“Miss Strange must have a manager.  If you’re willing to undertake the job, I daresay I could let you go.  Then, if she wouldn’t sooner trust her judgment, I think I could give you a pretty good character.”

“No,” said Thirlwell sharply, and stopped.  He suspected that Scott was amused, and it jarred him to think of becoming Agatha’s hired servant.

“Well,” said Scott, with a twinkle, “exploring the bush with a charming girl is no doubt very pleasant while the summer lasts, but it doesn’t lead to much.  In fact, so far as I know your views, it leads to nothing.  Anyhow, I must see what we have in the store that would be useful.”

He went away and Thirlwell, after sitting still for some minutes with a frown, got up and moodily followed the trail to the river bank.  Scott had shown him that his friendship with Agatha could not continue on the lines it ran on now.  In a way, he had for some time recognized this, but it was not until he found the tobacco-box the truth became overwhelmingly plain.  Their pleasant relations must either come to an end very shortly or be built up again on a new foundation, and the first was unthinkable.  He walked along the bank until he got calmer and then went back to examine a canoe he meant to caulk.  After all, the lode was not found yet.

They stayed three days at the mine, while their outfit was got ready; and when Drummond was not at work he followed Agatha about.  He said he liked the woods, spoke of his employers with frank appreciation, and declared that he was grateful because she had got him his post.  Besides this, he made no secret of a humble devotion to herself that she sometimes found embarrassing and sometimes amusing.  On the evening before they left the mine, he joined the group outside the shack.

“Well,” said Scott, rather dryly, “what do you want?”

“Miss Strange pulls out for the North to-morrow, and if she’ll take me I’m going along.”

“Wait a moment,” Scott said to Agatha, and then asked Drummond:  “Why do you want to go?”

“I mean to get even with Stormont; and I want to put Miss Strange as wise as I can.”

“Then we are to understand you expect nothing for the job?”

Drummond’s black eyes sparkled.  “You’re my boss, so far, but I won’t stand for being guyed.  It’s not your money I’m after.”

“Perhaps the rejoinder’s justifiable,” Father Lucien remarked, smiling; and Drummond turned to Agatha with a touch of dignity.

“I meant to make my pile by selling the ore to somebody, but you treated me like a white man, and I guess the lode belongs to you.  Well, if I help you get rich and you want to give me something, I won’t refuse, but I’m not out for money.  Say, you’ll let me go?”

“Can you help?” Scott interrupted.  “If you can, it looks as if you had kept something back when you made the other deal.”

Drummond grinned.  “I kept something back from Stormont; when I put him wise I put him off the track.  But I’m playing straight with Miss Strange and Thirlwell.  You can bet on me!”