Carr stayed on to supper.  Longstreet looked rested from his nap, bright and eager and as usual interested in everything in the world.  Carr had bought a new hat yesterday; Longstreet tried it on and approved of it extravagantly.  He asked what it cost and jingled his few coins, admitting ruefully that he’d have to wait until he uncovered his ‘real mine.’  Just the same, he proclaimed brightly, clothes did help make the man, and inside a year when he was decked out entirely to his own liking and a tenderfoot saw him, there would be no suspecting that Longstreet was not a Westerner born and bred.  He put the hat away and sat down with them at the table.  As he mentioned in such a matter-of-fact way his intention of tarrying a year, Carr and Helen glanced at each other significantly.  And Carr after his direct fashion opened his campaign.

’There are other things than gold mines, and you were not made for this country,’ he said.  ’What would you say to going back East if I showed you the chance there to clean up more money than you’ll ever see out here?  I have been thinking about you, and I know the place where you’ll fit in.’

This was all news to Helen, and her look showed her eager interest.  Longstreet smiled and shook his head.

‘That’s kind of you,’ he said warmly.  ‘But I like it out here.’

‘But, papa,’ cried Helen, ’surely you should hear Mr. Carr’s proposition!  It is not merely kind of him; it is wonderful if he can help us that way, and it is wise.’

‘No,’ said Longstreet.  ’Carr won’t think me ungrateful.  I told them in the East that there was nothing simpler than the fact that a man like me, knowing what I know, can discover gold in vast quantities.  First, it is universally conceded that the auriferous deposits remaining untouched are vastly in excess of those already found and worked.  Second, all of my life I have made a profound study of geognosy and geotectonic geology.  Now, it is not only the money; money I count as a rather questionable gift, anyway.  But it is my own reputation.  What I have said I could do, I will do.’  And though his words came with his engaging smile, he seemed as firmly set in his determination as a rock hardened in cement.

Helen, who knew her father, sighed and turned from him to Carr.  Then her eyes wandered through the open door, across the flat lands and down to the distant hills of Desert Valley.

‘I should not speak as I am going to speak,’ Carr was saying, ’if matters were not exactly as they are.  To begin with, I take it that I have been accepted as a friend.  Hence you will forgive me if I appear to presume and will know that I have no love of interfering in another man’s personal affairs.  Then, I must say what I have to say now:  in a few days I am leaving you.  I’ve got to go to New York.’

‘Oh,’ said Helen.  ‘I am sorry.’