Harry looked half eagerly at Reade, but Tom shook his head.

“What do you say, Mr. Reade?” pressed the promoter.  “Last call to the dining car.  With your funds running low, and a hard winter coming on you’ll soon know what it means to be hungry.”

“I’m much obliged, sir but I’m going to stick here at my own work.”

“What do you say, Hazelton?” coaxed the promoter.

“Nothing,” Harry replied loyally.  “You heard what my partner had to say.  In business matters he talks for both of us.”

“Good night, then,” grunted Mr. Dunlop, rising.  “If you should change your minds in the morning, after breakfast, come and tell me.”

After Dunlop had gone Tom and Harry walked up and down the trail together under the stars.

“Sixteen hundred dollars a month Dunlop is offering the two of us,” half sighed Hazelton.  “Two months of that would mean thirty-two hundred dollars.  How much money have we now, Tom?”

“Six hundred and forty-two dollars and nineteen cents,” Reade answered dryly.

“That won’t last us long, will it?”

“No; especially as we owe some of it on bills soon due at Dugout.”

“Then—–­what?”

“I don’t know,” Tom answered almost fiercely.  “Yes; I do know!  As soon as our present few pennies are gone it means a future of fight and toil, on empty stomachs.  But it’s worth it, Harry—–­if we live through the ordeal.”

“And for what are we fighting?” inquired Harry musingly.

“First of all, then, for gold.”

“Tom, I never knew you to be so crazy about gold before.  What are we going to do with it—–­if we get it?”

“There are the folks at home.”

“Of course, Tom, and they would be our first thought—–­if we had the gold.  But we can do all we want to for the home folks out of the pay that we are able to earn at steady jobs.”

“True.”

“Then why are we fooling around here?  We are nearly broke, but we can honestly settle all the debts we owe.  Then we could get back to work and have bank accounts again within a few months.”

“Yes; but only pitiful bank accounts—–­a few hundreds of dollars, or a few thousands.”

It would be steady and growing.”

“Yes; but it would take years to pile up a fortune, Harry.”

“What do we really want with fortunes?”

“We want them, Harry,” Tom went on, almost passionately, “because we have ambitions.  Look out upon the great mountains of this Range.  Think of the rugged bits of Nature in any part of the world, waiting for the conquering hand and the constructive brain of the engineer!  Harry, don’t you long to do some of the big things that are done by engineers?  Don’t you want to get into the real—–­the big performances of our profession?”

“Of course,” nodded Hazelton.  “For that reason, aren’t we doubly wasting our time here?”