“You’re persuaded the silver was an illusion?”

“I am persuaded,” George declared.  “Men who live in the frozen woods get credulous and believe extraordinary things, and tales of wonderful lodes are common in the mining belts.  Father heard something of the kind and brooded over it until he came to believe he had located the ore.  He had too much imagination and wasn’t practical.”

“But he gave me some specimens he found and they carry rich metal.”

“I allow he thought he found them; but that’s a different thing.”

Agatha smiled.  “Perhaps your theory’s plausible, but it has some weak points.”

“Anyhow, if father couldn’t locate the vein he claimed to have struck, I reckon there’s not much chance of your doing so.”

“I mean to try,” said Agatha, with ominous quietness.

George saw that she was resolute, and although he was obstinate knew he was beaten.  Agatha could not be moved when she looked like that.

“I can’t allow that you know best, but guess I may as well quit arguing,” he remarked with a resigned shrug.  “You’ll come along and stop with Florence before you go back to Toronto?”

“I will come for a week,” Agatha agreed, and George went away to look for Farnam.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BURGLAR

George went away next morning and a few days afterwards Farnam walked home with his wife and Agatha from a visit to a neighbor’s homestead.  When they reached the edge of Farnam’s orchard they stopped and looked about.  An extensive clearing had been cut out of the forest, the evening was clear and cold, and the pines threw long blue shadows on the snow.  The young fruit trees ran back in orderly rows, and a frozen creek that crossed the orchard was picked out in delicate shades of gray.  Farnam told Agatha that he found the creek useful for irrigation, because he had known the apples to shrivel on the trees in a dry summer.

At the edge of the bush a group of men were at work.  The thud of their axes jarred on the quietness, and the rattle of a chain rang musically through the shadows as a teamster threw the links across a log.  His horses stood close by, with a thin cloud of steam rising from their bodies.

“Lumber worth sawing is getting scarce, and we’ll float the best logs down to the mill when the thaw comes,” Farnam said to Agatha.  “In the meantime, we want them off the ground before we clean up the pieces the boys have slashed.  One gets at this kind of work in winter when nothing much can be done, and I must be ready to break new soil for planting in the spring.”

“You are spending a good deal of money,” Mrs. Farnam interrupted.  “You haven’t been paid for the last shipments to England yet.”

“Mabel’s cautious,” Farnam remarked to Agatha.  “She’s a pretty good business woman, but doesn’t understand that the more you spend on your job the more you get.  Anyhow, you ought to get more, but I admit you’re sometimes badly stung.”  Then he turned to his wife.  “I must go up and see the shippers in Montreal; in fact, now you have Agatha with you, I think I’ll start to-morrow.”