After this, their progress was very slow.  The small trees grew close together and in places the ground was covered with rotting trunks and branches.  Moreover the line he took led steadily upwards towards the break in the range.  It did not look very far off when they started, but dusk was falling and the packers were nearly exhausted when they threw down their loads at the bottom of the gap.  Thirlwell’s back ached and the straps had galled his shoulders, but he noted with some surprise that Agatha did not look tired.  She dropped behind as they toiled up the last rough stony slope, but she helped to pitch camp.  Her movements were not languid and her eyes were bright.

By and by she took out the worn paper from the tobacco-box and asked Thirlwell a few questions.  He answered rather moodily, and as soon as he could picked up his blanket and went off to the bed he had made of twigs.  The hollow he had found was sheltered and the twigs were soft, but it was long before he slept.  They were near the spot where Strange claimed to have seen the ore, and he was now persuaded that they would find the vein.  If the ore carried as much silver as the specimens indicated, Agatha would be rich.  She would go back to the cities, and if her riches were not to separate them altogether, he must enter her employment.  Somehow he shrank from this.

But the ore might prove poorer than one thought and the mine cost much to work.  He would not admit that he hoped so, since he wanted Agatha to enjoy all the happiness that wealth could give.  Indeed, he did not know what he hoped; he was physically tired and although he felt strangely restless his brain was dull.  At length his eyes closed and for some hours he slept brokenly.

Getting up at daybreak, he scrambled along the bottom of the gap until he could look down on the other side, and presently turned with a start as he heard a rattle of stones.  Agatha, whom he had thought asleep, advanced with a smile.  She looked very fresh, and although he imagined she was highly strung, her face was calm.  For a few moments she said nothing, but stood close by, gazing fixedly in front.

There was some mist on the low ground, but, for the most part, the tops of the pines rose above the haze.  The sky in the east was getting red, and here and there one saw gleams of water and the gray backs of rocks.  That was all, for the landscape was blurred to the north, where a vague gray line hinted at another range.

“The haze is tantalizing,” she remarked by and by.  “One could not see when we got here and I have been waiting for the dawn.”

“I hoped you slept.  We made a long march yesterday.”

“Did you sleep?”

“No,” said Thirlwell.  “Anyhow, not very much.”

Agatha smiled.  “Yet you haven’t been thinking about the lode as I have—­thinking of nothing else for ever so long!  Can’t you imagine what it means to feel I am near the place at last?”