not do the deed. Life was still more than gold to him, and he knew that earth would be hardly large enough to hide the man who should wrong Lilla from the vengeance of the hard-fists she had danced with and sung to in their merry moods, and nursed like a sister in their sickness.

"No," he muttered, when Lilla had resumed her seat, "I daren't do it, and I daren't stay another hour. If that fool gets his wits back the cat will soon be out of the bag, and the only question of interest to me will be,—'Is it to be Begbie or Lynch?' If the boys knew, I believe it would be Lynch!" and muttering and grinding his teeth, a prey to rage and baffled greed, Colonel Cruickshank turned and retraced his steps to his own quarters.

Once, and only once, he stopped before he reached them, and stood with knitted brows like one who strives to master some difficult problem. At last a light came into his face, and his coarse mouth opened in an evil grin—"I will, by Jove I will! It will be as safe there as anywhere. Cruickshank, my boy, you shall double the stakes and go for the pot. If I had only seen more of that map—"

The rest of his sentence was lost as he entered the shack where his goods were stored, and half an hour later, when the sun was still only colouring the sky a faint saffron along the horizon, he strode up to the store of Ben Hirsch, general dealer, money-changer, and purchaser of gold-dust at Antler.

Old Ben was fairly early himself that morning. He had smoked so much the night before (being a German Jew) that he really needed a breath of fresh air to pull him together, before he engaged in another day of chicanery, bargaining, and theft. But the sight of the dashing colonel at such an hour in the morning considerably astonished him. There was something wrong somewhere, of that he felt quite certain, and wherever there was anything wrong there was profit for the wise old Jew. So his beady eyes twinkled beside his purple beak, and he gave the man he looked upon as his prey the heartiest greeting.

"Goot-mornin', Colonel, goot-mornin'. Ach, vot a rustler you are! No vonder zat you make much gold. Haf you zold ze pacon yet?"

"Not a cent's worth, uncle. Will you buy?"

"Ach! you laugh at me. I haf no monish, you know I haf no monish. Ze freight eats up all ze profit."

"Keep that for tenderfeet, Ben," replied Cruickshank roughly. "Freight on needles won't bring them up to fifty cents apiece, even in Cariboo. Will you buy or won't you? I've no time to talk."

"Vot is your hurry, Colonel? Ze pacon and ze peans von't shpoil."

The colonel turned to go.

"Ach, himmel!" cried the Jew, throwing up his hands deprecatingly. "How these English Herren are fiery. Colonel, dear Herr Colonel, pe so goot as to listen."

"Well, what is it? I'll give you five minutes in which to make a bid. After that I'm off straight to Williams Creek."

"Pacon is cheap zere, Colonel; almost cheaper zan here. Put I vill puy. Are ve not from of olt be-friended? Vot you zay, twenty-five cents ze pound?"

"Twenty-five fiddlesticks! Do you think I don't know the market prices?"

But it is not worth while to record all the haggling between Hirsch and Cruickshank. It was a match between the Jew, cool, crafty, and cringing, and the Christian (save the mark!), hurried, and full of strange oaths as become a soldier, "sudden and quick in quarrel."

From the very outset the colonel had one eye on Ben and the other on the door, and his ears seemed pricked to catch the tramp of men who might be coming in pursuit. Of course the Jew saw this, and every time the colonel started at some sudden sound, or reddened and swore at his obstinate haggling, Ben's ferret-like eyes gleamed with fresh cunning and increased intelligence.

Like an expert angler he had mastered his fish, and knew it, and meant now to kill him at his leisure, without risking another struggle. And yet (to maintain the metaphor) this fisher of men all at once lowered his point and seemed to let his captive go.

"Vell, colonel, all right. Suppose you give ze ponies in, I give you your price."

"You're a hungry thief, Ben. The ponies are worth the money; but I am not going to do any more packing, so take them and be hanged to you."

"Goot. It is a deal zen."

"Yes, if I may keep the pinto. I want a pony to pack my tools and blankets on."

"Tools. Vot! you go prospecting, eh?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Ach so! By and by you strike it rich. Then you bring your dust to old Ben—eh, colonel?"

"Maybe. But where are those dollars?"

"How vill you have them, colonel,—in notes or dust?" asked the Jew.

"In dust, of course; those flimsy things would wear out before I could get them down the Frazer. Besides, I've heard that your notes aren't always just like other people's, Ben;" and the colonel pushed over a little pile of dirty "greenbacks."

"Ach, these are goot notes; but the gold is goot too, Colonel. Vill you veigh it?"

"You bet I will," replied the colonel, making no parade of confidence in his friend. There was good gold in old Ben's safe, but the tenderfoot who did not know good gold from bad often got "dust" of the wrong kind. This Cruickshank knew, so that he was careful to examine the quality of the dust in the two small canvas bags, and careful, too, in the weighing of them—trying the scales, and leaving no hole open for fraud to creep through.

At last even he was satisfied.

"Yes, Ben, that will do—it's good for the money."

"Goot dust, isn't it? very goot dust and full measure. See!" and the old Jew put it in the scales again. "But, donner und blitzen, vot vants ze sheriff so early?"

The last part of the sentence was jerked out at the top of his voice by the dealer in gold as he turned excitedly to stare out of the little window on his left.

"The sheriff! Did you say the sheriff? Give me the gold. Where is he?"

Cruickshank had turned as white as the dead, and his hand shook as if he had the palsy, but for all that he managed to snatch up the two small canvas bags from the counter and hide them away in the bosom of his flannel shirt.

"I zink I zee him go into ze dance-house. But vot is your hurry, colonel? shtay and vet ze deal. Vot, you von't! Ah vell, ze rye is not pad." And so saying Mr. Benjamin Hirsch filled a small glass for himself, and with a wink drank to his departing guest.

Ben Hirsch was certainly right in calling Colonel Cruickshank a rustler, a Yankee term for a man who does not let the grass grow under his feet. Half an hour after Ben's cry of "Sheriff" the colonel stole out of Antler, driving old Job in front of him, with blankets, gold-pan, and all the rest of a prospector's slender outfit, securely fastened upon the pony's back.

As soon as he was well out of sight of the camp, the fugitive diverged from the main trail, and took instead a little-used path, leading direct over a difficult country to Soda Creek, on the Frazer. Along this he drove his pony at a speed which made that wall-eyed, cow-hocked quadruped grunt and groan in piteous fashion. In all his days Job had never before found a master who could and would get a full day's work out of him, without giving him a single chance to wander or even knock his packs off amongst the timber. At last, when the sun had begun to go west, Cruickshank paused, sat down upon a log, and lit his pipe. As he smoked and thought, the lines went out of his face, until he almost looked once more the oily, plausible scoundrel whom we first met in Victoria.

"Yes," he muttered, "it was a bold game, but I made my bluff stick. Why, if old Ben knew that I didn't have even a pair to draw to, wouldn't he 'raise Cain?'" And so saying, he put his hand inside his shirt and drew out the two little bags of gold-dust, weighing them nicely in his hands, and regarding them as lovingly as a mother would her first-born. For a minute or two his fingers played with the strings which fastened the mouth of each sack, but finally thought better of it and put them back into his pocket without untying them. To this man life was a game of poker, and for the present he considered that he had risen a winner though the odds had been against him, and with his winnings in his pocket he smacked old Job on the quarters, held up his head, and felt ready for a fresh deal.

And old Ben—what of him? Did he hurry away to secure the pack-ponies and their loads, or to see what the sheriff wanted at the dance-house? Not a bit of it. He knew (none better) that the sheriff was away at Williams Creek, and he knew, too,—he knew enough of human nature to be sure that Dan Cruickshank would never return to Antler unless he was brought back against his will. He had sold his packs and his ponies for two little bags of gold ("of gold, ho, ho!" chuckled the Jew), and even if he should find anything wrong with the gold he would not dare to come back to claim his packs.

"I vonder vot Dan has peen up to," mused the son of Israel. "He play ze carts a leetle too vell for his friends, I know, put it must pe zomething worse zan zat. Ach vell, it was ver goot zat I knew a leetle how to conjure;" and still chuckling and muttering to himself, he took from a shelf just below the counter two small bags similar to those in Cruickshank's shirt front, and put them tenderly and reverently away in his safe. They contained good gold-dust.

Those which Cruickshank was carrying away contained a good many things, the price of innocent blood for instance, but Ben Hirsch would not have given many dollars for all that they contained. Whilst the colonel was looking for the sheriff, Ben had substituted bags of copper pyrites for bags of gold.

CHAPTER XVII. CHANCE'S GOLD-FEVER RETURNS.

"Well, Steve, what is the news? I can see that you are just bursting with intelligence. Out with it, little man."

"Bell has struck it rich again. It's a fortune this time, they say."

"Is that all? Poor Bell! He'll be drunk, then, at Victoria the whole of the winter. I shouldn't be surprised if this second stroke of luck killed him."

The speakers were our old friends Ned Corbett and Steve Chance, and when Steve joined him Ned was sitting with his long gum boots tucked under a table in the Antler dance-house, smoking his evening pipe.

It was nearly a month since Cruickshank had stolen away from Antler, and since then Ned had recovered all his old strength and vigour.

At first he had brooded incessantly over Cruickshank's escape, but as the days went by he realized that there was no chance for him, without knowledge of the country and without funds, against a man like the colonel, with a fortnight's start of him. Together with one or two miners to whom he had told his tale he had made an attempt to follow Cruickshank's tracks, and had succeeded in tracking him and his pony as far as the main trail to Soda Creek. Here the tracks, which were already old, became confused with others, and sorely against their will the pursuers had to give up the chase.

"Cruickshank has got clean away with you this journey, partner, and I guess you may as well own up to it," was the verdict of one of his comrades.

And Ned, recognizing the justice of it, threw up the sponge, and owned himself beaten for the time; but although he said no more about the claims or the packs or the comrade of whom he had been robbed, he consoled himself with the thought that life was long and had in it many chances, and that whenever his chance came, however late, it would find his hand as strong and as quick to take vengeance as it was to-day.

As soon as his story had become known, and men had seen what manner of man he was, Ned had found no difficulty in getting employment in the claims, and, indeed, he had done so well that he had been induced to send a message to his friends at Williams Creek, in answer to which Steve and Phon had hastened to join him at Antler. Rampike promised to come up later on in the fall, but as yet he had plenty to do in his own claim.

For a full fortnight the three comrades had worked away steadily with pick and shovel, and now, in spite of all his troubles, Ned was his own cheery self again, proud of the strength which enabled him to do almost as much as two other men, and content with the work which kept him supplied with all the necessaries of life. But if Ned Corbett was content, his comrades were not. Steve hated the daily labour for daily wage, and Phon was hardly strong enough for the work, and anxious to go off prospecting on his own account.

"What a phlegmatic old cuss you are, Ned! Don't you envy Bell a bit?"

"Not I. Why should I? I am strong and well again, thank God. I've plenty of fresh air and hard work, and I'm earning ten dollars a day—"

"And spending eight. You won't make a fortune that way."

"Who said that I should? Who said that I wanted to? Why, my dear chap, just think for a moment. If I did make a fortune I should have to stop at home and invest it and look after it. Stop at home, do you hear, Steve?"

"You'll die a pauper, Ned," asserted Chance solemnly.

"And you, perhaps, a millionaire. Poor old chap! I'm sorry for you. I am indeed. Well, Lilla, what can I do for you?" and Ned, rising, took off his hat, as if he had been saluting a duchess.

"The boys want a song, Ned. Will you sing for them?" asked the girl, her pretty eyes brightening and her cheeks flushing as she took Ned's hand. Somehow, though Ned had often sought her, he had seen very little of his gentle nurse since he had become convalescent.

"Bother the boys!" quoth this young man of big muscle and limited intelligence. "I'm not going to do any work to-night. I have earned enough money for the day; but," he added quickly as he saw the girl's look of disappointment, "I'll sing for you, little sister, and you can give the money to the next dead-beat you nurse back again to life."

"I never nursed any dead-beats," began Lilla.

"Oh no, of course not. Never heard of Ned Corbett, or Pete of Lost Creek, or any of that crowd, did you, Lilla? Now I'm going to sing;" and with that he threw back his head, and sang in a full rich baritone a song of his Canadian lumbering days:—

A SONG OF THE AXE.

"Health and hard labour be mine!" thundered a score of voices, and a score of strong labour-hardened hands came crashing down upon the rough deal tables. "Bravo, Ned!" "That's your sort for Cariboo!" "Mate, we'll wet that song if you please," and a dozen other similar expressions of approval rewarded Ned for his efforts, but Steve Chance did not go as far as the rest of the audience.

"A pretty good song, Ned," he said, "with lots of shouting in it, but no sense."

"Give us a better, little one," replied his friend good-naturedly. "Ah, Lilla, you are a brick—I beg your pardon, but I don't know the German for a fairy who brings a thirsty man just what he wants;" and Ned buried his moustache in a foaming glass of Lager.

"That beats all the champagne and such like trash into fits," he added with a sigh of satisfaction as he put down the empty glass. "Now, Steve, beat my song if you can."

"Beat it! No trouble to do that. If the boys don't shout themselves silly over my chorus I'll take a back seat."

"You wouldn't stay there if you did," laughed Ned; "but drive on, my boy."

Thus adjured, Steve got up and sang with a spirit and go of which I am unable to give any adequate idea, the song of—

THE YANKEE DOLLAR.

"Chorus, gentlemen,—'The Yankee doodle dollar oh!'" sang Chance, and the whole room rose to him and sang as one man—

There was no question as to Steve's victory. Ned had stirred the hearts of a few, and pleased all, but Steve had played upon the principal chord in the heart of Antler, and for weeks the men hummed the empty words and whistled the frivolous, ranting little air of "The Yankee doodle dollar, oh!" until even its author was sick of it.

"You see, Ned, everyone thinks the same except you," said Chance, when the applause had somewhat moderated. "Why the deuce are you so pig-headed? Now that we have saved a few dollars why should we not go prospecting and make our pile like other people? I'm sick of all this picking and scratching in other men's claims."

"'Yo mun larn to scrat afore yo peck,'" replied Ned stolidly, quoting a good old Shropshire proverb; "and 'scratting' for ten dollars a day doesn't seem to me to be very badly-paid labour."

"You forget, Ned, that this cain't last. How do you mean to live during the winter?"

"Sufficient unto the day—" began Ned, and then suddenly altering his tone he added, "What is it that you want me to do, Steve?"

"What do I want you to do? Why, what any other man in Cariboo would do if he had half your chance. Take Lilla's offer and go and look for Pete's Creek for her."

"Pete's Creek! Why, my dear Steve, you don't seriously believe in that cock-and-bull story, do you?"

"Don't you believe Lilla?" retorted Chance.

"Of course I believe Lilla," replied Corbett hotly, "but she only tells the story as it was told to her."

"By a dying man who knew that he was dying, to a woman who had nursed him for weeks like a sister! According to you, Pete must have been a worse liar than Ananias, Ned."

"I didn't say Pete lied either, but Pete may not have been sane when he died. You know that he had been drinking like a fish before Lilla got hold of him."

"Yes, and slept out a couple of nights in the snow. I know that. But he died of pleurisy, not of the jim-jams."

"Well, have your own way, but nothing will make me believe in that creek. It had too much gold in it," replied Corbett. "And even if I did believe in it, why should I take Lilla's gold? Hasn't she done enough for me already?"

"Perhaps. But if you don't get it for her, I guess someone else will come along and find it for himself."

"Why don't you go for it, Steve, if you believe in it?"

"So I would if Lilla would trust me; but you see Lilla is not spoons on me, and she is on you."

Corbett flushed to the roots of his yellow hair.

"Don't talk rot, Chance, and leave Lilla's name alone."

"I'm not talking rot," said Chance seriously. "But say, Ned, do you mean to marry that girl?"

"Marry your grandmother! I don't mean to marry anyone, and no one is such a fool as to want to marry me."

"All right, Ned, don't lose your temper; but I know, old chap, that you would not like to get Lilla talked about, and the boys are beginning to say that Lilla got rid of her heart when you got rid of your fever."

"The boys are a parcel of chattering idiots, whose mouths will get stopped pretty roughly if they talk like that before me," growled Ned. "But really, Steve, this is too ridiculous. Fancy anyone wanting to marry me!" and the speaker looked down with a grin at his mud-spattered, much-mended pants, passed his hand meditatively over a rough young beard of three months' growth, and burst out laughing.

Ned Corbett was heart-whole, and he did not see why everyone else should not be as lucky in that respect as himself.

CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE COLONEL'S TRAIL AGAIN.

The day after the conversation recorded in the last chapter happened to be Sunday—a day which at Antler differed very little from any other day, except that a few tenderfeet, mostly Britishers, struck work on that day, and indulged in what some of their friends called a "good square loaf." Ned Corbett was one of these Sunday loafers. Of course there was no church at Antler, nor any parson except upon very rare occasions. But Ned had an ear for the anthems which the mountain breezes are always singing, and an eye for nature's attitude of reverence towards her Creator.

Every Sunday it was Ned's wont to go out by himself, and lie on a rock in the sun out of hearing of the noise of the great mining-camp, saying nothing at all himself, but thinking a good deal, and keeping quite quiet to hear what nature had to say to him.

As he was coming away from such a loaf as this, he met Lilla wandering up the banks of a mountain stream, gathering berries and wild flowers.

Ned thought that his little friend had never looked prettier than she did at that moment—her soft yellow hair blown out by the breeze, her little figure moving gracefully amongst the boulders, the colour of wild roses in her cheeks, and a deep strong light in her blue eyes, like the light of the stars when there is frost in the northern sky.

For a little while he watched her, as she hummed a song amongst the flowers and added fresh treasures to the already overgrown bouquet in her hand.

"If she would take a man just as he is, she would make a sweet little wife for a Cariboo miner," thought the young man; "that is, if he meant always to remain a Cariboo miner. But, poor child! I'm afraid she'd find a Shropshire welcome rather chilly even after Cariboo. Ah! well," he added to himself as he went jumping over the boulders to meet her, "luckily I don't want a wife, and Lilla doesn't want a husband."

The next moment Lilla and he stood face to face.

"Did I frighten you, Lilla?" he asked, picking up some flowers which the girl had dropped. "Did you think I was a grizzly?"

"Not so bad as that, Ned. But what do you up here?"

"I'm taking a 'cultus coolee,'" replied he, using the Indian phrase in use among the miners for a walk which has no object. "You are doing the same, I fancy. Let us do it together."

"What! you wish to come with me? Well, come then," replied Lilla. "You can help me carry these."

Ned took the bouquet, and after a while said, "I have been wanting to have a good talk with you, Lilla, for some time."

"So, Ned! what is it about?" She tried hard to speak in an unconcerned off-hand way, but in spite of her, her colour rose and then paled, and her voice had an unnatural ring in it. Ned looked at her. Could there be anything in what Steve suggested the other night? he asked himself, and then almost in the same second he repented him of the thought. Ned Corbett was not one of those men who twist their moustaches complacently, and conclude that every woman they meet must fall in love with them.

"I want you to tell me about Pete and his creek again," he said. "Steve Chance is awfully keen to go prospecting, and to go and look for this gold-mine of yours."

"And why not, Ned? I wish you would, for my sake."

"I would do a good deal for your sake, Lilla," he answered; "but I can't believe in this creek, you know."

"Not believe in it! Why not, Ned?"

"There was too much gold in it; the whole story is too much like a fairy tale. And then, you know, when you took him in, Pete was as penniless as I was."

"Penniless! What's that?"

"Hadn't a cent to his name, I mean, and you fed him and took care of him."

"Ach, so. Well, what has that to do with the creek?"

"People who find gold-mines ought not to be dependent upon good little girls like you for their bread and cheese. It's not natural, you know."

"Ach, now you make me to understand. But you yourself, you don't know Cariboo ways. Pete had plenty of dust, oh, lots and lots of dust, when he came down; but, of course, he blew it all in before I saw him."

To anyone not conversant with mining life that "of course" of Lilla's was delicious. To the steady-going collector of hard-earned copper and silver it seems anything but a matter of course to "blow in" a fortune in a fortnight; but then things were not done in an ordinary jog-trot fashion either in California in '49 or in Cariboo in '62.

"Oh! of course, of course!" returned Ned with a smile which he could not hide. "I beg your pardon, Lilla. I had forgotten for a moment that I was in Cariboo, and thought as if I were at home again. Well, and what was the matter with your beggared Crœsus when you found him?"

"If you mean what was the matter with Pete, I have before told you. He drink too much one night, and then he fall asleep in the snow, and when he wake in the morning he have the pleurisy, I think you call him."

It was a long sentence for Lilla, who was getting a little bit roused by the young scoffer at her side; and, moreover, her English was always best when produced in small quantities.

"And why did they bring him to you?"

"Where else could they take him? The boys can't leave their claims to nurse sick men, and at night they are too tired to nurse anyone. And besides—"

"And besides," interrupted her companion, "Lilla is never tired. Oh, dear, no! Her eyes never want sleep, nor her limbs rest after dancing with all those roughs on a floor like a ploughed field."

"Don't you call the boys roughs, Ned. They are not rough to me. Of course I had to nurse old Pete. What are women meant for?"

"Something better than camp-life in Cariboo," replied Corbett warmly; "but it is just as well for me that you don't think so."

"Well, and so I nursed him," continued the girl, disregarding Ned's last speech altogether; "and sometimes he told me where he had been, and how much gold he had found, and at last one day when he knew that he must die he told me of this creek in Chilcotin with gold in the bed of it—free gold, coarse gold in nuggets and lumps, and as much as ever you want of it."

"Why did he not bring down more of it, instead of letting you keep him as you kept me?" asked the doubter.

"Ach, himmel! Keep you! I didn't keep you. You are too proud, and will pay for every little thing; but old Pete, he understood Cariboo ways. To-day you strike it rich and I am stone-broke. Very well. I lend you a handful of dollars and start you again. You don't need to thank me. Any gambler would do as much. By and by I strike it even rockier than you struck it. All right, then you 'ante' up for me. That's Cariboo."

"Is it?" asked Ned, looking into the eager friendly face of this exponent of a new commercial creed. "Is that Cariboo? Well, Lilla, I expect Samaria must be somewhere in Cariboo. But finish your story about Pete."

"Oh, Pete! Well, Pete just died quietly, and he knew it was coming, and before it came he pulled out this," and the girl drew from her bosom an old frayed bill-head which we have seen before, "and gave it to me, and told me that as soon as I found—Ach, what am I saying? I forget." And Lilla suddenly brought her story to an abrupt conclusion, with stumbling tongue and flaming cheeks, for as a fact the old man had told her that this map of his was the key to much gold, and that when she should have found a man worthy of her, she was to send him to bring it to her, and it should be to her for a dowry. But this was not quite what the honest little hurdy girl cared to tell Ned Corbett at present. However, Ned never noticed her embarrassment. His eyes were busy with the document in his hand.

"It seems a good clear map, and looks as if the man who made it was quite sane," he muttered.

"Sane? What is that—'sane?'" asked Lilla.

"Level-headed" answered Ned shortly.

"You bet he was level-headed, Ned. Ach, mein freund, how you doubt! I tell you there are not many men in Cariboo who would not go to look for that creek, if I would let them."

Again Ned remembered Steve's words, "She'll only trust you because she has lost her heart to you."

"Did you ever give anyone a hint as to where the creek was, Lilla?"

"No, never. At least no, I didn't tell him, but one man nearly guessed once."

"Nearly guessed once?"

"Yes. He said he knew more than I thought and I had better trust him, and wasn't the creek at the head of the Chilcotin? And I said, 'Well, which side of the Chilcotin?' And then he smiled, and I felt angry. And when he said on the right bank I was glad, and I cried 'No, it isn't, I knew you didn't know.' And then he smiled more, and I saw that I had told him what he wanted to know. But after all that is not much, is it?"

"Who was the man, Lilla?"

"Colonel—Colonel—ach, I forget, there are so many colonels in America."

"True, but what was he like?" Ned had a queer fancy to know who this clever cross-examiner might be.

"A thick dark man, stout and smooth."

"With a lot of rings on his fingers?"

"Yes, always lots of rings. Oh, he was a fine man, and such a dancer!"

"Cruickshank."

"That is it—Cruickshank, Colonel Cruickshank. But how did you know, Ned?"

"Oh, I have seen him before," replied Corbett quietly.

This was indeed news to him, but he felt that he must be very careful not to frighten Lilla, to whom oddly enough the name of the man who had robbed Corbett had never yet been mentioned. That he had been robbed of course she knew, but by one of those strange accidents which often happen, she had never heard who had robbed him.

"So that is all you can tell me about the creek is it, Lilla?" said Ned after a long pause. "Well, if you still wish me to go at the end of this week, I will go for you; if I find it you shall pay me ten dollars a day for my work, and Phon and Steve the same; and if not,—well, if not, I shall have earned a right to teaze you if you believe in such cock-and-bull stories for the future." And Ned gave Lilla her bouquet and prepared to leave her, for they had by this time reached the door of her little cottage.

"Oh no, Ned, that is not so at all, at all. If you don't find it, of course I pay the cost; and if you do, we go shares in the find."

"As you please, Lilla, but we have got to find the creek first," and so saying he turned and strode off to his own hut.

There were many reasons now why he should go to look for Pete's Creek, but the belief in Pete's Creek or the hope of finding it was not amongst them.

Cruickshank knew something of the whereabouts of the creek, Cruickshank with his insatiable love of gold; and Ned himself had tracked him towards Soda Creek, where he must cross the Frazer to get to Chilcotin.

Yes, that was it. The tables were turning at last, and if there was such a place as Pete's Creek, Ned would find Cruickshank there, and shoot him like a bear over a carcase.

CHAPTER XIX. "GOOD-BYE, LILLA."

It was not Ned Corbett's nature to say much about what he felt. Like most of his countrymen Ned was reserved to a fault, and prided himself upon an impassive demeanour, suffering failure or achieving success with the same quiet smile upon his face. The English adage "Don't cry until you are hurt" had been only a part of the law of his childhood; the rest of it read according to his teachers: "and then grin and bear it."

But even Steve, who knew Corbett as intimately as one man can know another, was astounded at the readiness with which, after one wild effort to grapple with the man who had killed Roberts, Corbett had been content to settle down quietly to his daily labour in the claims at Antler.

He could understand that his friend would take his own losses quietly. Steve, like all Yankees and all true gamblers, was a good loser himself, and didn't expect to hear a man make a moan over his own misfortunes, but he had not expected to see Ned abandon his vengeance so readily.

After Lilla's incidental mention of Cruickshank, Steve began to understand his friend better. His impatience to be on the war-path again was the real thing; the assumed calmness and content had after all been but the mannerism of the athlete, who smiles a sweet smile as he waits whilst the blows rain upon him, for a chance of knocking his man out of time before his own eyes close and his own strength fails him.

"So! you've only been lying low all this time, old man, and I thought you had forgotten," said Chance, when Ned told him of his conversation with Lilla. "Great Scott, I wouldn't care to be Cruickshank!"

"Forgotten!" echoed Corbett. "Do you suppose I am likely to forget that Roberts risked his life for mine, and that Cruickshank took it—took it when the old man sat with his back to him, and his six-shooter hanging in a tree?"

"No, I don't suppose you would forget, Ned. When shall we start? Phon and myself could be ready to 'pull out' to-morrow."

"That would suit me, Steve, but I am afraid that you and Phon are embarking on a wild-goose chase. I don't believe in that creek of Pete's one bit more now than I did before I saw Lilla's map."

"That's all right, Ned; but you see Cruickshank believed in it, and so do we."

"Yes, Cruickshank believed in it, and in looking for the one we shall find the other. That is why I am going."

"I know all about that; but as long as we both want to find the same place, I don't see that it matters a row of beans why we want to find it," replied Steve. "And mind you," he added, "I would be just as glad to let a little daylight into Cruickshank as you would."

"Very well, if that is your way of looking at it, we need lose no more time. You are old enough to know your own business."

"That's what. How about a cayuse?"

"I bought one yesterday for a hundred dollars."

"A hundred dollars! Great Scott, what a price!"

"Yes, it is a good deal, but old Dad wouldn't let the beast go for less. He calculated it at so much a pound, and told me that if I knew where to get fresh meat cheaper in Antler I'd better buy it."

"Fresh meat! I like that. Has old Dad taken to selling beef upon the hoof, then?"

"Seems so. Anyway I had to pay for the bobtail almost as if I were buying beefsteak by the hundredweight."

"Well, I suppose we cain't help ourselves; we shall only be stone-broke again. It appears to be a chronic condition with us. Let's go and look at the brute."

An inspection of the bobtail did not bring much consolation to either Steve or Ned, for in spite of the smart way in which he had been docked, he was as ragged and mean-looking a brute as anyone could want to see. Besides, he was what the up-country folk call "a stud," and anyone who has ever driven these beasts, knows that they add vices peculiar to their class to the ordinary vices of the cayuse nature.

"He ain't a picture, but we've got to make the best of him," remarked Steve. "So if you'll just fix things with Lilla, I'll see about getting grub and a pack-saddle. We might be ready to start to-night."

This was Steve's view on Tuesday at mid-day. At five o'clock on Wednesday he was a humbler man, heartily thankful that at last he really had got together most of the things necessary for one pack-horse. The last twenty-four hours had been passed, it seemed to him, in scouring the whole country for pack-saddles, sweat-clothes, cinch-hooks, and all sort of things, which hitherto (when Cruickshank and Roberts had had charge of the train) had seemed always at hand as a matter of course.

"Hang me if the cayuse doesn't want more fixing than a Brooklyn belle," muttered Steve. "But say, Ned," he added aloud, "do you mean to start to-night?"

In another two hours it would be comparatively dark in the narrow canyons through which the trail to Soda Creek ran, and in two hours the three travellers could not hope to make much of a journey.

"Better wait till to-morrow, boys," remarked an old miner who had been lending a hand with the packing, trying in vain to show Ned how the diamond hitch ought to go. "It ain't no manner of use starting out at this time o' day."

"I would start if it were midnight, Jack," replied Corbett resolutely. "Once we get under weigh things will go better, but if we stayed over the night in camp, something would be sure to turn up to waste another day. Are you ready there, Steve?"

"All set, sonny," replied Steve, giving a final try at the cinch for form's sake.

"Then just drive on. I am going to get the map from Lilla;" and so saying he bent his steps towards the dance-house, whilst, one leading and the other driving, his companions trudged away along the trail to Soda Creek.

When he reached the dance-house Lilla was waiting for him, and together the two turned their backs upon Antler and walked slowly away under the pines.

"So then," said Lilla, "you will really go away to-night."

"Yes, we are really going, Lilla, to look for your golden creek. Don't you feel as if you were a millionaire already? Chance does, I know, and has decided to whom he will leave his estate when he dies."

Ned spoke lightly, and laughed as he spoke. He saw that the girl was depressed, and wanted to cheer her up. But Lilla only gave a little shiver, though the evening air was far from cold.

"Don't talk of dying, Ned. It is not good to talk of. Men die fast enough out here." She was thinking, poor little soul! how very near death that gallant yellow-haired friend of hers had been when she first saw him, and perhaps death might come near him again whilst she was not by to watch over him.

Ned looked surprised at her mood, but passed lightly to another subject.

"As you please, Lilla. Where am I to find you when we come back from Chilcotin?"

"Das weiss der lieber Gott," she answered, speaking half to herself. And then recovering herself she added in a firmer voice, "Either here or at Kamloops: most likely at Kamloops, if you are not back soon."

"But we shall be back soon. What ails you to-night?"

"It is nothing, Ned; but it seems as if summer had gone soon this year, and these great mountains will all be white again directly. I don't think you will get back here this fall."

"Not get back this fall! Why, surely, Lilla, you don't think that we mean to jump your claims, or make off with your gold?"

"No, no! of course not. I know you don't care for the gold, Ned, like the other men. You don't care for anything like other men, I think."

"Don't I? Just wait until I come back from Chilcotin and pour buckets of dust into your lap. See if I won't want my share then?"

"I wonder how long it will be that I must wait, Ned? I think sometimes that we shall never meet again. Tell me, do you think such atoms as we are could ever find their way to one another, up there? It seems so hard to lose one's friends for ever."

And the girl looked despairingly up into the great blue vault above them, wherein even the greatest of the stars are but as golden motes.

"Yes, little sister," answered Ned seriously. "I don't think that such as you will have much difficulty in finding their way up there."

After this the two were silent for some time, standing on a rise above Antler, looking out upon the deepening gloom of the evening, Ned's heart very full of tenderness towards the little woman to whom he owed so much.

It would have been so easy, Ned could not help thinking, to put his arm round her and comfort her; but then, would that be a good thing for either of them? The world was all before them, and the world was not all Cariboo.

"Come, Lilla," he said at last, "this won't do. The night air is chilling you. You must run back now. What would the boys say if their little favourite came back without her smile? By George, they would give me a short shrift if they thought that it was my fault."

"The boys! Ach, what do the boys care? All women can laugh, and dance, and sing. One woman is all the same to them as another."

Well as Ned knew his little companion, he had never seen her in this mood before, and his face betrayed the wonder which her bitterness awoke in him.

A woman's eyes are quick, even in her trouble, to note the effect of her words upon anyone she cares for, so that Lilla saw the expression in Ned's face, and tried hard to rally her courage and laugh her tears away.

After her fashion the poor little hurdy girl was as proud as any titled dame on earth, and since Ned had not said that he loved her, she would try hard to keep her own pitiful little secret to herself.

"Don't look like that, Ned. Don't you know when I am acting. But, seriously, I am cross to-night. I wanted my gold, and I wanted to keep my play-fellow too. We have been such good friends—haven't we, Ned?"

It was no good. In spite of her that treacherous voice of hers would falter and break in a way quite beyond her control. Flight seemed to her the only chance.

"Ach well, this is folly," she said. "Auf wiedersehen, my friend," and she held out to him both her hands.

It was a dead still evening, and just at that moment the horn of the pale young moon came up over the fringe of dark pine-trees and lit up Lilla's sweet face, finding in it a grace and purity of outline which the daylight overlooked. But even the moonlight could add nothing to the tenderness of those honest blue eyes, which had grown so dim and misty in the last few minutes, or to the sweetness of that tender mouth, whose lips were so pitifully unsteady now.

"Auf wiedersehen" Ned repeated after her. "Auf wiedersehen, Lilla,—we shall meet again."

For a while he stood irresolute. What did Shropshire or all the world indeed matter to him? he asked himself, and in another moment he might have spoken words which would surely have marred his own life and not made hers one whit happier.

Luckily just then a wild laugh broke the silence and recalled Ned to himself. It was only the owl who laughed, but it sufficed. The dangerous charm of the silence was broken, and pressing the girl's hand to his lips he dashed away up the trail.

Steve Chance and Phon had made nearly four miles and begun to pitch camp whilst he was getting that map.