“Tad, what became of that tarnal critter, Williams, that ye told me about?  The feller that jumped that placer claim up’n the gulch—­do you ever see him any more?”

“Yes, Ben, he is still in the city.  Has a mighty sick wife—­tuberculosis, they say.  He’s crookeder than a cork-screw, they tell me; but he’ll get caught yet, that kind always does.  You know his wife is a sister to Bill’s wife.  If it hadn’t been for that relationship to Bill, I’d have had it out with him long ago.  But what’s the use, anyway.  The mine’s no good and the ground’s no good, and I haven’t any money to fight him.”

“Yep, but s’posin’ the tunnel was good; what then?”

“I don’t know, Ben.  Old Williams has a good name, generally speaking, in the city, and he has money—­I couldn’t fight him.  Dad Wright used to say he was a ‘snake in the grass,’ and Dad doesn’t often misjudge a man.”

“Who holds the key to that tarnal hole, anyway, Tad?”

“Williams was the last man in the tunnel, Ben, and I suppose he holds the keys.  I’ve never been inside since I carried out poor Bill’s broken body.”

“Well, Tad, I was a pesterin’ around there not long ago, an’ I seed whar some tarnal critter hed tried to pry the lock off.  You know, Tad, I b’lieve they is pay rock in that gulch, if the likes o’ you an’ me could jist light onto it.  Ye can pan color anywhere around the shanty, if ye know how.  I picked up some o’ that quartz formation by the dump, an’ drat it, Tad, it’s fine lookin’ stuff.”

“Yes, Ben, I often think I’ll go back and work a little longer on the old hole.  Bill was certain we had struck it—­talked in his fever before he died.  But I haven’t got the nerve.

“Ben, I’m going to tell you something.  Just before Bill met his end, he had a letter from the firm that he installed machinery for concerning the final drawings of an ore-roaster that he had been working on for years.  I have often wondered if he sent those drawings to the firm before his death, or if Williams got them and the letters.  I’ve never seen a roaster like his was to be.  Some way, I’ve thought Williams sold those drawings.  If he did, Ben, I’d kill him, I believe.  That’s what makes me keep a thinking of the boy.  Those drawings would have brought enough then to have educated him, and perhaps he’s poor—­poor like you and me, and can’t go to school, while that rascal, Williams, rides around in an automobile.  Some way, I feel like I’ll find out, and then I’ll—­”

“Is that a fact!  Well, that tarnal critter!” Ben puffed meditatively at his pipe and gazed into the fire.

“I have decided to go back, Ben, and work the other claim up in the gulch by Dad’s.  If I could get enough money ahead I’d get a detective and put him on the case.  I’m kind of a father to that boy, Ben, wherever he is, and I ought to be finding him.”

The meeting at the table was over, and the fellows crowded around the fire before starting home, and, perhaps, to hear one of Ben’s stories of the early days.  The stranger watched Willis closely for some minutes, then he called to him.