Then she remembered that if she found the vein she would be rich.  So far, she had not dwelt much on this, because it was not a longing for money that animated her.  All the same, she saw that success in the search would give her power and freedom to choose the life she would lead.  Not long since, she had thought to find happiness in the pursuit of science; and with wealth at her command she could make costly experiments and build laboratories.  The thought still pleased her, but it had lost something of its charm.  Besides, it was too soon for such speculations and she must be practical.

Suppose she did find the ore?  The claim must be recorded and developed as the mining laws required, and she would need a man who understood such matters to help her; but it must be a man she could trust.  She could trust Thirlwell and admitted that she had half-consciously allotted him the supposititious post; for one thing, if he were manager, they would not be separated by her success.  But this was going too far, and she resolutely pulled herself up.  She had not found the vein and was perhaps thinking about Thirlwell oftener than she ought.  Feeling for the hooks, she fastened the tent door and soon afterwards went to sleep.

They launched the canoes in the cool of the morning, while the mist drifted among the pines and the sun came up behind the forest.  The stream ran fast and as they toiled up river a brawny half-breed waded through the shallows with the tracking line.  Thirlwell stood in the stern, using the pole, and Agatha noted the smooth precision of his movements.  He wasted no effort and did not seem to be working hard, but he did what he meant and the hint of force was plainer than when he talked.  Two Metis were occupied with the canoe behind and as they poled and tracked they sang old songs made by the early French voyageurs.  Although the river had shrunk far down the bank, there was water enough for the canoes, and Agatha remarked how skilfully the men avoided the rocks in the channel and drove the craft up angry rapids.

When they nooned upon a gravel bank near the end of a wide lake it was fiercely hot.  The calm water, flashed like polished steel, and Agatha could hardly see the flames of the snapping fire; the smoke went up in thin gray wreaths that were almost invisible.  A clump of juniper grew among the stones and she sat down in the shade and looked about with dazzled eyes.  A line of driftwood, hammered by the ice and bleached white by the sun, marked the subsidence of the water from its high, spring level.  Small islands broke the shining surface, some covered with stunted trees and some quite bare.  The rocks about the beach were curiously worn, but Agatha knew they had been ground smooth by drifting floes.  Behind the beach, the forest rolled back in waves of somber green to a bold ridge that faded into leaden thunder-clouds.