Thirlwell started.  “It is possible!  I’m glad I told you about my watch at the shack.  I didn’t at first; the things I suspected looked ridiculous.”

“In future you had better tell me all you can.  My opinion is, that you have undertaken a very tough job.  For all that, I’m getting curious about the lode, and would rather like to have a stake in the venture, if Miss Strange agrees when she comes up.”

“She won’t agree unless she finds the ore.  Then, of course, she’d need help and money.”

“Very well,” said Scott, and they talked about something else.

For some weeks they said nothing more about the silver vein.  Part of the roof of the main heading in the mine came down, and they had afterwards to contend with a dangerous flow of water.  Extra timbering was needed and the men risked their lives as they wedged the props under the cracking beams, while now and then they worked for a shift with buckets to help the clanging pump.  Their clothes were always wet, and they were generally smeared with mud when they came up to eat and sleep.  The miners grumbled, and Scott and Thirlwell felt the mental and physical strain.  They were highly strung and often irritable, while when they sat by the stove when work was over they only talked about the difficulties they had struggled with all day and others that must be met in the morning.

In the meantime, the thaw began.  The snow softened and got honeycombed by the drops from the trees.  One sank to the knees in trampled slush among the sawn-off stumps about the shaft-head.  The ice rotted, and in places where the current ran fast large floes broke off, and drove down stream until they were stopped by the thick ice in the slacks.  Above the Shadow Rapids, however, there was, for a time, no break in the frozen surface, and one evening Scott and Thirlwell sat listening to the growl of the rising flood in the open channel it had made near the mine.  The sound swelled and sank, and at intervals they heard rain patter on the roof.

“In a week or two the canoes will be out,” Scott remarked.  “There’s a big head of water coming down and I guess the jamb that’s backing up the stream won’t stand till morning.”

“Some of it’s going now; that’s an extra large floe,” said Thirlwell as a detonating crash rang across the woods.  Then there was a roar that was pierced by a high, strident note, and he knew the floe was tearing open upon a rock.

The shrill scream died away, but the turmoil of the current swelled, and knowing what would happen soon, they waited with strained attention and let their pipes go out.  The mine buildings stood back from the bank and they ran no risk, but nobody can listen unmoved when the ice breaks up on a river of the North.