“Then I beat it and never drew breath until I made the Farmers’ and Traders’ Bank in Boliver this afternoon, covered those notes of Mr. Alloways, killed that mortgage and hit Providence Road for Sweetbriar.  I met Bob out about a mile from town, and he put me next to the whole situation and gave me your note.  I don’t know which I came nearest to, swearing or crying, but the Plunkett-Crabtree news made me raise a shout instead of either.  But if I did what I truly ought, Rose Mary Alloway, I would shake the life out of you for not writing me about it all.  I may do it yet.”

“Please don’t!” answered Rose Mary with a little smile that still held its hint of the suffering she had gone through.  “I thought you were out of work yourself and couldn’t help us, and I didn’t want to trouble you.  It would have hurt you so to know if you couldn’t help me, and I didn’t—­”

“God, that’s it!  Fool that I was to go away and risk leaving you without an understanding!” exclaimed Everett in a bitterly reproachful tone of voice.  “But I was afraid to let you know what I had discovered until I could get the money to settle that mortgage.  I was afraid that you or Mr. Alloway would unconsciously let him get a hint of the find, and I knew he could and would foreclose any minute.  He was suspicious of me and my prospecting, anyway, and as he was an old, and as you both thought, tested friend, what way did I have of proving him the slob I knew him to be?  I thought it best to go and get the company formed, the option money paid to cover the mortgage and all of it out of his hands before he could have any chance to get into the game at all.  And that was really the best way to manage it—­only I hadn’t counted on his swooping down on—­you.  Again, God, what I risked!”

“Yes,” answered Rose Mary in a voice that barely controlled the cold horror of the thought that rose between them, “it almost happened.  I thought I ought to—­to save them, even if Uncle Tucker wouldn’t let me, and I gave Bob that note—­to—­to him.  It almost happened—­to-morrow.  Quick, hold me close—­don’t let me think about it—­ever!” and Rose Mary shuddered in the crush of Everett’s arms.

[Illustration:  “You won’t ever leave me any more?”]

“Out in the world, Rose Mary,” said Everett as he lifted his lips from hers, “it would have happened—­the tragedy, and you would have been the loot; but down here in Harpeth Valley they grow men like your Uncle Tucker, and they turn, by a strange motive power, wheels that do not crush, but—­lift.  I left you in danger because I had schemed it out in my world’s way, fool, fool that I—­”

“Please, please don’t say things about yourself like that to me,” pleaded Rose Mary, quickly raising her head and smiling through her tears at him.  “Go on and tell me what you did find out there in the pasture; don’t blow off any more of my foam!”

“Cobalt, if you care to know,” answered Everett with an excited laugh, “the richest deposit in the States I found out—­beats a gold mine all hollow.  I came on it almost accidentally while testing for the allied metals up the creek.  Your money will grow in bunches now, for the biggest and the best mining syndicate in New York has taken it up.  You can just shake down the dollars and do what you please from now on.”