Later I went over and roomed with him.  He was only two years older than I, but he always seemed about ten.  I told him about the Sangre—­about the country I’d prospected in the summer and we agreed to go over it together.  In the spring, when the snow was off, we started out.  We bought a good outfit, two burros, a good tent, and everything we could need.  We expected to be away all summer, but we struck gold about five weeks after we reached the mountains.  Struck it rich, too.  All that summer we slaved like Dagoes and by fall we had a prospect good enough to show any one.  But we needed money for development, and it was then I suggested to Ed that he write to Mr. Walton.  You see, I’d heard a good deal about his folks and about Eden Village by that time.  Evenings, after you’ve had supper and while you’re smoking your pipe, there isn’t much to talk about except your people and things back in God’s country.  And we’d told each other about everything we knew by autumn.  But Ed wouldn’t consider his uncle; said we’d have to find some one else to put in the money.  So we had a clean-up and I started East with a trunk full of samples and a pocket full of papers.  Ed gave me the names of some men to see.  As luck had it, I didn’t have to go further than Omaha.  The first man I tackled bit and three months later we started development.  Ed and I kept a controlling interest.  Now the—­” Wade pulled himself up, gulped and hesitated—­“the mine is the richest in that district and is getting better all the time.”

“It’s like a fairy tale, almost,” said Eve.

“What is the name of the mine, Mr. Herrick?”

“Well—­er—­we usually just called it ‘The Mine.’  It isn’t listed on the exchange, you see.  There aren’t any shares on the market.”

“Really?  But I wasn’t thinking of investing, Mr. Herrick,” responded Eve, dryly.  “If there’s any reason why I shouldn’t know the name, that’s sufficient.”

Wade observed her troubledly.

“I—­I beg your pardon, Miss Walton.  I didn’t mean to be rude.  The mine has a name, of course, and—­and sometime I’ll tell it to you.  But just now—­there’s a reason—­”

“It sounds,” laughed Eve, “as though you were talking of a cereal coffee.  Indeed, though, I don’t want to know if you don’t want me to.”

“But I do!  That is—­sometime—­”

“I understand; it’s a guilty secret.  But you were telling me about my cousin.  When did he die, Mr. Herrick?”

“Last August.  We’d both been working pretty hard and Ed was sort of run down, I reckon.  He got typhoid and went quick.  I got him to Pueblo as soon as I learned what the trouble was, but the doctor there said he never had a chance.  We buried him in Pueblo.”

Wade was looking down at his roughened hands and spoke so low that Eve had to bend forward a little to hear him.

“It—­it was a pretty decent funeral,” he added simply.  “There were seven carriages.”