“How do you make that out?” asked Ham.

“Well, you’re just like all the primitive people of long ago.  You love nature and the out-of-doors.  All these things appeal to you tremendously; but you love them more than the Great Power of which they are just an expression.  The only difference between our religion and that of the Nature worshipers is that they worship the manifestations of Nature, but we go beyond that and worship the Great Spirit that is able to create such a Nature.”  “Too deep for me, too deep for me; I’m no philosopher,” grunted Ham, as he rolled over and settled himself for a good night’s sleep.

Tad Kieser stood watching the little group as they climbed up the winding trail, then he slowly returned to his chopping.

“Shoot me for a pole-cat, as Dad would say,” he remarked half-aloud, as he spat on his hands and raised the heavy ax over his head.  “He’s the very spit’n image of Bill, now that’s dead sure, and there’s one thing more that’s certain.”  He was interrupted in his thoughts by the loud report of a gun somewhere up on the mountain side.  Turning his head toward the Williams claim, he saw the two men who had gone up the trail to the mine late that morning shooting at a great hawk that was circling in the sky far above them.

“That mine belongs to the boy, but how’s he going to get it?”

He busied himself about his camp the rest of the afternoon, then in the early evening he strolled down the trail to chat with Dad a little before bed-time.  Many an evening he had spent with Dad, sitting with him in front of his cabin, talking over old times and bygone years.  As Tad came down the trail, the smell of Dad’s simple supper came floating up to him.  He had forgotten to eat, but perhaps Dad would share his meal with him.  He pulled open the old pine door and entered.  Dad sat at his little table eating, his faithful dog at his feet, patiently waiting for his share of the meal, for he had learned from years of experience that it would be something.

“Howdy, Tad, strike it rich to-day?  S’pose ye jist been a shovelin’ out nuggets all day long, till yer tired o’ seein’ ’em, hain’t ye?  Tad, I seed the beatenest bunch o’ young’uns to-day ye ever seed in yer life, all on a explorin’ trip o’ some kind.”

“That so?” replied Tad, “must have been the same party I saw.  Did you see that tall, slender lad with the brown eyes and dark hair?”

“Yep, b’lieve I did, come t’ think on it, only I didn’t pay much pertic’lar ’tention to none of ’em.”

Tad helped himself to an old chair, and, leaning back against the wall, lighted his pipe.  He was quiet for a long time, then he spoke in a slow, thoughtful manner, his pipe held firmly between his teeth, his eyes fixed on a spot far away down the mountain.

“Dad, the boy has come.  He’s come to me, and he’s just like his father—­tall and straight and clean-cut.  Dad, he needs a father, and perhaps I’ll have to act in that capacity yet, who knows, for that uncle of his is a rascal and will bear a good deal of watching.”