“Just a little note for your father,” he explained, “to tell him where we are, in case he worries about you.”

“That’s very considerate of you,” the girl answered in a thoughtful voice.

She wondered at the curious glowings, lurid as red coals, that came and went in his eyes.

XIX

After the manner of backwoods fathers Jeffery Neilson had offered no objections to his daughter’s all-day excursion with Ben.  The ways of the frontier are informal; and besides, he had every confidence in her ability to take care of herself.  The only unfortunate phase of the affair concerned Ray.  The latter would look with no favor upon the venture; and in all probability a disagreeable half-hour would ensue with him if he found it out.

The control of Ray Brent had been an increasingly difficult problem.  Always sullen and envious, once or twice he had not been far from open rebellion.  There is a certain dread malady that comes to men at the sight of naked gold, and Ray’s degenerate type was particularly subject to it.  Every day the mine had shown itself increasingly rich, and Ray’s ambition had given way to greed, and his greed to avarice of the most dangerous sort.  For instance, he had a disquieting way of gathering the nuggets into his hands, fondling them with an unholy love.  Neilson realized perfectly, now, that the younger man would not be content with a fourth share or less; and on the other hand he resolutely refused to yield any of his own, larger share.  Sometime the issue would bring them to grips.  Ray’s dreadful crime of a few days past had given him an added insolence and self-assurance that complicated the problem still further.  The leopard that has once tasted human flesh is not to be trusted again.  Finally, there remained this matter of Beatrice.

Neilson’s love for his daughter forbade that he should force her to receive unwelcome attentions.  Ray, on the other hand, had always insisted that his chief allow him a clear field.  He would be infuriated when he heard of the trip she was taking with Ben to-day.  Neilson straightened, resolving to meet the issue with old-time firmness.

When he heard his daughter’s voice on the canoe landing, one hundred yards below, he was inordinately startled.  She had not told him that their picnic would take them on to the water.  The reason had been, of course, that Beatrice knew her father’s distrust of the treacherous stream and either feared his refusal to her plan or wished to save him worry.  Even now they were starting.  He could hear the first stroke of the paddle through the hushed woods.

He turned toward the door, instinctively alarmed; then hesitated.  After all, he could not tell her to come back.  Beatrice would be mortified; and besides, there was nothing definite to fear.  The river was almost as still as a lake for a long stretch immediately in front of the landing; even a poor canoeist could cross with ease.  It was true that rapids, mile after mile of them past counting, lay just below, but surely the canoeists would stay at a safe distance above them.  And if by any chance this young prospector had no skill with a canoe, Beatrice herself was an expert.